Last week we entered a new semester at school, and it had me reflecting a lot on the “norms” of working where I do. We have two newbie teachers, and watching them struggle through everything simultaneously took me back to when I was in that position just a few months earlier and made me realize how  I’ve gotten used to things. Even though hagwon culture has become somewhat normalized for me, I’m still in the position where I can recognize how quirky it is–both in good ways and bad.

I do what I can to stay positive.

First a quick rundown of the boring basics:

• Hagwon is the romanized Korean word for academy, which is essentially an after school program. There are also hagwons for things like taekwondo and for other subjects like science and math.
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In one sense, English hagwons are schools, but they’re also companies, and that really affects the mentality and aims of the whole operation. We have to keep the parents happy, and we have to keep the company headquarters happy.
• I teach at an elementary hagwon, which consists of kids ranging from about 6 years old to 13 years old.
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My work hours are 1:30 pm to 9:30 pm, and I teach an average of 6 classes a day. The younger kids come in earlier, and the older kids come in later. All of the classes are blocked so that the kids have one period with a foreign teacher and one period with a Korean teacher. Kids either come on a Mon-Wed-Fri, Mon-Tues-Thurs, or Tues-Thurs schedule.
  

  Korean academic expectations are intense.

Ok. Now for the interesting stuff. Here’s what it’s really like to work at my hagwon. I’ve gotten used to things changing at the last minute–all the time. Oh you decided to change the syllabus so I have to teach this other lesson today? Okay. Oh so we’re using this book on Wednesdays now? Alright. I need to teach this class that I’ve never taught before, right now, because there was an error in the schedule? Sure thing.

It’s not even that the school is particularly disorganized, it’s just that for some reason things always happen at the last minute, and there’s enough going on that there are often last minute changes as well. I’ve gotten used to the collective choice not to do all of the things we are supposed to be doing. Some of this no one really cares about. We are supposed to record every kid’s level of participation every day, but we don’t. I think the system didn’t work for awhile, and then we stopped doing it and nothing bad ever happened. Some of this we think is a hassle and are making excuses. We are supposed to use a system to record attendance and participation on our phones, but we already have to take attendance on paper, so it would be just duplicating efforts. Headquarters wants us to use it, but we keep saying things like some of our teachers don’t have phones (which was true for awhile…) and our wifi is spotty (which might actually be true because my phone battery drains quickly at work). I figured out all of this mandatory vs. “mandatory” stuff pretty quickly, but it really hit home when I asked our head teacher about a reminder we had gotten to make sure we collect all of the students cell phones at the beginning of class (annoying to do if they don’t have them out and there haven’t been any problems), and he said, something like, I was supposed to tell you, but do what you want with that information.

The most hilarious being that the door to the teacher’s room is placed as if the aim were to maximize collisions. Anyone going out is totally blind to whether anyone is coming in until the very last second, and I have even begun walking in a weird loop to get to the door just so I will stop running into people so often. The least hilarious being our computer system, which is almost entirely in Korean, but at least now I’ve got things in my muscle memory. Every once in awhile one of us will still blank though, and say something like, It’s this button to send the memo, right?  The most recent thing being the announcement that this semester we are taking a system that was paperless and now making it on-paper again. Suffice it to say we are not going green anytime soon.

Whatever the opposite of retrofitting is, we’re doing it.

I’ve gotten used to a certain level of disrespect from students. Let me be quick to say not all students. Many students are wonderful. But we get put in a tough position as foreign teachers. We are supposed to be the “fun” teachers, and kids know that, and I think they also know that we only have indirect power to punish them in the ways that matter to them (like a phone call home). I think they also know or sense that many of us are new to this, and they try to test our limits, to see how much they can get away with. I honestly thought that Korean kids would be more respectful than American kids, but I’ve seen no differences (and I hear firsthand from my elementary school librarian mom that American kids are pretty disrespectful). As a result, we have to focus on discipline measures right away and dole out fun things as they earn them. I’ve gotten used to the absence of positive feedback. Positive feedback doesn’t really exist. If no one’s telling you you’re doing it wrong, it’s probably ok.

I’ve gotten used to our director. Who, if she were an animal, would be a hummingbird. Who basically lives at the office. And who is very concerned that we do things from our “true heart.”

I’ve gotten used to our head teacher. Who is one of us but with 2 years of experience and 2 more years of becoming jaded (though I guarantee you he was quite jaded to begin with, probably born jaded). Who writes things like this in memos: “Try to enjoy the final week before intensives. This week is like a prisoner’s last meal before execution, if that meal was a shit pie.”

I’ve gotten used to the Korean support staff members always leaving. For some reason, we cannot keep any Korean staff members (this excludes the Korean teachers) besides two standbys–now so valuable that if they left the whole operation would probably be in jeopardy. The rest of the staff members are constantly leaving after a few weeks to a month of working at the school. I think we’ve going through 6 or 7 in the time I’ve been here. They’ve kind of become like farm animals that you know are destined for slaughter–we don’t always learn their names, lest we get too attached. I’ve realized I’ve gotten used to a lot of things, and I’m sure there’s still room to get used to more.