RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

Wow, having a class canceled and un-canceled in the same day is super painful.

Wow, having a class canceled and un-canceled in the same day is super painful.

That...what...reall y?...Um, just no. That would seriously ruin my day.

Sometimes the kids haven't arrived by the time the bell goes off and I get all excited but then they start filing in and I die a little inside. 

has anyone else noticed how much people love to snitch in korea?

i sneaked off to the immigration office and came back. a teacher off-hand asked where i'd been. i said something like...reading, talking to students. she accepted it but gave a sceptical eye. i said, look, fine, i went to the immigration office quickly because i have no vacation spare. i said, but that's just between you and me, ok?

next thing i know she instantly goes to the principal and reports me! the ****? now there's a big hoo-har about the whole thing and everyone's going crazy. i'm leaving next month and i really don't give a shit, but **** me.

Don't they know snitches get stitches?

has anyone else noticed how much people love to snitch in korea?

i sneaked off to the immigration office and came back. a teacher off-hand asked where i'd been. i said something like...reading, talking to students. she accepted it but gave a sceptical eye. i said, look, fine, i went to the immigration office quickly because i have no vacation spare. i said, but that's just between you and me, ok?

next thing i know she instantly goes to the principal and reports me! the ****? now there's a big hoo-har about the whole thing and everyone's going crazy. i'm leaving next month and i really don't give a shit, but **** me.

Wow... and it's not even like you went to a bar or cafe or anything. It was immigration. Honestly, I think any time we need to go to immigration that we should be allowed to use a business trip. The travel cost doesn't even need to be reimbursed; just stop making us use vacation time for something that's related to work. If I needed to go to the bank to send money home or something, then yeah, it's not work-related so I would just suck it up but it's annoying when they try to make you use vacation hours to go to immigration or to get a medical checkup (for work) or something.

well, i had to go to immigration to change my visa from E2 to F6 a few weeks ago. told the school.

the next day, they said that I had to use half a day vacation instead of a business trip because i wasn't renewing my visa from E2 to E2, but changing to F6

i tried to argue what the difference was, as every year i have to go to immigration regardless. but it's only a business trip if i'm renewing my E2 visa and not changing visa status

so, of course i didn't tell them this time. i mentioned it off-hand to a teacher i thought i was friends with 

well, i had to go to immigration to change my visa from E2 to F6 a few weeks ago. told the school.

the next day, they said that I had to use half a day vacation instead of a business trip because i wasn't renewing my visa from E2 to E2, but changing to F6

i tried to argue what the difference was, as every year i have to go to immigration regardless. but it's only a business trip if i'm renewing my E2 visa and not changing visa status

so, of course i didn't tell them this time. i mentioned it off-hand to a teacher i thought i was friends with 

Even changing from E2 to F6 though should have counted as business-related because it changes your relation to the school (in terms of documentation, I mean). Well, they're stupid. I'll just leave it at that.

I'm done with Summer 2016. What a miserable few weeks this has been in terms of news. Last time it was this bad was probably during The Nam. Seems the blows are failing one after the other now with frightful rapidity.

well, i had to go to immigration to change my visa from E2 to F6 a few weeks ago. told the school.

the next day, they said that I had to use half a day vacation instead of a business trip because i wasn't renewing my visa from E2 to E2, but changing to F6

i tried to argue what the difference was, as every year i have to go to immigration regardless. but it's only a business trip if i'm renewing my E2 visa and not changing visa status

so, of course i didn't tell them this time. i mentioned it off-hand to a teacher i thought i was friends with 

Even changing from E2 to F6 though should have counted as business-related because it changes your relation to the school (in terms of documentation, I mean). Well, they're stupid. I'll just leave it at that.

When renewing my F6 I use business leave. Kindly explain to them its that or you get deported (I had to the first time round.)

I'm done with Summer 2016. .

We're not even halfway through.

has anyone else noticed how much people love to snitch in korea?

i sneaked off to the immigration office and came back. a teacher off-hand asked where i'd been. i said something like...reading, talking to students. she accepted it but gave a sceptical eye. i said, look, fine, i went to the immigration office quickly because i have no vacation spare. i said, but that's just between you and me, ok?

next thing i know she instantly goes to the principal and reports me! the ****? now there's a big hoo-har about the whole thing and everyone's going crazy. i'm leaving next month and i really don't give a shit, but **** me.

Fairly certain that happened to me one Friday when I decided to leave 20 minutes early and one of my more standoffish co-teachers saw me. That next Monday, I was told (albeit, kindly) that I was not able to leave school early without approval.

Still. 

has anyone else noticed how much people love to snitch in korea?

i sneaked off to the immigration office and came back. a teacher off-hand asked where i'd been. i said something like...reading, talking to students. she accepted it but gave a sceptical eye. i said, look, fine, i went to the immigration office quickly because i have no vacation spare. i said, but that's just between you and me, ok?

next thing i know she instantly goes to the principal and reports me! the ****? now there's a big hoo-har about the whole thing and everyone's going crazy. i'm leaving next month and i really don't give a shit, but **** me.

Fairly certain that happened to me one Friday when I decided to leave 20 minutes early and one of my more standoffish co-teachers saw me. That next Monday, I was told (albeit, kindly) that I was not able to leave school early without approval.

Still. 

I detest the fact that I'm expected to run to the VP, like a kid, to ask permission for every little thing. Last Friday I had a terrible headache, from a sinus infection so I told my CT I was leaving at 4pm... 30min early, and she still wanted to walk with me to ask the VP.

All the staff and CTs I've met seem to have no complaints about this; cultural differences I assume. I've told a few CTs that it's completely normal for an adult, in any profession, back home to leave their workplace during lunch and do whatever they wanted, as long as they were back before lunch ended.
I don't understand the whole 'insurance liability' argument. Aren't adults responsible for their own actions over here? If I get in a car accident, while driving, how the hell is the school liable?

Today, after lunch and with no classes left, I needed to use the loo. I wasn't prepared to use the filthy school toilets so I just drove home (5min), did my business and came back. I don't tell anyone anymore, I just go.

 

i never ask anymore either and just leave. but the one time i told a teacher in confidence - the only teacher who came to my wedding, with whom i constantly share materials and have sat next to for the past 6 months - instantly grassed me up!

what incentive is there to ask permission to leave if they are just going to deduct it from my vacation time anyway? especially as i'm sat at my desk for 4 hours a day with literally nothing to do. it's not like i went home. i went to immigration, to prevent being deported from the country!

My CoT and myself make a big joke about always having to ask permission to leave like we are in a prison. She's always asking where her human rights went. HAHA

i never ask anymore either and just leave. but the one time i told a teacher in confidence - the only teacher who came to my wedding, with whom i constantly share materials and have sat next to for the past 6 months - instantly grassed me up!

what incentive is there to ask permission to leave if they are just going to deduct it from my vacation time anyway? especially as i'm sat at my desk for 4 hours a day with literally nothing to do. it's not like i went home. i went to immigration, to prevent being deported from the country!

It's a petty mentality. It's just like when I was back in Primary School and our progress charts were displayed on the wall. Do something good and you get a gold star and you can measure your progress against the other kids. Koreans are like that; looking for anything to get that "gold star" from the boss, one-upping their "friends" and colleagues to move up the chart; even it means ratting out said friends and colleagues. And what's sad is that Koreans know the game that each of them plays: they are always at a constant state of readiness to screw someone over if it benefits them; no matter how small it is.

Hmm...lots of missing posts these days 

Maybe it's because we're nearing the end of a long term, but teaching the 3rd grade elementary students with my CT (she leads most of the lesson), I'm about to explode from frustration.

- These kids don't know a single phonetic pronunciation of a single letter.
- Needless to say, they can't pronounce the vowels phonetically.
- The don't read anything, just repeat after the teacher or memorise the letter shapes and
  patterns, thanks to constant repetition so, any word longer 5 letters starting with 'M' is
  'Monkey'.

I'm constantly telling my CT to stop teaching material that is WAY above their reading level and to swop the ABC song she's been playing for 3 months (which simply teaches them to name letters) and use a song that teaches the letter sounds, much more valuable at this point since they can use it to read.

Today, she asks me to teach some basic vowels, and their sounds at the start of the lesson. I do and predictably, after 7 months, not one student in a class of 25 knows how or understands how to pronounce a vowel phonetically. I slowly move through introducing them to the sounds. After 10minutes, my CT wants to continue with the lesson. Despite demonstrating an inability to pronounce these vowels and sound out very simple words like 'cat', 'hat', and 'bat'
my CT, totally unfazed and oblivious, goes straight into the textbook teaching them to repeat and memorise words and sentences far beyond their ability.

Even a person without any teaching experience would figure out that they'd need to be taught to master the basics before jumping into this textbook BS.

Why are kids so violent here? They hit each other so hard. The girls are bad too, they'll slap a boy in the back as hard as they can and it makes a huge sound.

This would be an automatic principal's office decision where I'm from. Here? Meh, they're kids.

And there is nothing worse than a children's, top of the lungs "야~~~~~!"

Why are kids so violent here? They hit each other so hard. The girls are bad too, they'll slap a boy in the back as hard as they can and it makes a huge sound.

This would be an automatic principal's office decision where I'm from. Here? Meh, they're kids.

And there is nothing worse than a children's, top of the lungs "야~~~~~!"

I've seen a 6th grader whack a new male teacher on the back. Hard.

My mouth dropped open while my coT just said, "Oh yes, the girls find him very interesting."

Has anyone else experienced this? So I only do camps with my middle schoolers [so far], but my elem. coT keeps asking me for ALL my lesson plans and ALL my materials for camps.

Like it's not even elementary school camp. I was trying to be amicable so I said that maybe I could send her the schedule if I had time but then she kept saying she wanted me to send her EVERYTHING. I told her I was very busy preparing but she kept "asking" me to send her everything this week. 

This coT has nothing to do with my camps at all. I tried to tell her that some of the materials were impossible to send through email, to no avail. Lolz totally gonna email you some Jenga

I still haven't sent her anything from winter camp so I imagine the outcome will be the same this time. I just don't get why she wants everything.