RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

Unfortunately, our job isn't really to be life long friends to students. A lot of people come here, and want to leave behind a legacy or something. Your kids will forget about you almost immediately after you leave... minus a few.

Don't get me wrong, I learn my kids names (afterschool where there aren't 32 kids a class) and I still am friendly with them in the classroom, and in the halls. However, I have no intention, or am I trying to be life friends, or strive for them to remember me...

But hey, if hooking up with your students later at home, and having them on Kakao, and ya know, accidentally getting a few pregnant is your prerogative, then who am I to argue.

I think you got your reply mixed up. I've already stated that I don't even know the names of the kids at this school and don't really care.

Even that's so, I think you might be reading a little bit too much into donovan's comment.

It's the most disheartening time of the year. I spent the better part of the school year building rapport with the students, and in the last month or so it starts to get torn apart by student (and teacher? ) fatigue. I wish it was easier to end on a high note, to make our last memory of each other a positive one, but year after year this seems to be the pattern. We won't be having subject teachers' classes in February so they may forget about me before the school year is even finished.

That's not too big a deal in this situation. Fortunately (or unfortunately), due to the previous native English teacher not liking this place and complaining, I was kind of shoehorned into this school mid-year and due to a combination of many factors, I have pretty much no rapport with anyone. (I don't even know any of the kids' names.) It's actually one of the most awkward places I've ever been in, and every day I pray for class cancellations and for the time to speed on by.

It was more like a "Huh, that actually works here?" moment than any sort of feeling of disappointment.

Unfortunately, our job isn't really to be life long friends to students. A lot of people come here, and want to leave behind a legacy or something. Your kids will forget about you almost immediately after you leave... minus a few.

Don't get me wrong, I learn my kids names (afterschool where there aren't 32 kids a class) and I still am friendly with them in the classroom, and in the halls. However, I have no intention, or am I trying to be life friends, or strive for them to remember me...

But hey, if hooking up with your students later at home, and having them on Kakao, and ya know, accidentally getting a few pregnant is your prerogative, then who am I to argue.

Ummm. Is your picture porn? It's too small and I'm not sure I want to try to make it bigger at work.

Don't get me wrong.

Of course. I'll try not to tease out any perverse implications from your innocent comments. Wouldn't want to misinterpret.

Tis the season, when elem. coT gets uber interested in what I'm doing for middle school camp. Except this time, instead of asking me, she tells me she "had better talk to [my main coT] about winter camp." Umm okay. Trying to go behind my back to get specifics?? My main coT only requires a general outline of the camp schedule so it's not like she has detailed lesson plans and materials.

Like if this coT wanted to know a general idea of what I'm doing, I'm not averse to chatting about it. But last year she wanted me to send her ALL my lesson plans and materials for a camp that's not even the grade levels she teaches  Of course I didn't. I even told her that most of the material wasn't anything I could send via email anyway. To which she just responded, "You had better send me all the lesson plans and materials." 

Co-Teacher 1: Hey, your camp was really great last summer! Can you make another really great one for this winter?

Me: Sure

Co-Teacher 1: But you really need to make it easier for (Co-teacher 2). It was really stressful for her having to order camp materials and prepare snacks for the students.

Me: Okay (Me in my head: Are you F-ing kidding me? Me planning an entire camp for 20 students for three hours a day for 2 weeks by myself without an ounce of help from anyone on short notice (as in we need your summer camp lesson in 2 days with no previous mention of when it was due), while teaching and planning for all of my regular classes during this time. God forbid we don't stress Co-teacher 2 out who has to simply order food online and prepare the snacks to bring up to the classroom again. )

Tis the season, when elem. coT gets uber interested in what I'm doing for middle school camp. Except this time, instead of asking me, she tells me she "had better talk to [my main coT] about winter camp." Umm okay. Trying to go behind my back to get specifics?? My main coT only requires a general outline of the camp schedule so it's not like she has detailed lesson plans and materials.

Like if this coT wanted to know a general idea of what I'm doing, I'm not averse to chatting about it. But last year she wanted me to send her ALL my lesson plans and materials for a camp that's not even the grade levels she teaches  Of course I didn't. I even told her that most of the material wasn't anything I could send via email anyway. To which she just responded, "You had better send me all the lesson plans and materials."

Miserable. I'm a material factory and I'm really, really fussy about the quality of anything I make. I'm totally willing to share stuff when it's relevant or applicable to something one of my coteachers is doing. But when people just want me to dump ALL my stuff on them, especially when they've literally never made a single thing and just use stuff as-is from indieschool without even taking a tiny bit of time to proof it for mistakes or alter the vocabulary to match the textbook, then I draw the line.

Yup. My sentiments exactly. All I have to say is, "Vesetables."

I understand why Korean people are so sensitive about Japan, but what I don't understand is when they try to claim something small and insignificant doesn't come from Japan. Teaching the Konglish class when we got to "arbeit" meaning part-time job and I mentioned that this is the word that Japan uses, which is why it came to Korea and they all vehemently deny that suck a thing could happen ... 

for extra lulz tell them that Doraemon is actually Japanese. which it is.

had one obnoxious 6th grade kid once banging on and on about how korean animation is so great and blah blah blah, just look at Doraemon. pointed out to him that Doraemon was japanese and he vehemently denied it. showed him evidence online, little shit looked like he wanted to cry. that's what you get when you play with the big boys son.

I just got low-key yelled at by the vice principal and two other admins because I wasn't in some classroom proctoring a test that I knew nothing about. No one told me anything, yet I am supposed to know every classes schedule for tests and when someone signs me up to proctor them????

CO2 Teacher, can you look over this English passage and add come things to it? And improve what's there already?

Sure. I gots dem native skilled like she asked fo. (It's a formal document. Not long, but it's formal.)

Ad some flourishes here and there. Change some of the wording to make it less awkward.

  No, not like that.

  This is a perfect example of how this would look and sound in North America.

  Noooo. If I translate that into Korean below the English part, it will sound strange.

 

Oi vey

I understand why Korean people are so sensitive about Japan, but what I don't understand is when they try to claim something small and insignificant doesn't come from Japan. Teaching the Konglish class when we got to "arbeit" meaning part-time job and I mentioned that this is the word that Japan uses, which is why it came to Korea and they all vehemently deny that suck a thing could happen ... 

for extra lulz tell them that Doraemon is actually Japanese. which it is.

had one obnoxious 6th grade kid once banging on and on about how korean animation is so great and blah blah blah, just look at Doraemon. pointed out to him that Doraemon was japanese and he vehemently denied it. showed him evidence online, little shit looked like he wanted to cry. that's what you get when you play with the big boys son.

All "Korean" famous cartoons are Japanese' crayon shinchan too.. etc..

My MOE has just blocked Youtube. I'm trying to look up DIY videos for camp but I have to go through Naver to get to Youtube.

Just the usual camp gripes.

• Submit a camp without knowing how many students will attend.
• Submit a camp without knowing how the students will be grouped.
• Make and submit camp for no budget, as per instruction, only to find out there is a budget.
• Said budget is a mystery.
• Edit camp and prepare materials for mystery budget.
• Prediction: Materials exceed or fall short of mystery budget by mystery amount. Resubmit materials list until they exactly match the mystery number in the VP's mind. Number is between 1 and 1,000,000. Do it by yesterday.

My MOE has just blocked Youtube. I'm trying to look up DIY videos for camp but I have to go through Naver to get to Youtube.

How can she slap?

Just the usual camp gripes.

• Submit a camp without knowing how many students will attend.
• Submit a camp without knowing how the students will be grouped.
• Make and submit camp for no budget, as per instruction, only to find out there is a budget.
• Said budget is a mystery.
• Edit camp and prepare materials for mystery budget.
• Prediction: Materials exceed or fall short of mystery budget by mystery amount. Resubmit materials list until they exactly match the mystery number in the VP's mind. Number is between 1 and 1,000,000. Do it by yesterday.

This.

Plus at my travel school, my KT sayd "There might not be camp. There is no budget." Is there camp or isn't there?!

I had one coteacher who, after I would make all my materials, would say she didn't like them because I'd done something similar a few months ago and it wasn't original enough, and then I found out she was using them in her classes and making me make more stuff. I was irritated.

A friend had a class that loved a particular game. She would rotate the games so that they'd remain relatively fresh. Then one day she brought back that beloved game only to hear the students sigh, "Again??" Found out her coT had been playing that game for EVERY class the coT taught alone for the past few weeks. The lengths of such laziness is astounding.

My MOE has just blocked Youtube. I'm trying to look up DIY videos for camp but I have to go through Naver to get to Youtube.

How can she slap?

I think there's slang in that thar yonder post but I ain't gettin' it... Slapping? No. No slapping. Fire. I want to set things on fire. I HATE this week. In the latest installment of the unnecessary-drama-that-is-camp, I know there's a budget. I know how much the budget is. It hasn't change din years. But my CT has just informed that there is no money for camp. Meanwhile, mysterious, useless, DUMB miscellaneous items totalling my mystery budget have just appeared on my CT's desk who keeps muttering to himself and asking why he ordered it.

But that's OK. I don't mind. I have fire. And it's only Tuesday and this week won't get any worse.

[Keeps an eye on the news for a fire at a school, and an NET arrested for arson.]

I had one coteacher who, after I would make all my materials, would say she didn't like them because I'd done something similar a few months ago and it wasn't original enough, and then I found out she was using them in her classes and making me make more stuff. I was irritated.

lmao

How did you eventually find out?

Not really ranting, but we don't have a thread for bemoaning our existence... yet.

There's something seriously wrong with my emotions right now.

My school sent out a survey to our 4th and 5th graders and their parents asking how they felt about the English program and about me in particular. I got very... mixed reviews.

I'm a teacher. Kids aren't all supposed to like me and obviously some parents are against NETs in the classroom. So I shouldn't be so shocked and hurt.

I'm not normally the "cries-in-a-bathroom" type, but I have seriously gave my all this year. I create good lessons, I'm never late or absent, and I always say yes when asked to do something.

I don't know. I just feel discouraged right now. I was finally starting to feel good about staying for another year, I'm so excited about my Christmas lessons, and now I'm just... sad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwVNuyfhF0Q

This is not the path that should be taken.

Look back at some of the teachers you didn't like as a kid. I'm sure some of them were not your friend, but you learned a lot.

I create good lessons, I'm never late or absent, and I always say yes when asked to do something.

I don't know. I just feel discouraged right now. I was finally starting to feel good about staying for another year, I'm so excited about my Christmas lessons, and now I'm just... sad.

Popularity contests aren't easy.

What you listed above is pretty bare minimum.

I would suggest:

1. Learn your students names
2. In the beginning of every school year, have each student make an info card that contains key info, birthday, likes, dreams, family, etc.
3. Always smile and greet your students wherever you are.
4. Make a simple calendar with all of the students birthdays on0 them and acknowledge them on their special day.

So many other things you can do, but I'd start with the above.