RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

This is the week of final classes with my schools (other than next Monday).  Yesterday was harder than I thought it'd be, with kids begging me not to go and some even gifting me with last minute presents of pencils, hah.  One of my favorites gave me a card and gel pens and insisted I take the pens.

And I get to do this 3 more times.  My poor heart 

You can do it yirj!!!  At one of my countryside middle schools that I taught at for seven years, the students made a video with Oasis music.  The video was them panning around the library and every student had written a post-it to me so they panned around and then focused on each post-it.  At the end of my final day, the students took me to the English room and played me the video.  But I didn't cry.  When I got home and watched it again, I bawled my eyes out.   

OMG, I'd be a sobbing mess. When my first school didn't renew me for a third year the kids were balling and brought me gifts and handmade cards and gifts, I was balling. I hate parting from a school I really like. I am not renewing at my current school so we'll see how it goes.

Yep, we'll see! 

I generally hate saying goodbye to people.  It always seems so final to me, even if I not going to see them for six months or so.  When I leave my mum and come back to Korea, I'm always sobbing for a good ten minutes after hugging her. 

At that countryside school, plus my other, I'd taught a lot of brothers and sisters of the same family so if the parents ever saw me they'd always stop off and give me a lift or just stop and have a chat.  There is no sentiment in Korean education.  Stay for a bit, get shipped out somewhere else, someone else comes in your place, repeat.  In the west, I think we place more on a longevity of working and leaving with a kind of legacy, hopefully.  I worked in a bank in Manchester, and people thought I didn't do that much, until I finished and then they realised after the actual ton of work I did do. 

Yeah, all my schools are small countryside ones so I know all the kids by name and who has siblings across what grades (middle and elementary).  Other than graduating/incoming students, I've basically had all the same kids for my two years here. 

Supposedly I was the first NET these schools have ever had (other than online classes; yep, I'm apparently so rural that some of my students get online classes from other NETs!!  Hah!!) too, so I hope they'll have fond memories.  I think the hard part is knowing/feeling that I'll most likely never see any of them ever again.   

Y'all ready for this one? I'm being moderated and i make a post. It gets approved by the mods. No problemo. The next day I log in and Gagevt the mod who warns me for absolutely anything (never had a warning from any other mod) mutes my account for the comment that the other mods APPROVED. Talk about bias and harassment of a user

AvecPommesFrites,

You have been issued a formal warning for trolling. Please review the terms and conditions of Waygook.org http://waygook.org/index.php/topic,2425.0.html and cease trolling otherwise we will take further action.

Quote from: AvecPommesFrites on October 16, 2017, 05:13:15 PM
Quote from: #basedcowboyshirt on October 16, 2017, 11:09:37 AM
Quote from: kyndo on October 16, 2017, 11:05:36 AM
Quote from: Claramire on October 16, 2017, 01:47:22 AM
Good! very useful materials!
"Good!"? "Useful materials!"? 
These kind of posts should be flagged as spam, and the accounts deleted.

I've noticed a lot of accounts like this that will just go around spamming the same sort of one or two sentence post just to get their post count up.

So literally every post that Grey makes then?

I'm not sure who approved this, but I'll have to ask the other mods to look more carefully before approving posts from moderated users in the future. I'm only muting you for a brief time to give the other mods a heads up about approving posts. (Muting starts at 60%, so only a day or so)

Also, I could have upped your warning further for abusing the report system just to insult or throw baseless accusations at me, but I'll let it slide this time. Be careful in the future.

Regards,
gagevt

I know going back to your old school is comfortable (if it was an international school ignore what I am about to say), but have you considered just coming back at the February/march hiring time to get access to more  gigs? Or you could do what I did this time of the year 4 years ago, I took a kindy hagwon job (so so company) with the intention of quitting to be on the March schedule for public. It worked out very well.

Decided to not renew my contract as I wanted to go home to see friends and family. Finding it difficult to adjust to life back in Canada.

I want to go back to Korea -_-. I don't really like taking chances so I'm thinking of going back to my old school but It'll be months until they have an opening.

Aw :( I'm sorry you're having difficulties adjusting. Sometimes the reverse culture shock can be worse than the intial culture shock. Have you looked into more temporary positions here? They're rare but you can sometimes find shorter contracts. Or you could take a job at a different school and once a job becomes available at your old school you could make the move over there.

Reverse culture shock is definitely brutal. I wish I had thought about temporary positions when I arrived back home, that would have been a great option. I feel it's too late now to find a short one that works. I'll just have to tough it out and brush up on my Korean with the infinite free time I have here.

  Really, is there a reason?

coT: All classes are canceled for today and tomorrow.

Me: YAAAAAAAASSSS!!

*later*

coT: Okay, Chinguetti, let's gol.

Me: ... where?

coT: To watch the students.

Me: ?

coT: Oh, I forgot to tell you. There's an assembly and student activities all this morning, and all teachers must supervise. Also, tomorrow's a field trip to *some boring place* and you have to go so that you can wander around aimlessly with the other teachers forced to go while work you could have gotten done at school stays not done (NOTE: paraphrased).

Me: *internally screaming*

My CT rigs the games so the team she likes can win.

Last class, it backfired and it made that team lose even more. And then they complained and she was like "I understand" and changed the rules again so they could catch up. They still lost.

Then she had the nerve to be in a bad mood about it, telling me she wanted the other team to win and that she understands why they complained. What is this? It's a game! The teams who get the answer right get the points. They answered wrong and lost (even though she was trying to make sure they won.)

I said, "well that's the game!" and she said "yes but I understand them..."

Well, I don't understand you, CT. You rig the game and make it unfair for other students and then you give in to the students you like because they say it's "not fair." You're a grown ass woman!

What's fair is playing the game by the rules and not playing favorites.

I understand where you are coming from, but that isn't actually the best practice for learning via games.

Inserting a random element into the activity will better serve to keep everyone involved and engaged.

For example, some play match game where each match gets a point.  Best practices dictates that we should insert a random slide and trigger, then have the teams pick a character that reveals points from 1-4, a bomb, or other.  This way, whether teams are high-level or not everyone has a random chance to win the game.

Do you follow?

My CT rigs the games so the team she likes can win.

Last class, it backfired and it made that team lose even more. And then they complained and she was like "I understand" and changed the rules again so they could catch up. They still lost.

Then she had the nerve to be in a bad mood about it, telling me she wanted the other team to win and that she understands why they complained. What is this? It's a game! The teams who get the answer right get the points. They answered wrong and lost (even though she was trying to make sure they won.)

I said, "well that's the game!" and she said "yes but I understand them..."

Well, I don't understand you, CT. You rig the game and make it unfair for other students and then you give in to the students you like because they say it's "not fair." You're a grown ass woman!

What's fair is playing the game by the rules and not playing favorites.

I understand where you are coming from, but that isn't actually the best practice for learning via games.

Inserting a random element into the activity will better serve to keep everyone involved and engaged.

For example, some play match game where each match gets a point.  Best practices dictates that we should insert a random slide and trigger, then have the teams pick a character that reveals points from 1-4, a bomb, or other.  This way, whether teams are high-level or not everyone has a random chance to win the game.

Do you follow?

Still doesn't change the fact that the CT favours one group over the other students and is rigging the game. Which is the real issue that the OP is talking about.

I understand where you are coming from, but that isn't actually the best practice for learning via games.

Inserting a random element into the activity will better serve to keep everyone involved and engaged.

For example, some play match game where each match gets a point.  Best practices dictates that we should insert a random slide and trigger, then have the teams pick a character that reveals points from 1-4, a bomb, or other.  This way, whether teams are high-level or not everyone has a random chance to win the game.

Do you follow?

I agree that there ought to be a certain amount of randomness for exactly the reasons you mention, but on the other hand, participation and understanding of grammar/vocabulary should also be rewarded else there's no motivation to learn the materials.

Ideally, both should be factored into the scoring.

Not that hard to do, actually. Bomb games are a good example: teams who have a better understanding of the material tend to have more opportunities to uncover points, but are also more likely to uncover bombs, which keeps scoring semi-random.

Gave a short reading comprehension test to my class today, only 12 points total. One of the students rushed through the whole thing, got 0 points. I told him he had to try again because that was unacceptable. He said ok, re-did the test, brought it back and... got 1/2 a point this time. So... progress? Everyone else passed and did well, but he just made stuff up.

Gave a short reading comprehension test to my class today, only 12 points total. One of the students rushed through the whole thing, got 0 points. I told him he had to try again because that was unacceptable. He said ok, re-did the test, brought it back and... got 1/2 a point this time. So... progress? Everyone else passed and did well, but he just made stuff up.

Just 23 more times before he gets that perfect score! Fighting! 

Gave a short reading comprehension test to my class today, only 12 points total. One of the students rushed through the whole thing, got 0 points. I told him he had to try again because that was unacceptable. He said ok, re-did the test, brought it back and... got 1/2 a point this time. So... progress? Everyone else passed and did well, but he just made stuff up.

Just 23 more times before he gets that perfect score! Fighting! 

Which is probably what the parents will insist I do, haha.

That moment when your preworkout order from Iherb gets held up at customs :'( ....there goes 40,000W feelsbadman...

My CT rigs the games so the team she likes can win.

That's not good.

Hang tough and rant on.

My CT rigs the games so the team she likes can win.

Last class, it backfired and it made that team lose even more. And then they complained and she was like "I understand" and changed the rules again so they could catch up. They still lost.

Then she had the nerve to be in a bad mood about it, telling me she wanted the other team to win and that she understands why they complained. What is this? It's a game! The teams who get the answer right get the points. They answered wrong and lost (even though she was trying to make sure they won.)

I said, "well that's the game!" and she said "yes but I understand them..."

Well, I don't understand you, CT. You rig the game and make it unfair for other students and then you give in to the students you like because they say it's "not fair." You're a grown ass woman!

What's fair is playing the game by the rules and not playing favorites.

I understand where you are coming from, but that isn't actually the best practice for learning via games.

Inserting a random element into the activity will better serve to keep everyone involved and engaged.

For example, some play match game where each match gets a point.  Best practices dictates that we should insert a random slide and trigger, then have the teams pick a character that reveals points from 1-4, a bomb, or other.  This way, whether teams are high-level or not everyone has a random chance to win the game.

Do you follow?

Still doesn't change the fact that the CT favours one group over the other students and is rigging the game. Which is the real issue that the OP is talking about.

And besides, isn't a match game already random?  No one knows what's behind the squares until someone chooses them.  The only "non-random" thing about match games is the team that goes earlier in the sequence is at a disadvantage.  In my classes, we randomize it by using a dice roll to see who goes first.

And besides, isn't a match game already random?  No one knows what's behind the squares until someone chooses them.  The only "non-random" thing about match games is the team that goes earlier in the sequence is at a disadvantage.  In my classes, we randomize it by using a dice roll to see who goes first.

Right.

I didn't explain myself well.

Playing straight up, without chance in the scoring, the team that makes three matches would get three points.  The team with one match would get one, and so on.

Without dynamic scoring, once one or more of the groups know "the win" is beyond their reach due to simple scoring, they tune out.

I've found that it works much better when every group has a chance right up until the last turn to win (I don't like doing competitive activities in Korea, in general, as the students are too competitive to begin with, but they work at times). 

Not a single post here in three days? Wow.

To get the ball rolling again.

Is it fall or early Winter? Did we just skip fall?

Not a single post here in three days? Wow.

To get the ball rolling again.

Is it fall or early Winter? Did we just skip fall?

Just a glitch.

We'll have fall back tomorrow.

F*ck this coT.  You've generally just been a mild annoyance but this takes the cake.  So, I was supposed to have my last day with a travel school last week.  The day before, she called and asked to literally move all of the classes to another day because she "needs to do something on the mainland."  She wanted to move it to the day I pop into samulnori class and this would be the last one so naturally I didn't want to.  I just told her I needed to discuss it with my main coT. 

Travel coT ends up moving all my classes to today.  My main coT wanted me to be at my main school today and tomorrow for my last days and specifically told this travel coT that.  F*ck you again then.  This is the only coT that makes me make up classes if the schedule gets changed around.  Cause God forbid she have to teach any extra classes on her own when I could just do everything by myself while she's glued to her phone or the computer.  Yeah she's "so busy" with her two schools but I have double the schools she does so I have no sympathy for her whinging. 

The winds were extremely strong yesterday so all ferries but one in the very early morning got canceled.  Only one teacher from my school made it to the island in time.  Today, literally waiting at port with everyone else from my school, hoping for winds to die down enough for the ferries to run again.  Had to wait to the point where I missed all my last classes with this travel school (classes are all in the morning). 

I informed this coT early on about the ferry situation (which she was well aware of anyway, since there are message alerts).  Paraphrasing, she says sorry, thanks for your 2 years of service, bye.  K, fine.  I later let her know that I'm catching the first ferry back and I'd like to stop in to at least say good bye to the students.  Now this is the bit where I got seriously pissed.   She tells me sorry, that they're "busy with programs."  F*ing kidding me??  Literally I just wanted to pop in a minute to say goodbye and throw them some Halloween candy.  I've taught them for two years and I actually do care about them.  My own classes have been interrupted on numerous occasions (by apologetic homeroom teachers) so I really don't think they'd mind if I stopped in for a brief minute to say goodbye. 

Anyway, I did figure up a solution.  Tomorrow is the day she's at a different school so I'll just hop in before classes start and say hey and bye to the kids while completely avoiding that coT.  HAH

It's too bad that you're having to deal with idiotic CT behavior during the homestretch of your contract yirj17.

Just know that you'll soon be free to give a piece of your mind to everyone who deserves it 

Not a single post here in three days? Wow.

To get the ball rolling again.

Is it fall or early Winter? Did we just skip fall?

Just a glitch.

We'll have fall back tomorrow.

I sure hope so. I'm not ready to be constantly be cold at school.

My coteacher always asks me to find materials for the lesson, and of course I don't mind doing that because that's part of lesson planning, but the whole time I'm working on lessons she's chatting with coworkers. When I show her what I've found/made she clearly does not like any of it. This has been going on all year and I still don't know what she wants. And it wouldn't kill her to stop talking for 10 minutes and help find/make something.

I used to work with several teachers like that, and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you give them a chance to say they don't like what you found, they're going to say that. Just get in the rhythm of you come to class with the lesson ready, teach it, do a good job, and then they don't have to worry about your materials, and you don't have to run it past them. Just operate under the assumption that they should never need to ask you to find materials - you'll just bring them.

It's kind of hard to get into that routine if they've been approving or denying your stuff in the past, but if you start teaching with a new teacher, it's good to be just like, "Here's what we're doing, here's the files. See you tomorrow."

I like the idea and I wish I could do that, but my co is a complete control freak. She sits right next to me in the office and asks what I've found/made/working on every day. There's absolutely no way she'd ever allow any activity into the classroom that she didn't completely understand and pre-approve, and change parts of. Thanks for your suggestion, though.