everythinglifehd asked: hi. I came across your tumblr from searching chungdahm tags. are you still in korea teaching? do you like it? how is it working with chungdahm?
I’m not, no. Miss it like hell though. I was out there for about 9 months, left my contract early to come back to Grad school in England. I loved being in Korea. Working in Korea, s’alright. I’m pretty sure i don’t like ‘working’ anywhere, so that’s not so bad.
With chungdahm, i would say it felt at first like being thrown in the deep end. You get 5 days training and then are straight off to classes. For the first few weeks, i felt like i was just kinda bluffing my way through it and hoping nobody noticed, but it all settled into place pretty quick. What helped with that is Chungdahms’ adherence to a set syllabus, rather than some other academies where all the content is teacher-generated. Having the knowledge that i would be doing this chapter with this class at this time did take a lot of stress off. Note that this is mainly true for the middle-ish classes they offer, and that at the higher levels then there is more room for class content input from teachers.
The kids… well, they’re kids. If you can get along with most children, then it’s fine. Of all the kids i taught, only a small minority were purposefully bad or trouble makers. This may be influenced by me being in Seoul, as other teachers outside of the capital have had fewer brats.
The problem is that, if their parents can pay for them to be in Chungdahm, then their parents will continue to pay for them to be in Chungdahm, and Chungdahm will almost always take their money and try to smooth things over. They’re a business, not going to turn away customers. But it does mean that, around 13~14, some kids start to realise that it’s glorified day care, and that they’ll probably never get expelled. At this point they can start acting out, because the educational system in Korea is rough as hell on the kids.
It’s like this: By the time a student is in highschool, and this is for a ‘good’ student mind, they’ll be waking up at 6am to study ahead for 9 o clock classes, where they’ll be lectured at in school with hardly any room for interaction or self expression. Just teachers stood reading from a textbook. After 6 hours of that, then they may have enough time to grab a can of iced coffee before heading to academies from 4 till 10pm. This is when Chungdahm operates, two 3hr classes per teacher. After that, some go to rented booths/desks to keep studying till the A.M, then maybe get some sleep and start all over again. Being a part of that system… it’s a bit of a moral minefield. You’ll have to find your own way of getting along with that.
Chungdahm as a company, i got along pretty well with. There’re some horror stories floating about the internet, class action lawsuits and accusations of leaving people stranded, but i didn’t see anything like that. My recruiter, while i was still in England, was Misty Crooks, and she couldn’t have been more helpful. Every step of the way, she was just great. Even called me at home the night before i flew out. Lovely.
Depending on where you are posted, you’ll get different kinds of schedules with classes. Being at a pretty small branch in the capital, i worked 4-10 (get in at 3 to set up) on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Wednesdays were free, except for in the summer when some extra classes were shared between me and the coteachers. My friends out in Incheon work Wednesdays, and even some Saturdays to make up for holidays missed midweek. Theirs is a huge academy though, and they’re on hourly contract opposed to mine, which was monthly. So, the more they work, the more they get paid. I had a set monthly wage which was more than enough, especially seeing as rent was paid for by the school. In 9 months, i saved $5,000 effortlessly. I lived like a goddamn king, and came back with half my earnings left over.
So, that’s been kind of a long and rambling answer, but the main thing is: I got money, I came home at the end of each day (/night out), and I got to be in Korea. I will happily do it all again.
