Robespierre and the Reign of Terror

With recent events being of such importance to our lives here in Korea, I felt it imperative to come back to my keyboard and type a brief summary of the days since Adam’s departure, culminating in the departure of my boss. 

Yes, Marie A. is no more.  As no doubt by now dear reader, you have noticed that I have chosen to continue with the metaphor that I established in Viva La Revolution.  Perhaps not, but then I am an eccentric hobby historian, so if I force some people to go to Wikipedia and look something up then I can at least say that I made someone learn something.  For everyone else who knows about French History, I know it isn’t a perfect metaphor, sue me. 

Alright, so let me go back to the beginning.  The Chuseok vacation was over and we had been told that Rachel’s replacement was going to be landing that Monday.  It had been pressing on my mind for some time that this was going to be someone who may possibly have no idea where anything was, who anyone is, or what to do.

In re-reading my first entry, I failed to describe the amount of terror and anxiety that can come with your first few days in Korea.  I have, since moving back here, gotten a few requests from old friends and new acquaintances for advice and info on coming to Korea, so for any of you who are searching the far corners of the internet for help, here are a few tips for you.  I got lucky my first time, and the second time I knew exactly what to expect, so Rachel got lucky.  There are a lot of people who are not as lucky.  For example, for anyone who is reading this and thinking of making a trip to Korea yourself, let me give you some survival tips.

• Your apartment will more than likely be empty when you get there.  So expect to go shopping immediately before you pass out from your flight. 
• You will need to get very basic things- bottled water, toilet paper, and even pillows were not provided our first day. 
• You may have the luxury of being put in a “love motel” for the first few days. This is not as bad as it sounds, but it can scare off people who are not prepared. 
• To find these things, find a major street and walk down it.  On a long enough timeline, you’ll find something that you’ll need, i.e. a McDonalds, E-Mart, HomePlus, or any number of convenience stores, where you can get a quick meal, water, or even paper supplies. 
• Most of these places are 24 hour and can help you in that “just landed” first night or two.

Fortunately, Emma did not have to suffer any of this.  Oh, our newest employee is a lovely person named Emma, who hails from Canada.  It was especially amusing to me, to see that Rachel had a fellow non-goy in the school, for a few days at least. 

What was unfortunate was the pressure that came from the reign of terror that was Marie A. Over the past few days since coming back to work, this issue of wanting to know when Emma was going to be flying in was of great concern to me.  I had heard that she had been here for a few days already, and as I have already talked about, it can be bloody scary.  After being told several different times for when her plane was landing, I was called into our Glorious Leader’s office and told to back off, because I was sounding pushy.  Forgive me for sounding pushy when I have been told contradictory information about when a new person will be joining our staff and I want to avoid such problems as I have already talked about.    But finally Emma arrived, and everything was well…for a whole few minutes at least.  Then the reign of terror began. 

OK so this was less of a reign of terror and more like a series of bothersome events, as opposed to, say, a real terror.  First, there were the observations.  Now as a teacher, observations are part of the job.  You have to let people watch, judge, and critique what you do.  There is a difference however, between constructive feedback and what we generally got.  I was lucky enough to get only one observation, which I’ll talk about soon.  Emma had been under nearly constant scrutiny since she arrived.  What struck me as strange is just how many observations we were being given.  By the time my turn came around, most of the others had been through one or two already, either with Marie A, or our new head teacher, who is a wonderful person.  She is open to new ideas, humorous, and most importantly gives a damn about her students. 

This brings me to my observation.  Technical problems and other issues forced me to adapt the lesson I was being observed in, so that the students could still learn everything that they needed to do their work and I could still cover all the material that I needed to go over.  Specifically in this writing class (keep that in mind, I’ll bring that up again later) I had to teach material about Myths and Legends, and cover some important editing skills.  Now to accomplish this, I was supposed to print off student essays from the website, and teach why various mistakes were made and how to correct them.  Well, there was a problem with the website (again) and so I typed up an example essay for them to edit instead, to teach them to apply specific skills that I had covered that day.  This was wrong.  What I should have done was magically produce the essays in question and do exactly what the curriculum demanded.  After explaining the technical errors, Marie was convinced that I didn’t know how to do the prescribed lessons and proceeded to talk at me for a while about how to do what I should have done.  Now there was one thing in particular that was said during this conversation, that underscored the serious difference between Marie’s and my approach to teaching.  It went something like this- “the students should never be looking down at their book, because if they are, then they are not respecting me as a teacher.”  Remember when I mentioned that this was a writing class?  Yeah, I thought the same thing.  This went along with forcing the kids to remain seated when the bell rang, until I had dismissed them.  Fair, however given the fact that it was the last hour of Friday and the kids were undoubtedly really tired and hungry, I thought that they could get up and leave as fast as they want.  They earned it.  Perhaps this is a byproduct of my own education or just a personal philosophy, but the students come first.  If they are engaged in the material, if they are learning something, and if they want to come back (not just drag themselves in because their parents are forcing them) then I have done my job, and everything else is dross. 

This was not the worst of it by far, but the only thing that I can say is that John had a few minutes left over in his writing class and gave the time to the students to use for getting their homework done.  Marie A. decided that this was not only against the curriculum, but she also felt an ethical duty to force the kids to erase the work that they had done during this time, telling them that “homework must be done at home”.  After I heard this, Marie entered a new level of cartoonish, adolescent literature villain,like Miss Trunchbull or Aunt Spiker… read a book!  Or watch the movies… whichever, they’re both pretty good.

Going back to this observation meeting that I had with Marie A, I was also given details about a conference that I had to attend on Saturday.  Now, if there is one thing that working in Korea has taught me, it is to be adaptable.  What I mean by adaptable, is to know that plans can and do change regularly, and with some degree of severity.  For example, we had thought that Mr. Kim (our finance guy) would drive us to the conference in one of the school vans.  However, his wife just gave birth to their first child, so he was (understandably so) unable to come.  This made Marie very upset.  She then requested that we take the train down to the conference ourselves, and she would pick us up and drive us the rest of the way to the University where the conference was being held.  The next morning, after a 50 minute train ride, I asked Glorious Leader how soon she would be there, only to receive the news that she wasn’t coming and that we needed to take a cab the rest of the way.  This would have been fine, if I’d had any more information other than the name of a college.  So just like your average Freshman wandering campus for the first time, we stumbled around the campus, looking for signs of where to go, hoping that some of the locals could offer help if we needed it.  We finally managed to get there safe and sound.  What followed was 6 hours of some of the most boring demo lessons that I have ever seen.  As it turns out, this was less of a demonstration, and more of a “look how awesome these teachers from other campuses are, and in fact they are so awesome that we are going to give them a large shiny award” thing.   OK, it didn’t make much sense to me, either.  But it was eventually over.  We looked around for a taxi to take us back to the train station, and failed miserably.  We started walking back.  I’ll admit that I thought that this was rather pleasant.  It was a cool fall afternoon, the sun was out, and the air was lovely.  About 20 minutes into our walk, we got a phone call from the Glorious Leader, who said that we should have waited longer for her to get out of her part of the conference.  Now I, like you just now, had no idea that she was even there.  Moreover, I am not sure when she was under the impression that I had developed the psychic powers to know that she wanted me to stay. 

Now we come to Monday morning.  The first day that Rachel was officially off from work.  So it was hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go.  Within 20 minutes of me being in the building, I heard the news that Marie A had been fired.  To say that it was a shock would be more than an understatement.  What’s more is the fact that I also learned that Mr. Kim, our finance guy, was also leaving the school (wither by choice or not is still under some speculation).  So like some who supported the revolution in the early stages, they themselves were put to the guillotine.  What remain now are the people of Avalon.  The tone has visibly changed in the school.  The teachers are more relaxed, and despite the fact that we have all had to do more work, they seem happier.   However, this may all change. 

Something that one of my co-teachers mentioned reminded me about the revolution once again.  After all the terror, killings, and the push for freedom, this inevitably led to the rise of Napoleon and the return of the nobility.  While we are enjoying the peace of not having a thanocratic dictator (sorry… wrong… Glorious Leader) intolerable wicked witch, many of the other teachers are waiting for the other shoe to drop.  There was one small tidbit of information that I learned over the weekend that brings this point home.  My school is a publicly traded company.  I knew that hogwans like ours were private businesses, but I didn’t think that they had to answer to stockholders.  The CEO, therefore, may bring in business managers, and other people who may be fantastic at making sales, but they are the last thing that a school needs. 

Perhaps, dear readers, you will read a blog in the future about the failed second revolution of Avalon.  You know the one I’m talking about, right?  No…?  Well I suppose I’ll save the description for when the time comes.