This is the primary reason hakwons suck. (Eng/Kor)

Posted: 2003/09/25  By: POed (Views:3317)

It's because of the typical Korean lack of organization, poor implementations of ill-fated,
high-and-mighty ideas, general lack of foresight and vision and the absence of any
information-sharing standards between management and staff, parents and teachers, students and
parents.

Koreans can't organize a picnic with the wife and one kid, let alone the scheduling, student
placement, curriculum and pay schedules for teachers. Results are typically daily surprises;
new students appear, class times suddenly change or are cancelled, teachers are told to use
more resources in the classroom without them being facilitated, on-site resources are
inappropriate (often a hodgepodge of whatever books the director could find at sales or
anything in English; National Geographics alongside Middle School English books from 1983), and
in the worst cases, late or no pay for teachers, be them Korean or foreign. All of this will
and does happen without warning. Why? Because even the owner doesn't know how to do it any
different, so how could he possibly warn you?

Everything here should have been done 5 minutes ago...that's why there are so many clocks (as
late reminders) and people running around like chickens without heads in thes country.
Perpetually, late, behind schedule and surprised by their own lack of knowledge.

Aim high, shoot low; the motto of all hakwons in Korea. Grand designs, false illusions about
what they want to do as opposed to the tragedy of what they are doing. Koreans like
schemes...not inherently bad schemes, but schemes that will put them ahead somehow. Amway,
Aloemaim, Herbalife...all very popular here for their promises. Promises with seldom-seen but
often-heard-about success stories. Hakwons are the same. We see the chains: Wonderland, Sisa,
SDA, LIKE...all of these big names lead us to believe that there is some kind of success there,
and there is, but not the one you are thinking of. The only success came when some Moe sold the
name to Korea, but after that, it's tragic to the core.Behind the name is another insane
scherade of disorganization and deciet. Hakwons are schemes...seen as methods to money, not
educational institutions. This mode of thought dictates every decision made in the hakwon,
despite every director's assertion that this school is bent on delivering the best education
possible. Sell that to the tourists. If ever a decision is made in the school, the reasoning is
financial. Don't be fooled into believing anything different. Foreign teachers, you are
glorified entertainers with a socially-acceptable pseudonym. Korean parents, you are being
largely taken for a ride as to the quality of the "institution" that you entrust your
children's education to and you are being fooled by your own kids as to how the classes unfold
behind the closed door. Their behavior is often disrespectful, piggish and rude.

Tomorrow never comes. Live and build for today. This is true in Korea...hakwons treatment of
classes and teachers...just make it work FOR NOW....the construction methods, the banking
practises, Korean's spending habit's....if today is good, there are no problems. Repercussions
are never planned for and shocking when they happen. The department store collapsed...no
doubt...the bridge collapsed....no doubt....the buildings fall apart after 8 or 9 years...no
doubt. All or the rat-infested, cockroach-shitholes in Korea are much younger than you would
believe...just for a laugh, find out the age of the shittiest-looking building in your
area....a bet says it's under 10 years old.Extending this short-sightedness into hakwons, kids
who just don't belong there are thrown into classes just to fill a seat, never mind that the
levels are different and he will go home and tell his over-protective (but absent from his
life) mommy that the class was terrible and not entertaining, bringing a SURPRISING shitstorm
to the director the next morning and eventually to the teacher for not being more
accommodating. No kidding, Sherlock.

Yes, the hakwon is doomed from the beginning. Parents expect their children's futures to be
secured through these pseudo-institutions, yet the moment the hakwon stops being "Che-mi-so"
for the student, he or she is gone. News flash: Learning isn't always fun.

Teachers expect the environment to match the title: Language academy. They are always
disappointed....it just doesn't work like that. The kids are animals when not under the
watchful eye of a Korean. They often make teaching impossible and coupled with the scant or
misplaced resources, the nebulous communication systems designed to keep teachers in-the-know
about new students, classes and schedules being absent, adding up to a jungle. A circus of
diverse, acts, none knowing what the other is doing or understanding why they are doing it.

I guess this will never change.

Koreans will continue to blindly believe that all is well, and things are moving forward as
they should, when in reality, everything in Korea is moving in a circle.