On Thursday we arrived at work and something was different. A big poster inside the teachers room (see picture - obscured to remove my academy logo). When we saw this a few of us chuckled. I don't know why. It just seemed an unnecessary motivational banner. Was this for the foreign teachers or the Korean staff? Still better than those 'you don't have to be crazy to work here but it helps' ones. Teaching CAN be fun, I have fun every day but I don't need to be told. I'd rather see a Learning Is Fun poster in the classrooms
Anyway. It's just a picture. Right now the atmosphere is not so super at work. A number of changes have been made to the curriculum. No big deal for us foreign teachers, but the changes keep coming and they're not always for the better. However the changes are a big deal for the Korean staff. They seem to be under a lot of pressure, getting lots of stress from management and demands are increasing on both their time and energy.
Last night a couple of use were talking about it after work and going over the things we thought were bad ideas and mistakes. We ended up going for some makgeolli (막걸리) to wind down. Yesterday at work the Korean teachers (not 'us') were given a letter that would be circulated to parents and detailed a number of things that management thought were going wrong. I don't want to go into details but the letter went down badly with my Korean co-workers. They were shocked and I think angry at the content. My thoughts - less slogans more understanding and appreciation please for the hard work that Korean teacher do at.
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