Rant- Life at a Hagwon

I have a student who talks in class all the time. Not only does she talk, she hardly ever does her homework, she is late every day (and starts talking as soon as she enters the class, completely destroying the flow of whatever we're doing), she doesn't put forth any effort, and often, when she raises her hand, instead of answering a question, she starts talking about Korean boy bands. She's about 12.

Natalie, her sister, is 8. She has completed her homework twice in the year that I've taught her, and brought her book to class as many times. I don't think she owns a pencil.

They are both good kids, but undesirable students and to be honest, most days, I don't enjoy having them in my classroom.

I spend a good percentage of every class telling Sarah to be quiet. One day, she cheated on her spelling test. I tore up her paper. It's not the first time I did this and it won't the last. My kids know how I work, and most of them know where to draw the line. Sarah was also talking to Soi so I was telling her time and time again to be quiet, and I probably ended up moving her seat.

Not long after that, I spoke to my boss- again- about the problems with these girls. She explained to me that their parents work and her mother has no time to help with English and could I please be a little accomodating. I said sure, no problem. That was the end of it for me- so I thought.

Last week, Sarah was crying at school. I'm unsure about what exactly happened, but I guess she got in trouble (with the secretary, maybe?) for this incident from months ago. I was surprised that it came up again but nobody came to me about it so I let it slip out of my mind.

Today, my boss sat me down and essentially gave me an earful about how Sarah thinks I hate her and she and her sister wanted to quit our school but Iris (my boss) convinced their mother to keep them here and I should be very appreciative of Iris and their mother for not pulling them out of our school. I explained to her my point of view, she said that she understood and that she had spoken to the other kids in the class (what??? since when do you need to speak to the kids about a problem I had with one of them? WTF?) and that she knows Sarah talks a lot but I cannot tell her to be quiet anymore and I should thank her for staying. WTF????


So, not only did I get in trouble for telling a kid to be quiet, my boss spoke about that day to the other kids in the class (incidentally, they did all say that Sarah talks too much), she didn't bother to talk to me about this over the past 4 or 5 months, and now I have to let Sarah talk as much as she wants AND I have to tell her "Thank you for staying."

I don't think so.

I might be coming home sooner than I thought.


(And this is just ONE example of life at a hagwon.)