Fighting (not the Korean meaning!)

Well, only 8 days of work left but I couldn't restrain myself any longer. Wednesday I snapped and Joelle heard only the slightest bit of what I had been keeping to myself. I am usually a pretty quiet person who doesn't express frustrations, but Korea has taught me to be more aggressive and to protect myself.

The day began with yet another small irritation. In the past we made copies of the phonics book because the parents were already buying too many books. (Anyone who is in Korea knows that copyright doesn't mean much here.) However, today Mona told me she was giving books to our class. I didn't see Jane, who is the co-teacher of the class I was teaching phonics to that day, so I asked Joelle if we were to continue making copies or if the students would buy the book now. She predictably replied, "Ask the Korean teacher." She's not here right now, and I have her class NOW! Are we, AS A SCHOOL, making copies or making them buy the book? "You must talk with the Korean teacher." Excuse me, but who's the manager??

I made the copies, taught that class, and returned to the teachers' room. Before I had even put my books on my desk, Joelle came up to me and said that she needed to talk with me. Uh-oh, that's never good. She went on to say that we had to re-do the speaking, listening, and writing tests for ALL OF THE CLASSES. Wait . . . it gets better! The tests, they've just decided, are next Thursday and Friday. That gives the 3 of us foreign teachers 5 working days to make 15 tests. I don't think so.

Instead of doing the Korean-style, "OK, I'll do it," I did the Western-style, but not so common for me, "WHY??" as I argued about the logic of making new tests when we already had perfectly good ones. She tried to rationalize it, "Oh, but some students repeated the book this time so they can't take the same test again." So it's our fault that the kids are dunces or that they're in too high a level?! Are we going to make new tests every time a kid fails a level? We've never done that before!! The kid couldn't pass the test the first time; perhaps he'll do better the second time. I raised my voice several times, making several heads turn. Matt and Tanya glanced curiously at us but stayed out of it (pretty wise on their part!). Despite my extreme anger at the irrationality of it all, my voice stayed level and no tears came. All right! Perhaps I'm getting better at confrontation!

The part that I particularly loved (sarcasm) was when Joelle said that the Korean teachers had to make new tests, too. Yes, that's true, let's count how many Korean teachers there are. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And how many tests? Reading and grammar X 5 levels=10 tests to make. Now let's count the foreign teachers . . . 1, 2, 3 . . . oh, you mean there aren't any more to count? Now let's see how many tests there are to make . . . speaking, writing, and listening X 5 levels=15 tests. Korean teachers: 3 people with 2 tests and 4 people with 1. Foreign teachers: 3 people with 5 tests. Is my math okay there? I am an English teacher, after all.

Towards the end Joelle thought to add that Mr. Kim was the one who told us to make the new tests. Uh, don't you think that might have been an important thing to say at the beginning?! Is that even true? How talking with Joelle works: she says something, you respond and she pretends like she's listening, then she says, "Yeah, but…." and repeats what she said before. You voice another objection, she pretends to listen, then says, "That's right, but…." and repeats what she said before. Do you see the pattern? It's very frustrating talking with someone that ignores everything you say.

When I told Matt and Tanya the glad tidings, my voice began shaking a little, but I was still mostly composed, though furious. I had a break that hour—one of the reasons why I was so strong in my argument—I didn't have to get ready for my next class and I knew that I had some time to calm down before facing children again. I hightailed it out of there at that point—had to get some fresh air and get some of the adrenalin out of my system. I walked the 2 blocks to the bank and did the money transfer. It took 30 minutes, but the teller seemed to know what she was doing and didn't do anything weird like call the school for their tax ID number. The exchange rate was the best it's ever been when I've transferred money. When that was finished I walked down to the river and took the long way back to school, arriving just as classes were finishing.

Well, guess what Joelle did? Or shall I call her Miss Tattletale? Yes, before long I was being called in to see Mr. Kim. He handled it really well. Joelle has studied overseas; why doesn't she understand foreigners better? Mr. Kim was able to give his instructions without making me feel like an idiot (Joelle's preferred form of communication). He said he realized that I was leaving soon but that the new tests needed to be made. He said that I could have the other foreign teachers do more than me. Yeah, like that's real fair. If we have to do it, I'm going to do my fair share. But can you explain WHY we're doing it? I was completely calm with him, although I must say the fact that Joelle talked with him about it made me think even less of her, then think that she must be insecure. She walked by once as we were talking and was that a GLOAT on her face?! Well look at me, Joelle, with my head held high and completely confident—you didn't do anything to me!

Mr. Kim's explanation was slightly better, but still not completely satisfactory. Something along the lines of maybe the students tell their friends what's on the test. Yeah, right. First of all, like they can remember many of the questions. Secondly, since when have we been concerned about cheating? It's a fairly frequent thing. His second big reason was that they wanted to have a bank of tests to choose from so that the teachers could be compared to each other. He implied that some teachers are trying to teach the test to the kids. That's not what he needs to be concerned about. I have seen some teachers tell the kids the answers while they're taking the test. Anyway, as we finished our conversation I couldn't help but add that the timing was difficult and that in the future it would be helpful if they gave us more time to make the tests. He apologized, but said that because of Chuseok the tests were earlier than they had expected. Yeah, so the date for Chuseok hasn't been the same all year? Did it suddenly jump up on the calendar?

On my dinner break I was going in a million different directions at once trying to figure out stuff about the tests. Finally I got my brain under control and got it to concentrate on one thing at a time and actually got some stuff done. Matt and Tanya were also not thrilled about making the tests, but I think may have appreciated my effort to keep us from having to make the tests. They were cooperative and willing to do whatever I assigned them. I guess it's not terrible, but I have so many things to get done before I leave that adding another few hours worth of work was the last thing I wanted to do.