Yay! Open Class on the First Week at a New School

I got this job because the previous teacher quit before her contract was over.  It just so happens that there was an open class scheduled for what would be my first week of work.  How could I teach successfully with zero rapport?  It would cost absolutely nothing for them to reschedule.  Nothing.  Surely the parents would understand.  But common sense isn’t common, so they pushed ahead with the previously scheduled date.

I did my best. It was neither wonderful nor terrible.  Clipboards were passed out to the mothers in attendance to grade me on my performance as a teacher.  Great.  No pressure!   Two months later, the co-teacher would throw in my face that my scores were low.  First of all, they were probably grading me strictly on looks because, I’d be willing to bet cash money that none of them knew a thimbleful’s worth of pedagogy.  Second, I was probably being compared to the blonde South African woman whom I’d replaced.  Given Koreans’ predilection for blonde and pale, there was no contest.  At any rate, I finished her contract and had free housing for ten weeks before I had to move into my own place.  That’s when I began researching teaching jobs in Japan.

November 2015