Kid Castle - a model of disorganization

The name of my school in Taiwan is Kid Castle. There are two parts to the school: there is the kindergarten which is just like it sounds; then there is the cram school which is for older kids who go to a normal Chinese school in the morning then come to us in the afternoon. The kindergarten has kids as young as 2 years old and goes up to about 5 or 6. Then the cram school has kids all the way up to their early teens I think.

I've been teaching for about 3 weeks now and getting the hang of it. Most of my kids are good, although you've got the occasional shit disturber, hmmm...sounds familiar. I've learned to become a bit of a hard ass with the kids sometimes. For example today my oldest class was a real pain in the ass. They wouldn't stop talking and goofing around every chance they had so I laid into them a bit today and told them there was no fun stuff until they smartened up. And when I want I can really yell at them. Surprisingly my voice hasn't given up yet from all the yelling. We are supposed to get a Chinese teacher in every class as the disciplinarian, except I never seem to get one so I have to discipline them myself. I have yet to smack a kid. Notice I said yet.

Anyway what really steams my whistle about this school is the total lack of organization. Let me give you a couple of examples. Last week I was asked to sub for a sick teacher at another Kid Castle branch. I spent about an hour preparing for the class and was all ready to go. I walked over to the other branch, about a 20 minute walk, sat down and read over my notes when my boss showed up, she also came to sub for a sick teacher, 8 minutes before the class started she told me I was to sub for a different class. So I had to wing it for a 2 hour class which I had 8 minutes to prepare for. My hour of preparation went right down the shitter.

Another example. Yesterday I was asked again to sub for a class at the other branch. Apparently my boss knew the teacher wasn't going to be there for 3 days but did not ask me to sub until 45 minutes before the class, remember it's a 20 minute walk, but I also had to go home first to get warmer clothes because I was prepared for a 6 minute walk to my place, not a 20 minute walk to the other branch. This kind of last minute stuff is apparently the norm around here. The good thing is that I can't be blamed for not being prepared for class because I'm not really sure when I'll be teaching a class. Schedules are changed all the time. I've only been there 3 weeks an already had my schedule changed numerous times.

In a two week span 4 foreign teachers have quit with 3 naming the schools disorganization and 1 naming my boss specifically as reasons for quitting. The good news is my boss is being replaced on February 1st by Andrew who has done the job before and been at the school for 12 years and in Taiwan for 15. He's a much more competent individual and I can't wait for him to start. Unfortunately some of the disorganization happens above my boss so not all of it will disappear.

I also love the curriculum. The books and curriculum are specific to Kid Castle. The best part is the numerous grammatical errors in the books and the instructions to the foreign teachers. For example we had a song to have the kids listen to then answer fill in the blank questions for listening comprehension. The word fishes was in the song. Fishes! We're supposed to be teaching proper English to these kids who will take our word as gospel concerning the language and we have the word fishes in the song. I had to explain to them that it was done to make it sound good in the song but it is actually incorrect. Nice and confusing for the kids. Good job Kid Castle!

Oh and I think I might have convinced another foreign teacher not to sign a contract with the school because of the lack of organization. Oops. Ah well she was leaning that way anyway. Actually it's funny because the teacher who is leaving and cited my boss directly as the reason said she convinced a couple of other potential foreign teachers not to sign with the school. Should be a memorable next 11 months. Anyways that's about it for now. Later.