Caveat: The State of the Hagwon 2015

We had a meeting today before work started, which I would describe as a kind of "State of the Union"-style presentation by our boss/owner, Curt. Of course, these kinds of things are in Korean… I can kind of follow the gist of it, much of the time, but details are lost on me. 

He seemed very optimistic and professional, and to be honest, I was cheered by it – although he often doesn't seem to have a clue about curriculum or marketing or any of the things that seem so important to running a hagwon, he really does at least a bit of a clue – it's just that he's just up against a lot of inertia – both institutional (i.e. "the way things are done" in the hagwon biz) and personal (he and I share traits of procrastination). 

One thing he did was show us a little video before starting his powerpoint. This is the kind of thing that Koreans working in education often pay a lot of lip service to but aren't very good at implementing, but which on the other hand Western educators take as given… as a kind of starting point. 

The video is in Korean but it's about education in the US, with some observations about the quality and style of education – and attitudes toward education – in the Jewish community in particular. I'll leave it as an exercise for the viewer to figure out the gist of it – it can help you relate to how I feel every day at my job. 

[UPDATE 20180330: Video embed removed due to link-rot, no replacement found. Sorry.]

[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]

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