A day in the life of working at a hagwon

I don’t even know how to start. It might be just a part of working at a hagwon.

This morning

As I always do, I go to the gym, come home and get ready for work. I made myself a delicious lunch of wraps with oven-cooked pork and everything. Prepared my coffee and walked to work enjoying the weather.

Work

When I got to work, some of the boys were there early crowding around me and a few other teachers were there already too in the office. I sat down and got my stuff out while trying to cool down.

Things are ok-ish at this point. One of the boys that were already at school is one that never NEVER does his work. I really don’t understand how he made it this far. There are times when he tries, but it’s rare.

This boy

I got him to sit down and try to complete at least a page or two of multiple pages he hasn’t done. Why didn’t he do these? Well, this is what he does most of the time in all of his classes. Honestly, it’s frustrating beyond belief. Anyways, get him in his desk with his books and he has at LEAST 20 minutes before the morning assembly to finish it all. The two pages should take less than 10 minutes and I wrote the answers on the board. The rest of the kids take less time to do it without any help.

All he had to do was copy them down. That’s how simple it was. I walk out to go do other work and go back 5 minutes later. Guess what?

NOTHING is written. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Frustration

Y’all don’t understand the year I’ve had with this boy and his class. Thing is, the other students are so much better now. I actually enjoy teaching them as often as I do. However, this one…is the bane of my existence. I have questioned my life so many times, especially the decision of working at a hagwon when this kid does things. And he has DONE done some things. Like things where authorities should have been involved.

Anyways, later after the assembly, classes start. In all of my classes with him, he partially does his work and his classmates talk about how he did nothing in their other classes. It’s so…disheartening to go through this on a daily basis.

Classes…other classes

The classes from today aren’t even our normal classes. Some are and then there are some that were added. Suddenly one class is dissolved and integrated into two other classes. There is a reason behind this though. These kids were going to do that anyway when they move up a year (grade) next month. It’s just a bit early, so it’s not too crazy. However, my schedule changed at least 4 times today. The schedule is only for this month.

Next month and changes. So many changes

Next month has a completely different schedule for the beginning of the school year. I’m okay with it, well now I am. However, I planned out an entire book for one of my classes for 3 months only to find out that I need to do it again because the homework days have changed from 3 to 2. It shouldn’t be too bad to redo but…I legit just planned it out less than 24 hours before.

Today, for some other classes, my books changed. I’m not planning anything this week until the weekend. Things keep changing and I don’t have time to plan much at work as it is. I bring it home to plan and now I’m constantly replanning everything and it’s irritating.

Not to mention, we have so many other things to do this month with the kids that are graduating. Writing letters, practicing those, practicing speeches, and making sure they wrap up their books a little bit early. It’s a crazy month.

It’s going to be a crazy few months with new teachers coming in too. *sighs* Never been all over the place at work in almost a decade until now. I don’t like it. Can’t really plan yet there are so many plans that need to be turned in. It’s stressful.

Hopefully, things get better, but right now I just feel frustrated. There’s no other way to describe how I feel. I legit wanted to cry today from frustration which is crazy. I normally can handle a lot of pressure, but I’m so tired of handling it. Working at a hagwon like this makes me miss public school so much. Oh well.

Wish me luck~It’s not even 9 pm and I’m ready to call it a night. Here’s to tomorrow~?