Like you said:
But these are things you cannot do anywhere else.
Hey, if I could get paid as well to do the same work in southern Europe, I’d be there. Taiwan isn’t “great” for me, but it was the best option at the time and that has little to do with the fact that I’m not from southern Europe. It has more to do with the fact that, unlike southern Europe, Taiwan had a good economy.
You had a bad run here, and the place is imperfect, but don’t project that into where the rest of us are from.
Are there any non insane cram school owners in Taiwan ? Of course there are , but not sure where.
If a black list cannot be created how about a list of Cram schools that are regular, average, sane, places to work at
Never have, looks awful
We’ve tried this a few times. The problem is people tend not to post about good places they are currently working at. It might work with people leaving a good cram school, but even then the recommendation would be questionable.
The blacklist reviews of cram schools are also an issue.
So where are you from and how can you teach English if not a native speaker? Do you get paid the same? Does being a native speaker actually give you any benefits? Is looking foreign and being able to shout at kids all that is required?
I ask this with consideration to one day maybe doing such a job. Every time i put some thought into it i find more and more reasons not to.
These questions have been answered upthread.
Read the thread!
Guy
It’s all in jest a bit isn’t it? Wait a minute are we all really losers?
I doubt this will change until the laws on freedom of speech are changed. All this suing business for just leaving opinions even when based in facts.
Everybody thinks like that until they become the victim of public flogging. The laws are not flawless but they are there to try to protect the innocent
It protects the guilty not the innocent.You can get sued for revealung true facts to the public. Slander normally means false or unfounded facts
https://law.moj.gov.tw/ENG/LawClass/LawParaDeatil.aspx?pcode=C0000001&bp=44
My very clear and direct advice is:
The reason I wrote this post is, besides calming down, because I see, in Twitter at least, just foreigners talking very good about Taiwan. I think in YouTube most videos about Taiwan are travel videos, all very positive. I can’t stand it. They pretend Taiwan is the paradise.
I wrote the text to just let people know how it really is. The text is for people like you who haven’t work in a cram school yet and maybe are thinking about it
If you have another option just take it. You may be lucky and find a cram school in which you are just asked to play with the kids, but that is not my case.
Of course if you can’t feed yourself or your family, go work in a cram school. But I think it’s not a job to do for a living. It’s more like a summer job for teenagers. If you do it, that’s the way you should consider it. Something temporary because you need to eat.
Well living and working in a country is very very different to being a tourist. Italy seems like an awesome place but I bet it has a very dark side.
Also there are not that many foreigners in Taiwan compared to say Thailand . Thai tourist brochures look all happy and fluffy too , but most of the world knows the dark side because Thailand is so well known.
Taiwan also has a dark side but sure no one would mention that in tourism brochures or ads , so it mostly goes unknown. Taipei is more friendly than most western big cities , but sure it’s not all bubbles and candy rock .
I agree with this.
Just imagine we put in a black list all cram school in which the Taiwanese teachers scream to the kids in a daily basis, they scream to them more than would be allowed or considered acceptable in our countries.
Would we find a single cram school to not put in the list? It’s their culture. Hitting kids with a ruler although officially not legal anymore, it’s also done. I brought my children to two different cram schools and they were the only kids not being hit by the teacher.
Public school teachers also scream a lot and humiliate children in front of the class. That is normal here.
So, I don’t really see what would the standard be for black list vs white list. If it is just how the boss treats you it can change from one foreigner to another. So, it’s really a difficult list to make.
I suppose it’s difficult to make videos complaining or explaining the dark side if you could be kicked out of the country or sued. I may wait until I am abroad 
I’ve never seen it happen. If I did I would do something about it, for sure.
It would average out if the voting pool was large enough , outliers would cancel each other out. You could then get an average star rating. This would affect negatively or positively the recruitment abilities of those schools to hire foreign wrstern teachers.it would be a good thing. However, any site would and site owner would have to be outside Taiwan and the site owner should have bo intentions of returning.
Sorry. What have you never seen?
Children getting screamed at on a daily basis and/or hit with rulers.
If we want to find a silver lining to this sorry tale / thread, it might be this: I have not yet read anything here about rat poison.
Though it may seem impossible, things could actually be worse.
Guy
I haven’t seen kids being hit with rulers. But the kids tell me that the Taiwanese teachers hit them with rulers. Also, once I had a problem with a kid and the boss told me I could hit her hands with a ruler, that the mother agrees with that.
About screaming to kids, let me tell you: I hear it everyday. I see it often too. Sometimes I have to stop talking because the voice of the Taiwanese teacher yelling to her students is so loud that my students in my classroom can’t hear my voice. And I don’t whisper when I am teaching.
I could tell you more details but it seems someone has an even more interesting story about rat poison, it seems. @afterspivak