If you want to feel better about your situation, feel free to peruse this unforgettable thread:
Guy
1 Like
This thread went fairly quiet:
1 Like
I have experience of sending my children to several schools over several years in New Taipei, including public, private, kindergarten, and elementary, and after school. There was only one report of a shouting teacher: as it happens it was a foreign teacher, lol. My kid remembered that for years afterwards though. I remember my own experience growing up and there was the odd teacher like that too.
Sorry but this sound like Taiwanese propaganda.
Even my Taiwanese friends complain about cram schools. Even my Taiwanese friends who teach at cram schools complain about cram schools.
It’s my kids’ experience that they report to me. Pretty small sample of like two kindergartens, one public elementary, and two after school places over like six or seven years. New Taipei city. One shouter - who was a foreign teacher from Canada 
- in one of those schools and that was it.
I’d rather shovel shit or even shartimus in Saskatchewan.
No my man! This is your big chance to pile on and notice that there was a Canadian there! I can’t believe you missed it.
Guy
1 Like
Seems you meant another law than I thought, sorry for that as I thought the discussion was about creating a “black list” of some companies which easily can turn into slander (e.g. the owner is crazy…)
1 Like
I mean, have you set foot in a Taiwanese school? I’ll never forget when I was observing a “Montessori” kindergarten class and heard through the walls “what the heck is wrong with you?!” being shouted at some kid. There I was trying to escape the public junior high teachers screaming at students over nothing after every class period and this “montessori” school was belittling toddlers. The abuse here is next level, but I can see how the abuse of students and teachers can break a foreigner. I do find it difficult to believe that only one person ever yelled in your children’s schools though. I’ve worked in and observed far too many schools in Taiwan and there is exactly one that I can think of where every adult wasn’t about to snap at any moment.
2 Likes
It’s not pennies for them though, it’s actually a significant part of many parents income as many Taiwanese aren’t very well off , so they won’t have any sympathy at all.
For instance my cousin in law here, he works as a butcher and has an extra job as a binman to help pay the buxiban fees.
5 Likes
Laoban needs to make money Brian. He has three 30 something kids studying their third degree in Canada.
4 Likes
Also, parents need to wake up and realize that their child is zero steps closer to English fluency by playing sticky games at a rate of NT$250-600/hr or whatever the current cost of cram schools is. For more data, strike up a conversation in English with anyone around the age of 20-30 in Taiwan. There’s a really good chance they will run away. Yet they would have been the kids who went to cram school every day with a foreign teacher at great expense to their parents.
2 Likes
I’m pretty sure that I can trust what my older kid says and I knew his teacher at his bushiban that he went to for several years, so I am 100% sure on that one. For the smaller I also I haven’t seen any signs of him being exposed to shouting. When I go to pick him up they are like reading chicken lichen stories and stuff. I did quite a lot of shopping around all the options as I am aware that expectations and experiences vary etc. I have been a little surprised with the experience at the elementary school as I was expecting that there would be some kind of stress created by some kind of idiotic something at some point but there has literally been not even a single worry.
Disclaimer: I’m not a person who says positive stuff about Taiwan just for the sake of it. I have plenty of rants just - touch wood - not on this particular topic. Also just saying my experience: not extrapolating that every other person necessarily has the same experience. I have no doubt that there is a steady stream of wind ups out there if you are unfortunate enough to encounter them. Overall I would say that the experience is more positive than I had when I was growing up - in Europe - many years ago. I am also guessing that school has improved since then in my country.
2 Likes
I asked my daughter last night if teachers scream at kids or hit them with rulers and she said they’d get sued.
She’s definitely Taiwanese, lol.
2 Likes
One of the most amazing things to see is my boss’ metamorphosis from inside the classroom yelling at kids with her orc voice to the her almost childish voice and manners when talking to parents at the front door.
National Geographic’s material.
3 Likes
I trust your children. I am not saying there aren’t any good teachers in Taiwan, good cram schools or public schools.
My children had also some good experiences. But when my boss told me I could bring them there for free, I said no.
It depends a lot on the teacher.
Also, I think the teachers who scream they do care about the kids. Maybe they already tried other methods and didn’t work. A big problem is that the children get no basic education at home, they have no manners. In public school teachers have no time to educate what is not been taught at home. It’s all about exams. So children arrive to cram school and it’s like the last chance give them some basic manners but also be sure they write all the homework and pass the exams.
It’s a lot of pressure for the cram school teachers.
And the children eat dinner there too… I mean it’s a lot.
In my previous job, I remember a pre-teen that told me the public school teachers don’t bother to explain properly because they know that the cram school teacher will explain it well and help with the homework.
1 Like
My wife owned one back from 2003 - 2014. She called it. Mind Your Language
1 Like
Most won’t hit them now. There is an anching class near me that hits the kids though. I asked my English class students why they stay there and not switch to the anching class at the English school and they all said that being hit once a semester was better than being screamed at every day. They also said that they also get rewards for doing well there but they just get less screaming at the place i work.
3 Likes
Let me add something, now while drinking beer. I would call this
“The destruction of the minds”
if it were not a comment to my own post, but a post itself.
Today was my last day at this cram school. I’ve promised myself to never teach again.
I had to write two exams for two classes this week, not because I wanted to, but because my boss wanted the kids to write one last exam before I leave.
So, yesterday we are supervising our 6 and 7 years old students and helping them with the exam’s questions. I took the 6 years old kids first, just 3, while she, the boss, took the 7 years old kids, just two. (The boss says we are losing students because of me. But maybe it’s because she hired a Chinese teacher who refused to write or learn normal Chinese and used simplified Chinese with the students. They couldn’t read it and told the parents, many left. Anyway, yes, I am not a native speaker, it’s my fault.) Well, yesterday after one hour the 6 years old had all finished the part of the exam I wrote. It was time for me to take care of the 7 years old, and then the boss tells me that one of the students refuses to write anything and that he doesn’t want to listen English. Then she says it’s my fault because I talk to the kids in Chinese sometimes and now he is unable to accept English.
Let me tell you what happened on Wednesday.
I finish the first two classes and it’s my time to take a break. I sit on my chair near the entrance in the first floor. Near me there is a big table where the boss is teaching. She is scolding one of the boys, a very smart 6 years old who always tries his best and learns very fast. Apparently he can’t pronounce one word correctly and she is forcing him to repeat the sentence over and over again, yelling at him sometimes while he is reading. From the classroom where I was teaching, I could hear her yelling at him. Now he is reading aloud the sentence over and over again, without any correction from the boss, while tears flow down his face. He is not allowed to stop. He repeated the same short sentence for some minutes. That was my Wednesday.
So, yesterday, it was my time to take the 7 years old’s class and I tried my best. One finished the whole exam, no problems whatsoever. The other one… he did write a little bit. I try to help him but at one point if I said something in English he covered his ears. There was nothing I could do. We played some games until the time was up.
Today I took this class first and he finished the exam, no problem at all.
His sister, some years older than him, sometimes comes to my class devastated, almost crying, sometimes just after having cried. She remains catatonic during class. It has happened few times. I asked the other students and they always tell me she was scolded by the boss.
Other times, some kids are not allowed to go to the park to play because they didn’t finish the exercises. This girl is slow in class, but she learns well. Other kids are extremely impolite and disrespectful, but write faster. They go to the park, she stays in the cram school writing.
The 7 years old who covered his ears yesterday has a little speech impairment. In Chinese as well as in English. We are trying to help with that although we are not speech therapists. I think he has improved a lot but my boss just wants that he speaks perfect English when he can’t even pronounce Chinese correctly. He gets scolded a lot. But it’s my fault that he refuses to speak English because sometimes I clarify some things using Chinese.
I could give you many other examples, but hopefully you get my point.
Finally, I am out of this madhouse.
1 Like