Brighton School- Season 3- Episode One

So we, the korean and foreign teachers, joke that working at Brighton School is like being on a reality show.

To recap; Season 1& 2 was the very beginning. Brighton School is a fairly new Hagwon (private english school) so in the first season they were getting up and running. The school, hired only Canadian and American foreign teachers. This was to satisfy the ludicrous parents who would send their students to Brighton. These parents would not have their children learning from someone who didn’t have an American/Canadian accent. The school, like most South Korean Hagwons, was disorganized. Yet for the most part some what successful. Then the shocker came that turned this reality show into a drama; all the foreign teachers (7) but one; did not have legitimate degrees. The teachers had heard about how word was getting out because the man who had issued their fake degrees had been imprisoned. The South Korean Police were out doing a round up of all the names in his files and throwing the teachers into jail. Just as the students and (you the audience) were falling in love with these teacher characters; they had to do a ‘midnight run,’ and flee the country. The one legitimate teacher was left to go to ignorant Brighton alone and tell the school that all the teachers had left because they weren’t actually legal to work in Korea.
That is where Season one ended--- Imagine writing that Newsletter to the parents!

Season 2 involved a whole new cast of people. Some great some not so great foreign teachers. The school pretty much followed their out of school dramas. While the real school dramas had to do with the multiple fires/ hires of new Korean teachers. The director always siding with the parents. Education is a business first and foremost in Korea. The viewers were beginning to see that Brighton School would be no different. An energetic fully capable foreign teacher may arrive, such as Camille-Teacher (my New Zealand friend), but there is little she can do because the english schools are in such competition between one another... the schools become servers to the parents wishes. The parents are happy as long as the workbook pages are completed (then the students of course know english!;), and their child is a happy prince or princess.... and if the parents are happy then the school will get more business and no one cares if the students are actually learning. The teachers who do care are left to try and maintain a balance between actually doing what’s right for the students and rushing through workbooks to appease the parents. The foreign teachers have more luxury in this because they don’t speak Korean. It is the poor Korean teaching partners who are constantly doing phone counselling and being yelled at by the Korean parents for not getting every page of the workbook completed, or for giving a poor grade (regardless of what grade the student deserves). Grading in itself is interesting... one teacher challenged his bright students by giving them a tough test. They (13 year olds) got high 80’s and a low 90. Later in the semester the teacher was talking about the word “angry” with one of these bright girls. She said that she understood and that her mom often got angry with her. Angry? The teacher was surprised as this child’s behaviour would next to never illicit such a response. She said that “yes her mom gets angry and yells/whacks her ten times on the calf for every mistake she gets on a test/assignment.” School here is no joking matter; the viewers began to see how much pressure is on these students. They go to elementary school all day, then an evening school (ex Brighton), maybe a night extra science or music course, or martial arts, and then they do homework. They also go to school every second Saturday.
Some may be shocked by this but it is not terrible, the students know nothing else--- and kids are kids regardless of where they are --- school sounds serious (and it is) but the teachers do make things fun/ and add educational games and fun to the workbook.

Season Three
Begins with two new foreign teachers arriving from a Saskatchewan, Canada, from a city that “rhymes with fun”--- a joke that all the foreign teachers laugh at and that doesn’t transverse the language barrier with the Korean Teachers. They are energetic and excited.
They are both challenged differently. Roberta deals first hand with the disorganization of Brighton school--- no apartment for more than a week, the apartment being dirty when she finally moves in, no decency to furnish it properly (no sheets), her having to constantly ask/remind her boss for the bare necessities--- his chauvinistic attitude and not admitting he was in the wrong--- instead blaming another korean teacher. Meira, the other teacher, had some similar issues but mostly struggles with some personalities in her kindergarten class. The class really doesn’t listen --- ran on top of desks her first day, they talk mean to eachother in Korean--- and all of a sudden someone is crying. She has her work cut out for her!
The other dramas that are unfolding this season; the school had lined up a foreign teacher to replace on that is leaving for this friday... but they are not going to show up. Two foreign teachers have quit--- they are plain tired of dealing with the parents all the time. The school was almost sued because a student fell in class and cut her chin. Completely her fault but he parents are whack jobs.
Next episode will be the field trip--- to Seoul Petting Zoo.