Time for English!

Q: What do you do when you have a white English-speaking American teaching at your cram school?
A: Flaunt him!

And that's exactly what they wanted to do with me on Halloween. They wanted me to dress up in a ridiculous Halloween costume (Hey, its what Westerners do!) and go around to all of the other classes in the cram school (math, Chinese, etc.) to basically say, "Hey, look! You can learn English from an actual American!" Then the students would go home to their parents and tell them that they can learn English from a real foreigner. Then the parents would fork over good money so their kid can learn from a real American. "He grew up in Chicago, so he must be good!" What the parents don't know is that I spend about 35 minutes per week with these students.

I agreed to visiting another class. I understand this is just good business. However, I vehemently refused to wear a costume. Fortunately for me, I got my ARC through Wei, not the school, so they can't force me to do something and threaten to fire me if I don't do it. Fortunately for them, I got my ARC through Wei, which means they don't have to pay for it. It's win-win!

And then they took a bunch of pictures of me teaching and posted them all over the exterior of the building. And the sad thing is, I think it actually worked. Recently they've been telling me to ask specific students questions or to give them a little more attention because they are new. After all, we want these new parents to think they are getting their money's worth.

Here are some of the pictures they pasted to the window.


And this one (sorry it's a little blurry) is my favorite. When the English teacher first showed it to me, she said she wanted me to say something in the speech balloon. She suggested Time to school! I was happy to suggest something else.


Jason