Odds are nobody but my friends, family, and the occasional psycho English teacher type the former recruiter turned poison pen and posing as a psycho English teacher (?) and we mark him as spam so we don’t care, are reading my blog.  So I’m dying to give you a glimpse of how issues are (not) resolved at my particular school.  (which, I hope are unique to this unusual place I got assigned to)

Seems during the last mid-term exam, one of the secular teachers who really resents the heavy Christian overtones at our school took it upon themselves to cross out a Christianity reference in one of the tests.  The Vice Principal and the Pastor didn’t take very kindly to this, of course, and tried to punish the rebellious teacher.  Young-a, who seems to think she is Joan of Arc or something, takes up the cause

Her cause celeb prior to this was fighting to get the CCTV (closed circuit tv) removed from the school as she felt they were an invasion of privacy.  She kept asking my opinion about this police state we work in, and I kind of let her down by telling her there weren’t that many, and that they were valuable should somebody get assaulted or something.  And besides, who’s really spending all their time reviewing them?  They’re just for document, not spying.  And if you’re not doing anything wrong, then there’s nothing to worry about.  Now if they read your email, that might be another thing…Anyway, she was always taking this cause to the teacher’s union meetings and things.  She’s all about civil rights.  But just like with her attractions, all her passions go a bit far, in my opinion.

She has a meeting with the principal and it doesn’t go well.  Then, I hear about photos being taken of her, and her STEALING the V.P.’s camera, the rationale that he was violating her rights by photographing her.  So awhile back I wrote how I didn’t think two wrongs made a right.

Recently, I heard more of the story, which is she went to the V.P.’s HOME to confront him, and he took photos of her doing something.  They had some confrontation and he got so mad he hit her.  That’s when she stole his camera.  She went to one of the other teachers afterwards, and she was crying and bleeding.  So now there are three teachers involved in this mess:  the one who changed the test, the one who confronted the V.P., and the witness of the blood.

The following week there were meetings that didn’t go so well, the V.P., smiling, asking the witness to please convince Young-A to return the camera.  Then, the week after, there was a deafening roar and things being thrown coming from the V.P.’s office.  (I’m sooooo glad my desk got moved!)  The witness told me he was having headaches and insomnia over the trouble.  I told the witness  that Young-A should pick her battles more carefully.

The witness sided with the test-changing teacher, saying that the school had no right to force teachers to force religion on everyone.  I told him – but isn’t this a MISSIONARY school?  Isn’t that why the parents pay extra, so their children are raised with religious overtones?  Didn’t the teacher know he was working for a religious school when he signed up?  (well, they didn’t tell ME, but then again I can’t read Korean, so maybe it was just an AGREGIOUS oversight)  The witness agreed with my logic, but then spoke about seeing Young-A bleeding.

OK.  So I didn’t say anything about that, because in America teachers wouldn’t go to the V.P.’s private residence to argue with them.  And V.P.’s wouldn’t photograph teachers, and teacher’s wouldn’t steal their cameras, and V.P.’s wouldn’t thump them afterwards.

I told the witness that I was worried about him losing his job.  He said he was tenured and couldn’t lose his job, that none of them could lose their jobs.

So, they’re all stuck with each other.  They’re all constantly agitated and paranoid and snarling, poised for the next dogfight…If it weren’t so damn annoying, it would be comical.

But since I’m leaving, it’s getting more comical every day.