The Good Stuff

Far be it from me to present only the negatives and not the positives. As promised, here is a post of the good stuff about Hess. I have now taught or substituted at six schools, so I feel I am somewhat qualified to say this stuff. However, all of this is based on my personal experiences so should be taken with a grain of salt- experiences are going to vary everywhere.

#1 the kids are pretty well behaved at Hess
This could be due to any number of socio-economic factors. Hess is one of the more expensive schools in Taiwan. More expensive school= wealthier parents, and for god knows what reason, wealthier parents often = better behaved kids. There is also a co-teacher in the room who may or may not help you with classroom management (which was my absolute downfall as a teacher- I was more interested in getting them revved up so they would talk more, which often got out of hand) My co-teachers helped a lot. Also, Hess's lessons move- there is very little lag time, so the students have less time to mis-behave.

To compare this, I will talk about two of my other teaching experiences. At a school I currently work at (putting in only 3 or so hours a week) I teach a small class of 4 girls. Every teachers dream, right? And I'm in charge of the lesson plan so I can tailor it to their needs and interests, which is great. However, their interests mostly run to 1) which boy likes which girl at their school, and which boy and girl may or may not have kissed- and - 2) English cuss words.
If one of my ideas for a lesson bombs, I've got 4 girls talking about boys at school (which is fine if it's in English) and begging me to learn English cuss words. (to my eternal shame I went ahead and let them believe that 'blue bird' is a perfectly acceptable term for the male genitalia. I don't remember how this came about, but now they say blue bird whenever possible, and dissolve into giggles every time they say it. Idiot, which I did not teach them and can only guess they learned from a previous teacher, is also a favorite.) Obviously I'm a teacher with minimal experience and sometimes my classes get out of control- but I will say that these girls conversational english is head and shoulders above head and shoulders above (yes, I meant to repeat that twice) your average Hess students. Their reading and writing is about on par too. I don't know how this happened and I don't take credit for it (except for some of their conversational skills, despite the inappropriate use of bluebird.)

Another experience- I taught a kindergarten class of 20 kids and it was the longest 2 hours of my life. The kids were crazy, erasing whatever I wrote on the board and stealing my markers and running around like madmen. At one point I turned around to write something on the board and one kid pushed another kid off of a chair and broke his arm. I kid you not. The co-teacher (you're going to need one with a group of 20 kindergarten kids who don't speak much English) had left the classroom five minutes after class began and never returned. This never happened to me at Hess.
(the amazing thing was, every time the owner of the school peeked into the classroom, it was magically at some point where I'd somehow gotten the kids interested in something. Somehow, magically, I looked like this stellar teacher. And she peeked in like 10 times! After the class she was nearly frothing at the mouth to hire me even though a kid broke his arm, and all I wanted was to get the hell out of there.)

Anyways yeah, the above bad experiences are generally not going to happen at Hess.

#2 You get paid on time at Hess
I haven't had much trouble with this at other jobs, but there is one employer who conveniently 'forgets' my money and I have to wait another week for it. I've heard horror stories at a distance but no one I've ever actually known hasn't been paid. Still, Hess has their crap together and like clockwork, your paycheck will be in your account on the right day.

#3 Hess isn't going to disappear into the night with your work visa
I've had one friend who went to work one day and found that her non-Hess school had been boarded up. She hunted down her (ex)boss and demanded her paycheck and only got it when she had her boyfriend go in and threaten said boss. This probably won't happen at a Hess school (although this same friend did get deported while working for Hess because they failed to tell her she was working illegally because her paperwork wasn't processed or some crap like that...and now she's not allowed back to Taiwan for 2 years. grrrr.)

#4 Hess has training

I know I griped about the training but I have found it useful- especially the games. And most schools do not have any sort of training.

#5 Taipei main office
Taipei main office wasn't much help in my situation, but if you're having a real problem, they can transfer you or help you out. If you are working with a small independent school, you are fending for yourself.
(this is a double edged sword though. Sometimes I felt like the main office people spent their spare time sitting around thinking of new programs to torment their teachers with.)

#6 Materials
Hess has flashcards, songs, books, etc.

#7 lesson plans
You are always going to know exactly what to do at what time. You will never stand in front of a class and go 'what the hell do I do now?' That's pretty priceless.
I hated the lesson plans. I prefer more freedom and feel like I can usually think of something worthwhile to do if a lesson goes faster than planned. But I have to say, it was pretty handy to not have to take responsibility for things- the lesson sucks? Well, it's not my fault, I have to teach it pretty much exactly as it's laid out. It's great to run your own show but if you run your own show and things bomb, you have no one to blame but yourself.
I personally felt frustrated because I couldn't alter the lesson plan to suit my students, and if the students were totally lost you had to continue with the class, even if it was way ahead of them and they weren't learning much. But still, like I said, it's nice to know exactly what you're supposed to do next.

maybe I'll add to this later. conditions are perfect for a surf right now so I'm paddling out!