My last day as an teacher at Hess Educational Organization was last Wednesday. Of course I bawled when I left my kindergarten class. It's impossible not to love those kids after working with them for 10 months. I'll miss them so much.
But even though I had a great experience working with those kids, these last 10 months of working for Hess have not been great.
I'm writing this blog because I know that even now there are people searching "Hess, Taiwan, Teach English" and they're not getting the full story. "Hess Sucks" is not completely accurate- there are some good things about Hess. But their website isn't completely accurate either.
A lot of people work at Hess for a long time, and it has been a wonderful thing in their lives.
Then there are people like me who have a less than pleasant experience.
It all depends on your personality and what you can or cannot put up with. I write this in hopes that someone like me will recognize the things that they can't put up with and look for employment elsewhere, so they don't look back on their first 10, or 12, or 6 months in Taiwan and say "God that sucked." or even worse, go home early and miss out on Taiwan. Taiwan is amazing.
Also, if someone reads this and says, Hey, Hess doesn't sound half bad, it sounds like it might be for me- then I hope they do sign with Hess. It is steady employment, you will probably get paid on time, you get training, and they do help you get settled in Taiwan.
I will try to be as even-handed about this as I can, but obviously I'm not really pro-Hess. I'll just tell my story as accurately as I can.
For a shorter version of my story and some links that might answer your questions, please click here.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Why Taiwan? and why Hess?
In my last year of college, I made a goal to live on every continent for at least 6 months before I turned 30.
I did my research and Taiwan seemed like a great starting place- low cost of living and relatively high pay for an English teacher just starting out.
So I came over here with the goal of creating a certain lifestyle for myself.
*I wanted to live close enough to walk to the beach and surf.
*I wanted a lot of free time so I could surf and write.
*I wanted to be able to cover all of my bills and maybe save a little.
*I did my calculations and decided that this was possible if I could work part time (even 15 hours a week) and live very very cheaply.
Does that sound too good to be true? It isn't! This is what I'm doing now.
But it took me 10 months to get the lifestyle I wanted because I started out working for Hess.
If you're interested in teaching in Taiwan than maybe you're familiar with Hess's contracts:
contract A (working just buxiban classes at night)
contract B (working kindy and buxiban)
and contract C (working full time kindy, starting at 8:30 am and ending at 4:00pm, with a break from 1130 to 2 while the kids nap.)
I decided that Contract C would be best for me, because I thought I'd surf in the morning before work, then on the long break (2 and a half hours) I'd write or study Chinese. Then I thought I'd go home around 4:30 and have the rest of the evening to write, study chinese, maybe fit in an evening surf, etc.
Now there are some experienced teachers out there who are reading this and laughing. What about lesson planning? Grading homework? Correcting tests?
And people who've taught children in Taiwan are probably laughing even harder. What about communication books? Performances? Crafts?
And people who've taught children in Taiwan at Hess are laughing hardest of all. There's a reason for that.
I ended up working for Hess because I tested positive on a tuberculosis skin test. This happened 3 months before I moved to Taiwan. Until I got a lung xray back proving that I couldn't pass on the highly contagious disease, I wasn't allowed to work (at the time I was working with teenagers)
It meant I was out US$4000.
My original plan was to go to Taiwan and find my own job- I'd read on peoples blogs and forums that this was the best way to go. But $4000 extra dollars were key to that plan (especially because I'd be traveling with a surfboard, which can be expensive to lug around).
I realized I'd need to go to Taiwan and start a job immediately- and Hess had a 30,000 nt interest free start up loan (about $900 US).
There was a lot of negative info on Hess in forums and blogs, but I decided beggars can't be choosers and my lack of money made me a beggar. I was ready to go to Taiwan- I didn't want to wait another couple of months to save up the money. (spoiler alert! I should have stayed in the states and saved up more money and not taken the job with Hess!)
Anyways, here's why I thought I would be safe at Hess:
Hess paid by the HOUR, not salary. In my mind, this meant that I was responsible for a certain amount of hours and then I could go home. I consciously chose a company that paid by the HOUR so they couldn't take advantage of me and my extra time with out compensating me.
Hess also provides lesson plans. Their contract requires that you show up 20 (unpaid) minutes early for each class. This seemed like a lot to me (working at least 40 minutes unpaid a day- geez!!!) but I decided that was okay, and would be better than planning my own lessons which would surely take longer than 20 minutes.
Also I chose contract C, (2 kindergarten classes) for a reason- no homework, no tests, and no real hard grammar work or anything. Plus dang it I love kids and they love me!!!!
I sincerely believed that I could be a good teacher to these children and only spend the required hours at Hess. Meaning the 4 and a half hours a day I was paid for, and the 40 minutes of unpaid preparation time that I agreed to come in for.
I was wrong. I was so dead wrong. I was so, dreadfully, horribly, unforgivably, painfully wrong.
I did my research and Taiwan seemed like a great starting place- low cost of living and relatively high pay for an English teacher just starting out.
So I came over here with the goal of creating a certain lifestyle for myself.
*I wanted to live close enough to walk to the beach and surf.
*I wanted a lot of free time so I could surf and write.
*I wanted to be able to cover all of my bills and maybe save a little.
*I did my calculations and decided that this was possible if I could work part time (even 15 hours a week) and live very very cheaply.
Does that sound too good to be true? It isn't! This is what I'm doing now.
But it took me 10 months to get the lifestyle I wanted because I started out working for Hess.
If you're interested in teaching in Taiwan than maybe you're familiar with Hess's contracts:
contract A (working just buxiban classes at night)
contract B (working kindy and buxiban)
and contract C (working full time kindy, starting at 8:30 am and ending at 4:00pm, with a break from 1130 to 2 while the kids nap.)
I decided that Contract C would be best for me, because I thought I'd surf in the morning before work, then on the long break (2 and a half hours) I'd write or study Chinese. Then I thought I'd go home around 4:30 and have the rest of the evening to write, study chinese, maybe fit in an evening surf, etc.
Now there are some experienced teachers out there who are reading this and laughing. What about lesson planning? Grading homework? Correcting tests?
And people who've taught children in Taiwan are probably laughing even harder. What about communication books? Performances? Crafts?
And people who've taught children in Taiwan at Hess are laughing hardest of all. There's a reason for that.
I ended up working for Hess because I tested positive on a tuberculosis skin test. This happened 3 months before I moved to Taiwan. Until I got a lung xray back proving that I couldn't pass on the highly contagious disease, I wasn't allowed to work (at the time I was working with teenagers)
It meant I was out US$4000.
My original plan was to go to Taiwan and find my own job- I'd read on peoples blogs and forums that this was the best way to go. But $4000 extra dollars were key to that plan (especially because I'd be traveling with a surfboard, which can be expensive to lug around).
I realized I'd need to go to Taiwan and start a job immediately- and Hess had a 30,000 nt interest free start up loan (about $900 US).
There was a lot of negative info on Hess in forums and blogs, but I decided beggars can't be choosers and my lack of money made me a beggar. I was ready to go to Taiwan- I didn't want to wait another couple of months to save up the money. (spoiler alert! I should have stayed in the states and saved up more money and not taken the job with Hess!)
Anyways, here's why I thought I would be safe at Hess:
Hess paid by the HOUR, not salary. In my mind, this meant that I was responsible for a certain amount of hours and then I could go home. I consciously chose a company that paid by the HOUR so they couldn't take advantage of me and my extra time with out compensating me.
Hess also provides lesson plans. Their contract requires that you show up 20 (unpaid) minutes early for each class. This seemed like a lot to me (working at least 40 minutes unpaid a day- geez!!!) but I decided that was okay, and would be better than planning my own lessons which would surely take longer than 20 minutes.
Also I chose contract C, (2 kindergarten classes) for a reason- no homework, no tests, and no real hard grammar work or anything. Plus dang it I love kids and they love me!!!!
I sincerely believed that I could be a good teacher to these children and only spend the required hours at Hess. Meaning the 4 and a half hours a day I was paid for, and the 40 minutes of unpaid preparation time that I agreed to come in for.
I was wrong. I was so dead wrong. I was so, dreadfully, horribly, unforgivably, painfully wrong.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
In the Beginning.....there were emails and phonecalls.
I was reasonably sure that if I contacted Hess I would get a job with them. I had worked with children since I was 19 and I had good references. I studied Linguistics in college. I'd lived abroad before. Altogether, probably a decent candidate for them. Plus they advertised so heavily that I imagined they don't turn many people away.
I accepted the job and began the roller coaster that ended just a week ago.
My first warning sign (other than the negative feedback about Hess that I'd read on blogs, message boards, and forums) was when I received the Hess contract as an email attachment.
The things that scared me about the contract the most was the following:
-An NST is required to accept all working hours offered to him/her within the HLS working hours as outlined in the NST policy handbook.
-If the NST fails to give the required notice (when quitting) or remains in Taiwan upon leaving employment, the NST agrees to reimburse Hess the training investment fee of NT$20,0000 (about $600 US). If the NST fails to adhere to the terms of this contract or the NST policy handbook, resulting in their termination, or leaves the employment of HLS before the expiration of this contract, the NST agrees to reimburse Hess the training investment fee of NT$20,000.
Now, coming from the land of at-will employment, both of these items looked suspicious to me. I HAVE to accept any hours offered to me? If I quit, I have to pay them money?
Yikes.
Also, the contract that they wanted me to sign didn't say how many hours I would be working, or which classes I would be teaching. It didn't even say where I would be living.
I am a person who knows what I want.
I knew that I didn't want a split shift contract (where I'd be required to be at Hess at 8:30 am and my last class would end at 8:30 pm). I was aware, from years of working experience, that having several hour breaks throughout the day is not the same as having a morning or evening to yourself when you can really relax.
I wanted contract C. I knew I wanted contract C.
I went, as always, to peoples blogs and discussion boards to see if I could get some information on what the real deal is.
What I found surprised me- I didn't find complaints that people had been asked to work too MANY hours-
I found that a lot of people who'd worked in the branch that I was supposed to go to had not been getting ENOUGH hours. They'd only had about 12 hours a week and had had to move to a different branch to get enough hours.
I sent an email to my contact at Hess stating my concerns. His responses are in bold:
Also it seems that a lot of people had a tough time getting enough
hours at the Luodong branch. Do you think that there will be enough
hours for me at the kindergarten? And since the contract says 25
hours, will I get paid for 25 regardless of whether I work 25? I am
really really looking forward to teaching kindergarten and I hope that
there will be enough work in Luodong to keep me there, as I do not
want to work in Taipei or Kaohsiung. I've been reading blogs and been
in touch with a couple of people who worked for Hess in Luodong, and
mostly their reports have been good but a couple have said that they
couldn't stay in Luodong because of lack of hours.
>> That's not an issue for your contract. You will be teaching two
kindergarten classes, so you will have 25 hours each week (each class is 2.5
hours every day Mon-Fri). The issues in the past were twofold - teachers
trying to teach a full 30-hour B contract in Loudong, and classes not able
to open at the right time slots to make this happen. Your 25 hours are
guaranteed, and even if a class was to be put off (eg, all the kids called
in sick) we would have some hours for you doing something to make sure you
could get paid.
>> (FYI, we get around the "not enough for a B contract" issue by not
offering B contracts in Ilan/Loudong any more).
It's a little scary to sign a contract that doesn't guarantee where
you will be working! Especially if you have to leave the country or
pay $600 to get out of it! I know that it seems to be against company
policy to guarantee anything, but I guess I just want a little
reassurance.
>> I understand. The reason the location is not on there is because the
government details about this would all be in Chinese, and because you can
count these emails as part of the contract discussion, etc. We do take it
seriously and make sure you get what you are wanting.
>> Oh, also: don't forget, you have the first 30 days (after you finish
training) to decide if it's really for you. If not, you can give 7 days
notice you are leaving and going home, and the Training Investment Fee
doesn't apply. See the NST policy book about this.
This all sounded reasonable so I signed and scanned and sent the contract. The guy I was emailing seemed nice. He probably is. But a lot of what he told me is BS.
There's a disconnect between the recruiters, Hess main office, and your branch.
Another reason why it's nice to just go and find your own job- you can speak directly to the person in charge and see what you're really getting yourself into. At least then, if they lie to you, you know who lied to you and you can at least try to hold them responsible or ask for answers.
Anyways, I had another concern. As an avid surfer, I wanted to take my surfboard. I'd been traveling around the country saying goodbye to family and hadn't been able to surf regularly for several months. I wanted to arrive in Taiwan with my surfboard and be ready to go right when the Hess initial training was over.
It seemed unreasonable to ask my new employer to help me transport a large and unweildy piece of sporting equipment to my new home, but I figured it was worth a try. So I wrote the following message in an email:
I will probably be arriving with my surfboard. If I came a couple
of days early (as recommended to get over jet lag) could I get an
airport pick up with a vehicle capable of carrying my surfboard?
Also, would I be able to get transportation down to Lou Dong in a
vehicle that could carry my surfboard? I have a nine footer and may
bring a 6 footer as well.
About the surfboards, yes, we can arrange transport suitable for them as
well. Just remind me closer to the time, so I don't forget!
Wow- I was stoked that they seemed so willing to help out. So I did remind him a lot. He told me that a mini-bus driver would take us down to the town I'd be living in from Taipei. I sent the following message to be sure about the whole arrangement:
A couple questions- Could I get in contact with the mini-bus driver
who will be taking me from Taipei to Luodong? I want to make sure
that everything goes smoothly with my surf board.
>> It will be one of the Taiwanese branch staff - not the best for
conversations in English..... What are you concerned about? The size? If
so, let me know how long it is and I will make sure it's OK.
So I told him the size (9feet) and it seemed like everything was a go. I guessed that they often had people going between the branches and that it wouldn't be so hard to get the right vehicle to carry my surfboard. I was stoked to be dealing with such a responsive company that cared about what I wanted.
As with everything else, I should have known better....
I accepted the job and began the roller coaster that ended just a week ago.
My first warning sign (other than the negative feedback about Hess that I'd read on blogs, message boards, and forums) was when I received the Hess contract as an email attachment.
The things that scared me about the contract the most was the following:
-An NST is required to accept all working hours offered to him/her within the HLS working hours as outlined in the NST policy handbook.
-If the NST fails to give the required notice (when quitting) or remains in Taiwan upon leaving employment, the NST agrees to reimburse Hess the training investment fee of NT$20,0000 (about $600 US). If the NST fails to adhere to the terms of this contract or the NST policy handbook, resulting in their termination, or leaves the employment of HLS before the expiration of this contract, the NST agrees to reimburse Hess the training investment fee of NT$20,000.
Now, coming from the land of at-will employment, both of these items looked suspicious to me. I HAVE to accept any hours offered to me? If I quit, I have to pay them money?
Yikes.
Also, the contract that they wanted me to sign didn't say how many hours I would be working, or which classes I would be teaching. It didn't even say where I would be living.
I am a person who knows what I want.
I knew that I didn't want a split shift contract (where I'd be required to be at Hess at 8:30 am and my last class would end at 8:30 pm). I was aware, from years of working experience, that having several hour breaks throughout the day is not the same as having a morning or evening to yourself when you can really relax.
I wanted contract C. I knew I wanted contract C.
I went, as always, to peoples blogs and discussion boards to see if I could get some information on what the real deal is.
What I found surprised me- I didn't find complaints that people had been asked to work too MANY hours-
I found that a lot of people who'd worked in the branch that I was supposed to go to had not been getting ENOUGH hours. They'd only had about 12 hours a week and had had to move to a different branch to get enough hours.
I sent an email to my contact at Hess stating my concerns. His responses are in bold:
Also it seems that a lot of people had a tough time getting enough
hours at the Luodong branch. Do you think that there will be enough
hours for me at the kindergarten? And since the contract says 25
hours, will I get paid for 25 regardless of whether I work 25? I am
really really looking forward to teaching kindergarten and I hope that
there will be enough work in Luodong to keep me there, as I do not
want to work in Taipei or Kaohsiung. I've been reading blogs and been
in touch with a couple of people who worked for Hess in Luodong, and
mostly their reports have been good but a couple have said that they
couldn't stay in Luodong because of lack of hours.
>> That's not an issue for your contract. You will be teaching two
kindergarten classes, so you will have 25 hours each week (each class is 2.5
hours every day Mon-Fri). The issues in the past were twofold - teachers
trying to teach a full 30-hour B contract in Loudong, and classes not able
to open at the right time slots to make this happen. Your 25 hours are
guaranteed, and even if a class was to be put off (eg, all the kids called
in sick) we would have some hours for you doing something to make sure you
could get paid.
>> (FYI, we get around the "not enough for a B contract" issue by not
offering B contracts in Ilan/Loudong any more).
It's a little scary to sign a contract that doesn't guarantee where
you will be working! Especially if you have to leave the country or
pay $600 to get out of it! I know that it seems to be against company
policy to guarantee anything, but I guess I just want a little
reassurance.
government details about this would all be in Chinese, and because you can
count these emails as part of the contract discussion, etc. We do take it
seriously and make sure you get what you are wanting.
>> Oh, also: don't forget, you have the first 30 days (after you finish
training) to decide if it's really for you. If not, you can give 7 days
notice you are leaving and going home, and the Training Investment Fee
doesn't apply. See the NST policy book about this.
This all sounded reasonable so I signed and scanned and sent the contract. The guy I was emailing seemed nice. He probably is. But a lot of what he told me is BS.
There's a disconnect between the recruiters, Hess main office, and your branch.
Another reason why it's nice to just go and find your own job- you can speak directly to the person in charge and see what you're really getting yourself into. At least then, if they lie to you, you know who lied to you and you can at least try to hold them responsible or ask for answers.
Anyways, I had another concern. As an avid surfer, I wanted to take my surfboard. I'd been traveling around the country saying goodbye to family and hadn't been able to surf regularly for several months. I wanted to arrive in Taiwan with my surfboard and be ready to go right when the Hess initial training was over.
It seemed unreasonable to ask my new employer to help me transport a large and unweildy piece of sporting equipment to my new home, but I figured it was worth a try. So I wrote the following message in an email:
I will probably be arriving with my surfboard. If I came a couple
of days early (as recommended to get over jet lag) could I get an
airport pick up with a vehicle capable of carrying my surfboard?
Also, would I be able to get transportation down to Lou Dong in a
vehicle that could carry my surfboard? I have a nine footer and may
bring a 6 footer as well.
About the surfboards, yes, we can arrange transport suitable for them as
well. Just remind me closer to the time, so I don't forget!
Wow- I was stoked that they seemed so willing to help out. So I did remind him a lot. He told me that a mini-bus driver would take us down to the town I'd be living in from Taipei. I sent the following message to be sure about the whole arrangement:
A couple questions- Could I get in contact with the mini-bus driver
who will be taking me from Taipei to Luodong? I want to make sure
that everything goes smoothly with my surf board.
>> It will be one of the Taiwanese branch staff - not the best for
conversations in English..... What are you concerned about? The size? If
so, let me know how long it is and I will make sure it's OK.
So I told him the size (9feet) and it seemed like everything was a go. I guessed that they often had people going between the branches and that it wouldn't be so hard to get the right vehicle to carry my surfboard. I was stoked to be dealing with such a responsive company that cared about what I wanted.
As with everything else, I should have known better....
Sunday, May 3, 2009
A word on medical checks
Taiwan requires medical checks to work in their country. There's a blood test, a vision test, a chest x-ray, and some other things.
If you get the medical tests done in your home country, it will cost quite a bit of cash (especially if you don't have health insurance- mine cost 3 or $400 US), perhaps several visits and several weeks (more expensive if you order rush results), and it will be a little more in depth. Our doctors take this stuff seriously. For example, when the medical test sheet that Hess sent me asked for a 'stool sample', my doctor asked me for a stool sample, and I'm not going to tell you what that entailed.
However, if you get your medical test done in Taiwan, it's cheap (I think about $60 US)
and it takes one quick, streamlined visit- mine took maybe an hour, a far cry from what I went through to get all the paperwork done at home, and it's pretty chill. For example, when the medical test asked for an 'external genitalia examination', the doctor in Taiwan blushed and checked that box off- and my panties stayed firmly in place.
I can only conclude from this experience that it's a better deal to get your medical check done in Taiwan. I think Hess has you do it in your home country to save themselves some trouble once you get to Taiwan, and maybe to get your papers in order faster (to get your visa faster), which is a good reason, but I think saving a couple hundred bucks of your own hard earned cash is a good reason to wait, and do the damn thing once you get to Taiwan.
If you get the medical tests done in your home country, it will cost quite a bit of cash (especially if you don't have health insurance- mine cost 3 or $400 US), perhaps several visits and several weeks (more expensive if you order rush results), and it will be a little more in depth. Our doctors take this stuff seriously. For example, when the medical test sheet that Hess sent me asked for a 'stool sample', my doctor asked me for a stool sample, and I'm not going to tell you what that entailed.
However, if you get your medical test done in Taiwan, it's cheap (I think about $60 US)
and it takes one quick, streamlined visit- mine took maybe an hour, a far cry from what I went through to get all the paperwork done at home, and it's pretty chill. For example, when the medical test asked for an 'external genitalia examination', the doctor in Taiwan blushed and checked that box off- and my panties stayed firmly in place.
I can only conclude from this experience that it's a better deal to get your medical check done in Taiwan. I think Hess has you do it in your home country to save themselves some trouble once you get to Taiwan, and maybe to get your papers in order faster (to get your visa faster), which is a good reason, but I think saving a couple hundred bucks of your own hard earned cash is a good reason to wait, and do the damn thing once you get to Taiwan.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Initial Training in Taipei
This was a post that I put on my original blog about Hess initial training. It's long and strays from the point but I thought I'd put it on here.
(please note: at the time I wrote this I had been told by a co-worker that Hess employees regularly scanned the internet for bad information about Hess- since I was still in their employment, I didn't write down all of my impressions of the initial training. That's why I'll write more about initial training on the next post.)
(another note: I do think that they actually found this blog- There were comments from people in Hess main office that lead me to believe they had read it and weren't pleased.)
The Wonderful World of Hess (or C, C, cuh cuh cuh, this is a cult…)
Ah, Hess glorious Hess, that’s all that I live for…
(please note: at the time I wrote this I had been told by a co-worker that Hess employees regularly scanned the internet for bad information about Hess- since I was still in their employment, I didn't write down all of my impressions of the initial training. That's why I'll write more about initial training on the next post.)
(another note: I do think that they actually found this blog- There were comments from people in Hess main office that lead me to believe they had read it and weren't pleased.)
The Wonderful World of Hess (or C, C, cuh cuh cuh, this is a cult…)
Ah, Hess glorious Hess, that’s all that I live for…
Regardless of the kindness of individual Hess employees, I realized somewhere in the midst of my second day of training in Taipei that I may not have made the best decision. What does it take, really, to teach children a new language? Lots of exposure, to be sure, and that’s what I thought I’d be doing. Just standing up there, talking. Hangin out, you know, being fun so they’d want to communicate with me in a language I could understand. That’s all I did in Italy, I just hung out and magically the little tykes learned English, perhaps purely out of frustration that their overgrown playmate could not understand simple instructions in Italian. “Ascolta, giocare come questa. Guarda. No, guarda! Hai guardato? Fai lo stesso. Fai come me. No no no, ascolta…! Okay fine you idiot, I’ll speak English!”
yeah seriously, they learned that fast! Amazing! That’s how it is with little kids though- their brains are like tiny grey sponges. When I arrived in Italy, the six year old child I nannied for couldn’t speak a lick of English. By the time I left we were having complicated arguments about the rules and ethics of soccer (and he usually won the arguments!)
So I thought teaching here in Asia wouldn’t be much different. Boy was I wrong. I mean, there I was in Hess training, trying to learn to be a good teacher, which apparently involves chanting ludicrous statements over and over and over again with a group of similarly glazed-eyed, slack-jawed
*quick interruption- I am currently in my apartment in Luodong, Taiwan, and some sort of vehicle with a tinny speaker system attached to it is playing (I kid you not) the wedding march, and in a firm, resolute voice, a woman is addressing the world in Chinese. It is the oddest sounding thing in the world. What are they saying? Is it a political campaign? Public service announcement? Disaster warning system? This is not the first time I’ve heard this- it happens often. I just try to ignore it, and I think that eventually I will ask someone what it is later but I always forget, because by the time I run into someone who speaks both English and Chinese, so many other weird and random things have happened that I want to ask about that I forget all about the wedding march and the resolute Chinese woman. But why the wedding march?
Another word about Chinese, the language. I don’t know if it is the tones or the sounds or the way it is spoken, but something about spoken Chinese invokes an acute emotional response in me- I begin to feel anxious. I never felt that way about Italian, or Hawaiian (rather, Hawaiian, spoken by someone who knows how to speak it is like being sung to sleep by a choir of heavenly angels.) Chinese is kind of like the red-headed step child of the language world- spirited, mischievous, and altogether terrifying.
Back to Hess – so yes there I was, chanting like an imbecile in a room full of other chanter’s, yodeling asinine statements over and over like one of those mechanized children’s toys.
“A, A, ah ah ah, this is an apple, B, B, buh buh buh, this is a ball. C, C, cuh cuh cuh…”
While we say this in unison, over and over and over again, a wildly effusive Hess trainer is standing before us, waving her arms, hair flying in every direction like medusa’s snakes, doing actions. For A she throws her hands up like the village people, for apple she holds her hand out as if holding an apple, for B she’s doing jumping jacks so limber that they would make a cheerleader grimace, for ball she’s throwing and catching an imaginary ball with such enthusiasm, such vigor, such joy of life that I’m almost embarrassed to be in the same room with her. And we’re supposed to mimic her! It would have been weird enough already, but we were also competing with the other trainees for points with the promise of a grand prize at the end. The thing is, I do get a little competitive sometimes, and this ‘competition’ had exactly the desired effect on me. I was very nearly standing on my chair, waving my hands menacingly at my fellow trainees.
“I CAN CHANT B, B BUH BUH BUH THIS IS A BALL BETTER THAN ALL Y’ALL, MOTHER #%$@*%$!!!!”
Now I realize that our trainers were trying to train us in the manner that they wanted us to teach the children- meaning lots of enthusiasm, repitition, actions, visuals, games, competitions and headache inducing madness. But was it ever enough for them? No! Was it really necessary for them to turn our brains into mushy balls of slop? NO! And does anybody in their right mind willingly sign up for 10 days straight of this nauseating lunacy? NOOOOO! And yet, there I was.
I think one of my fellow trainees hit it right on the head when, cradling a cheap bottle of Taiwanese beer woefully in her white-knuckled grip, eyes glowing dully with a hint of neurosis, she said, “I think we’ve joined a cult.”
Yes, I think we have.
Which brings me to another, loosely related, possibly boring and not worth your time, philosophical rant…
Sometimes I wonder how people muster up insane amounts of enthusiasm for their jobs. I mean, these Hess trainers for example. When they’re not up in front of the training room, ensuring group stupidity, they seemed like cool people. The kind of person you’d meet at a party or a club and go ha cool person, I’d hang out with them again. They’re normal, nice, even good-looking. Right? You’d never guess that they spent a vast majority of their waking hours screaming “B, B, this is a ball….OOooooooh. Nice. Job. Team. Eeeeelehhhhven. I. see. Your. Good. Actions. You. Have. Earned. A. point!”
(It is hard, in print, to mimic the way they talk. Let’s just say they enunciate to the point that you almost cannot understand them because it’s. such. An. Unnatural. Way. Of. speaking.)
These people are enthusiastic. And it doesn’t seem to matter that they’ve got an English speaking, adult audience right in front of them. They still talked to us as if we were Taiwanese 6 (or possibly 2) year olds. They’re that passionate about their work.
Or are they? Did I fail to notice a firing squad in the back of the room? Would they have been shot if they stopped behaving like maniacal clowns?
Or are they just being paid so well by Hess that they can justify this sort of behavior?
I remember one of my first jobs. I was 17 years old and I was a technician at a lazer tag place. All in all, a super fun job. My friends and I would throw on our own music and dance in the black lights as midgets ran around us shooting each other with plastic guns while wearing electronic vests. Definitely fun.
But nobody at the lazer tag place could understand why I worked so hard during my downtime. Even my managers asked me to calm it down because I was making them look bad. When it was slow, I would go clean something, and not just ‘clean’ it, I would super deep clean whatever it was to the point that it was shining. My co-workers would ask me, “why are you doing that? You’re only making $5.75 an hour.”
And I would respond, “I heard once that if you want to make a million dollars an hour, you should work as if you’re already making that much money. I want to make more money.”
So yeah I was a bit of a show off but who’d have thought it, a couple months down the road I asked for a raise and went from $5.75 an hour to $10 an hour. I was making more than some of my managers!
Anyways though, I ask myself now, where is that sprightly, eager little 17 year old with good work ethic? Did she just up and leave? How is it that I ended up with her body? How come my work ethic now doesn’t compare favorably with that of a slug? Why is it that now, if I can get away with doing less at work, I’ll do less, in fact I’ll do the bare minimum of what I can get away with in order to keep a job…? What happened to me?
I think the change occurred somewhere during that crazy year and a half when I was working 60 hours a week and going to school full time, averaging 3 hours of sleep a night. Somewhere along the line I realized that working so much made me stressed and when I was stressed I hated life and spent a lot of money – which just about brought me back to a middle ground. What is success in life? Is it accomplishing a lot of things, or being happy? Is there a happy medium?
I thought I would be okay with this whole teaching thing cause I really love little kids. as it turns out, I love entertaining the little tykes and making sure they are happy and safe, I don’t give a crap if Taiwanese kids learn English! Seriously! I think they might be better off if they didn’t learn it. If I had my choice, I’d say, ‘let’s go take a walk in the woods, kids, why don’t you stare at a tree for a while and decide to become an artist. Success and money really aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.’ Or better yet, ‘children, it’s high time you paid some serious attention to the wonderful world of surfing. Now paddle, paddle paddle good stand up. Excellent work. Let’s all get some ice cream.’
But hippy guidance counselor isn’t really in my job description, is it? Oh how I wish it were.
Just to bring this around to Hess, let me say that my co-worker spends about 12 hours at the school and only gets paid for 6 of them, at best. It really takes that much time to plan and understand the lessons, and she still feels like she’s behind. I, on the other hand, come an hour or two early. With the exception of my kindy class, my lessons suck. I think I’m naturally good at Kindy. I want to be a good teacher, but am I willing to put 6 hours of unpaid time in every day?
The answer is no. I am not.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Initial training part 2
So I arrived in Taipei and there was a van waiting for me at the airport- a van big enough for my surfboard. So far, so good. I was stoked- incredibly excited to be out of the states and into Taiwan.
Hess had us hooked up in a reasonably nice hotel called The Golden China for the training. They even paid for our accommodations. Awesome.
Training took place at Hess main office, a couple of blocks away from the hotel. The first day of 'training' was a tour of Taipei- they took us to some monuments and temples. I'm not a big fan of guided tours, but it was pretty awesome anyways.
It was on the second day that I started to have my doubts.
Let me be clear about this- it is great that Hess has training. And I still use some of the things I learned there to this day in my teaching. If you come to Taiwan and find your own job, you will probably just observe a couple of classes and this will be your 'training'.
Hess shows proven games to play in class, classroom management ideas, etc.
That said, good god. They do treat you like two year olds through out the training.
Fine- I could handle that, it just meant that I spent all of the breaks in the bathroom gazing forlornly out the window. I'm a person who enjoys some good quiet alone time- there wasn't much of that for 10 days.
My second big issue was the amount of information. There are people more talented than me with better attention spans- and even they probably checked out mentally after a couple of days. It was just so much information, with no real-world application at that point.
(I find that the same problem applies to the lesson plans that Hess students learn- It goes like this- they present a new learning concept, play a game to practice it, and then move on to something else, but there's no real way to link the new thing you learned to the real world, or any way to see how or why it's important. Then they rush on to teach you something new. At the end of it, they give you a test on what you've learned- but right before the test, they basically give you all of the answers, so only an idiot could fail the test. Then they've covered all of their bases- to the parents, they can say 'look, they know the information, they passed the test'
That's why you can walk up to a star Hess student, who's been doing Hess Language School for 3 or 4 years, and say "Hey, what did you do today?" and you will generally be met with a blank stare.)
Here is my excuse for not paying the best attention in training- I had been assured that I was only teaching kindergarten, right? So if they were talking about kindergarten, I paid attention. But when they started talking about the other classes (and there are a lot of them) I was light years away circling the universe.
I might be a little adhd, but I got straight A's in my final year and a half of university. It's not like I'm retarded. It was just a LOT of information. And the games and the mindless chanting! Agggggghhhhhh! There were forty of us- I felt like we were sheep or cattle or something.
A couple of days into the training there were also...crap I can't remember what they called them, but they were basically teaching demonstrations. Maybe it was the way they were introduced or something, but I remember we were all incredibly stressed.
This was the first look I got at a Hess lesson plan. All I remember thinking was "HOLY FREAKING CRAP I am so glad I'm only teaching kindergarten!!!!"
More on the lesson plans later.
It took us trainees the better part of one night to plan the lessons, and everyone seemed nervous but we probably shouldn't have been. By the end of the training only 3 or 4 people had been 'dismissed'.
Speaking of being dismissed- one day I was walking between Hess main office and the hotel and a guy pulled me aside- a foreigner like myself- and he was obviously agitated. He was difficult to understand but I thought he was saying something about how my country had messed with his visa. I think I said something like "Hey man I know a lot of people hate what America is doing in the world but you've got to know how to separate the governments actions from the people's." or something like that. (I think a lot of experienced American travelers have an argument like this at the tip of their tongue. Turns out you don't need it in Taiwan. Most Taiwanese people seem to love America and Americans- probably partially because America is in a large way responsible for Taiwans continued independent existence- through providing arms and support against China. But that's a subject for a different discussion.)
Turns out the guy was saying my 'company' had messed with his visa- he was a trainee who had been dismissed from the previous training.
There were only a few people dismissed from training, but in my estimation, a few is too many. These people had spent hundreds of dollars on health checks, visa stuff, and plane tickets, and would now either have to go back home, or start the whole visa process over again with a different company. I think it goes back to a disconnect between the recruitment department of Hess and the actual schools themselves. I'm not sure how much the recruiters make per person, but I'm going to guess it's a fair amount and they probably sometimes send people they have doubts about- you know, you fling enough stuff at a wall, some of it's going to stick.
Anyways, my teaching demonstration went by with out much of a problem. It seemed like everyone got three positive and three negative comments, and most people got scores in the mid range.
I found out later that the trainers were also rating us on our performance every day and writing comments about us- and these papers would be sent to our branch. Not a huge deal, but it still struck me as a little weird.
Hess had us hooked up in a reasonably nice hotel called The Golden China for the training. They even paid for our accommodations. Awesome.
Training took place at Hess main office, a couple of blocks away from the hotel. The first day of 'training' was a tour of Taipei- they took us to some monuments and temples. I'm not a big fan of guided tours, but it was pretty awesome anyways.
It was on the second day that I started to have my doubts.
Let me be clear about this- it is great that Hess has training. And I still use some of the things I learned there to this day in my teaching. If you come to Taiwan and find your own job, you will probably just observe a couple of classes and this will be your 'training'.
Hess shows proven games to play in class, classroom management ideas, etc.
That said, good god. They do treat you like two year olds through out the training.
Fine- I could handle that, it just meant that I spent all of the breaks in the bathroom gazing forlornly out the window. I'm a person who enjoys some good quiet alone time- there wasn't much of that for 10 days.
My second big issue was the amount of information. There are people more talented than me with better attention spans- and even they probably checked out mentally after a couple of days. It was just so much information, with no real-world application at that point.
(I find that the same problem applies to the lesson plans that Hess students learn- It goes like this- they present a new learning concept, play a game to practice it, and then move on to something else, but there's no real way to link the new thing you learned to the real world, or any way to see how or why it's important. Then they rush on to teach you something new. At the end of it, they give you a test on what you've learned- but right before the test, they basically give you all of the answers, so only an idiot could fail the test. Then they've covered all of their bases- to the parents, they can say 'look, they know the information, they passed the test'
That's why you can walk up to a star Hess student, who's been doing Hess Language School for 3 or 4 years, and say "Hey, what did you do today?" and you will generally be met with a blank stare.)
Here is my excuse for not paying the best attention in training- I had been assured that I was only teaching kindergarten, right? So if they were talking about kindergarten, I paid attention. But when they started talking about the other classes (and there are a lot of them) I was light years away circling the universe.
I might be a little adhd, but I got straight A's in my final year and a half of university. It's not like I'm retarded. It was just a LOT of information. And the games and the mindless chanting! Agggggghhhhhh! There were forty of us- I felt like we were sheep or cattle or something.
A couple of days into the training there were also...crap I can't remember what they called them, but they were basically teaching demonstrations. Maybe it was the way they were introduced or something, but I remember we were all incredibly stressed.
This was the first look I got at a Hess lesson plan. All I remember thinking was "HOLY FREAKING CRAP I am so glad I'm only teaching kindergarten!!!!"
More on the lesson plans later.
It took us trainees the better part of one night to plan the lessons, and everyone seemed nervous but we probably shouldn't have been. By the end of the training only 3 or 4 people had been 'dismissed'.
Speaking of being dismissed- one day I was walking between Hess main office and the hotel and a guy pulled me aside- a foreigner like myself- and he was obviously agitated. He was difficult to understand but I thought he was saying something about how my country had messed with his visa. I think I said something like "Hey man I know a lot of people hate what America is doing in the world but you've got to know how to separate the governments actions from the people's." or something like that. (I think a lot of experienced American travelers have an argument like this at the tip of their tongue. Turns out you don't need it in Taiwan. Most Taiwanese people seem to love America and Americans- probably partially because America is in a large way responsible for Taiwans continued independent existence- through providing arms and support against China. But that's a subject for a different discussion.)
Turns out the guy was saying my 'company' had messed with his visa- he was a trainee who had been dismissed from the previous training.
There were only a few people dismissed from training, but in my estimation, a few is too many. These people had spent hundreds of dollars on health checks, visa stuff, and plane tickets, and would now either have to go back home, or start the whole visa process over again with a different company. I think it goes back to a disconnect between the recruitment department of Hess and the actual schools themselves. I'm not sure how much the recruiters make per person, but I'm going to guess it's a fair amount and they probably sometimes send people they have doubts about- you know, you fling enough stuff at a wall, some of it's going to stick.
Anyways, my teaching demonstration went by with out much of a problem. It seemed like everyone got three positive and three negative comments, and most people got scores in the mid range.
I found out later that the trainers were also rating us on our performance every day and writing comments about us- and these papers would be sent to our branch. Not a huge deal, but it still struck me as a little weird.
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