Quitting our Jobs and Leaving the Country

"I'm quitting in pursuit of not working here"- Unkown

We have made the decision to give our two months’ notice at American Eagle Institute here in Yangmei, Taiwan. 

We are also going to return to the USA in May and with our time running up at the school we work at I decided to write in more detail about what it has been like working at American Eagle Institute in Yangmei, Taiwan. With that said this blog is also a cautionary tale to anybody is coming to this school for employment.

Monica Behind the desk

The Management

 Adrien and I combined have worked at many private schools in Korea, Russia, and France.

We both agree that the directors at our school are unlike any other managers or directors we have worked with in the past.   

The English names of the management at our school are Monica, Co Co and Sean. One of the most frustrating things about working here is they have very poor communication skills. That doesn't mean they don't speak English but rather you can't really understand what they're saying sometimes. More specifically Monica and Co Co really don’t have the ability to communicate clearly to us.

The stinginess

Another thing that we've dealt with at the school is a level of stinginess. During winter camp we were given materials teach and a lot of the materials detailed activities that required some arts and crafts supplies. When we asked to get some supplies that are bosses told us that the parents don't know what’s in the manual so don't do these activities.  We had a lot of time and a lot of activities that would have made the experience much better for the kids but we had to skip over these because they were not willing to buy some glue and color pencils. Adrien did end up buying colored pencils for her kids.

During this was a camp and we were expected to do a lot of physical activities but when we asked for any equipment such as balls or ropes and they didn't give us any. We ended up looking all around the school ourselves to see what we could come up with which wasn't much. At other schools if they're doing any type of classes with physical activities such as PE or Winter camps normally they would provide a lot of mats, balls, and many other things that we can use for those activities but not here.

Even before the camp we asked for was a board markers and erasers because all the erasers were falling apart and stained with board marker ink and the markers were out of ink. We asked for these things that were pretty necessarily for daily lessons and it took those about two months to get these to us. The only reason they did give us these things was because they thought they were giving us some type of reward for teaching  beyond expectations.

Also during the winter, and Winter Camp especially, the classrooms and office were unbearably cold. Nothing below freezing, but with the humid cold air and the lack of any heating, it certainly felt close to freezing. The management had a heater for themselves that they turned off when we came back into the office. Nothing for the kids.

Never knowing what will happen next

Working at the school you never know what's going to happen. Here the teachers are the last people to know if we're going to have a class for an extra activity. We specifically asked to be notified about these things so we can prepare but they've never changed and let us know about these things most of the time we have to find out from the students at the school if we have to teach an extra class.

Desk warming

Our working hours schedule would be from 12:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Sometimes we have a lot of work to do and sometimes we don’t but we always had to be desk warming no matter what. I'm pretty sure this was just to show the parents that they had foreign teacher’s present but I also think it was more of a cultural hierarchy that is present in the workplace in Taiwan. The management wants to know that they're in control and that you're following their orders. This is the types of things that make them happy but is not so pleasant being submissive all the time.

Extreme Disciplinary Standards

Another thing that we found out after we came to the school is the amount replacement teachers that they went through. We were informed by another teacher that they had 12 different teachers that came and left in three months. We even experience one Canadian teacher walking out because of the very extreme disciplinary punishment that they use at the school. This happened more when we first started working here. If a kid didn't bring their homework or their folder that they needed they would get hit on the hand with a roll of paper repeatedly or a something that looks like a whip for a horse.

One day a Canadian teacher witnessed this two weeks after we arrived and he ended up telling them right then and there that it's not right and he couldn't work at a school. He walked out of the building and never came back. This made us feel very uneasy and we don't really promote or really respect these people much after this happened. It seemed very cruel and old-fashioned to us but we thought it was a cultural thing.

  

Giving Our Notice

Breaking any employer the news that you're going to quit is not always the easiest thing but as with any job that happens and we tried our best to be responsible and tell her how her bosses that we are quitting before we actually leave. In the world of ESL teaching it's very common to do something that's called a mid-night run. Basically this is when you work and you go home, pack up, and leave that night and don't tell anybody that you are leaving. This more often than not gives foreigners a bad reputation.

We decided to give them two months’ notice mainly because we thought we were doing the right thing. Everything was going pretty well but we were talking about how we would help try to find replacements and we got information that our recruiter found some replacements and we might not be able to fill those two months which are pretty important to us since we already have plane tickets back to America and we need all the money we can gets to pay for plane tickets and college loans etc. So again there is more tension between us and our bosses. If anything happens there are legal services in Taiwan for foreigners and if you give notice the employer doesn't have the right to change the contract so we are just waiting to see what happens. There are a lot of unknowns in the school but just a warning to everybody that wants to work at American Eagle in Yangmei, it's been strange time working at this place and wouldn't necessarily recommend it to any foreign workers that are coming to Taiwan.