I just registered for my final master's course... again. I've taken three consecutive terms off due mostly to logistical problems that arose in Canada with taking online courses. I did one while living with brother Rob and Sis-in-law Terri, and one while staying at sister Jenn and brother-in-law Marty's, but that was it. So of the four countries in which I've done courses in my international M.Ed., I'm back in the one where it has proven to be most doable. I reckon I'd better be because this capstone course has so far proven to be anything BUT doable in itself. Here's the description: "Students will conduct the planned data collection..." okay stop right there. This is just one of the problems I had when I did the first week of this "capstone" course last winter. Do we plan the data collection or do we actually conduct it? The teacher I had didn't seem to be able to distinguish the difference. It continues... "and analysis activities contained in their applied research proposal and prepare a capstone project consisting of a deliverable..." and they've had to parenthetically decipher this term because nobody who attempted this monstrosity, again, including the professor, could define it or even why it had to be ciphered in the first place. My guess is that old two meanings of "academic" again. Let's complixify, obfuscate, and confuse in order to appear more "academic" or "sophisticated." The term "deliverable" proved to be highly academic since it was a practical irrelevance. "(a curriculum product or curriculum management plan) and a rationale..." again this needs to be parenthetically un-academified ... (a final written report that describes and interprets the results of their research)."
Here's the problem, the rub, the built-in absurdity of this exercise in futility that makes a monster of a mere academic activity: because of liability infringement and ACTUAL data collection meeting with issues of intellectual property, the university has had to alter this program to one of secondary research. That is, the student will find OTHER people's research that was done after meeting the complicated conditions that infringe no laws or personal rights and freedoms of the school, students, or parents thereof, and ACT as though it is their own. Again, during my first crack at this enigma, this led to confusion over exactly what we had to fabricate and what had to be genuine. For instance, I had to come up with the name of a school and a principal of that school and create two phony letters, one asking for the school's permission to conduct my research, and one granting it. I made up the name "Terry Fox High School." It turned out that there IS a Terry Fox High School so I couldn't use the name because it was too real. Then there were things that the professor at first called "amazing" and later told me were not real enough. You can imagine the frustration.
It is my opinion that they wanted research projects to be published in order to give the school more credibility in their search for regional accreditation. Students have been trying to write these fake research projects for a few terms now and the school has since achieved regional accreditation from the same accreditation body as Berkeley and Stanford. So why can't we just write normal thesises? Thesi? Theses. Third time's the charm. What a brilliant illustration of academia we have right there!
The school wants us, like every course wanted us, to include in our theses how studying at the University of the People has broadened our educational philosophies and "informed our pedagogies." So they want us to incorporate some of the learning we've encountered along the way into these, our capstone courses. Fine and dandy! Let's do THAT! I'll write about things I enjoyed about my studies till now. Why in the name of Paulo Freire do we have to engage in this academic chicanery? It makes no kind of sense at all! It almost makes me, and plenty of the other students, want to quit after three years of study and achieving A's in every course. I REALLY don't want to do this! While writing a proper thesis would be enjoyable, this ersatz research project will be the exact opposite of enjoyment for me. Had I known this bogey was what was waiting at the end of this academic rainbow, I seriously wouldn't have embarked on this pot of gold Wipeout obstacle course! And that this abortion of proper education need be spawned while concurrently teaching full time makes it all the less appealing.
But I gotta finish, right? After all the time and money invested... even though the "almost master's" helped get me the job I currently have. Anyhoo, attempt number 2 is due to begin Sept. 3, brother Rob's birthday. That will be roughly the start of my second semester of teaching here in Korea as well. Maybe exactly. Not sure. I'm also not sure if the wifi in the dorms where I live will be good enough. Unbelievably, here in Korea, the most wired country in the world, we have shitty connectivity. This caused problems in Canada with Perrla, the online program through which I write my papers and store my research. When I was using a phone hotspot at my Mom's place because she had no internet Perrla did not work. I PAY for this service and somehow ALL of my stored books, research papers, studies, and information I need to incorporate into my capstone bullshit research project disappeared. They were gone like Kaiser Sosay. Pffft! I'm hoping that just had something to do with the slow internet I got with the phone hotspot, but I'm also not sure about that. Suffice to say I am expecting this final course to be a long and arduous journey of pedantic, electronic, and academic woe. But with an attitude like that I can only be pleasantly surprised, right?
Check this out. Scroll down till you see my face and read. We're not opposed to fracturing a few facts up in this bitch.
I've let this post die on the vine. Sour like damp clothes forgotten in the washing machine. I have other things on my mind, but, since this is MY blog and nobody's the boss of it but me, I'm just gonna continue this post as tangentially as frig. Ever write a comment on someone's Facebook post that is pure gold and you want it to be seen by more people than might view the comment? I just did that. Now that I think about it, it won't be seen by more people HERE, but I want to post it nonetheless just for posterity... to have it written down somewhere it might be stumbled across in the future. It was a comment about Trump's undoubtable inclusion in "The Epstein Files." It's hilarious that the people of the country are so invested in maintaining the self-delusion that Trump didn't support Epstein's pedophilia, or that he isn't one himself, that they have this clandestine, Ian Fleming-esque title for the whole affair. James Bond's newest adventure, The Epstein Files! But Trump isn't Bond, he's Blowfeld. (intentional misspelling) Anyways, here's the comment:
In my opinion, to a lot of people wealthy enough that they can DO anything, life loses its luster. They tire of humdrum pastimes that have been done by people who are not as extraordinary as they believe themselves to be. They begin to seek out activities that their wealth allows them to GET AWAY WITH. Trump is not the problem. He's a highly visible symptom of the money sickness that is the problem with the American culture. The first step in solving this problem is admitting it exists and Americans are socialized to believe their country is unbroken. Empire destroying hubris. It's a symptom not unique to Pedo Pumpkinhead.
Pedo Pumkinhead. lol I don't know if anyone else has used this moniker for His Orangeness but I believe I invented it. I hadn't heard it before my fingers typed it this morning. Go ahead and use it if you want.
So now it's a long weekend in Korea. We all were told we needed to submit grades, attendance, and report cards.... TODAY. But after giving his head a shake, our BALLI BALLI leader Absi decided there's no reason to ask for all that BEFORE THE SEMESTER IS OVER. We still have to teach one more class Monday! So he graciously gave us the weekend to do all that. We're STILL gonna submit all that stuff before the semester is over, but at least we get the weekend. Truth be told, I was gonna do it all this weekend anyway. I have an appointment in Seoul August 20 with Amber to do a quiz night in Hae Bang Chon. I will NOT be missing that! Plus I have to buy shirts, food, glasses, insulin, and a few other things I just can't get in Sokcho. I'm not gonna say Sokcho is a hole just yet. Maybe I'm just not finding the good places to shop. But if my ten trips to the bank before I could get an account here are any indication, I'm in the fuckin sticks folks. Gangneung was a cosmopolitan metropolis compared to this backwoods berg, as far as I can tell.
But we're off for the long weekend. And so are the students I teach. They've been okay, but highly unmotivated and whiney to be honest. I even taught them the Korean phrase, Jing Jing Daejima. It means don't whine. But they still whine. It's hard for me to submit to their (FREQUENT) requests to mark them present when they're absent, but this school makes them do all sorts of shit, like banking, immigration, visa gymnastics, that even I, a grizzled veteran of Korea have an absolute ball-breaker of a time trying to accomplish. And they always have deadlines. Plus they have my classes, other classes, Korean classes, and (none of them have) jobs. I totally relate to them! Sept. 3 I start a part time job too studying my final class of my master's. Not to mention that I am in the same dorms as them and the air con is shyte at the best of times. So I really WANT to mark them present when they are absent, but according to Korean visa laws I can't. In fact I am in danger of being considered an enabler or abettor or co-conspirator if I contribute to their voluntary breach of student visa laws. I could even be punished. Fined. Deported even!
Today my student Prakash, who has sauntered into class late on most days without a care in the world, suddenly needs no more than 1 absent to get his scholarship. I have erased several of his lates and VERY lates. He knows he's received more clemency than he deserves because I'm sensitive to the student plight here. Now he wants to push it more. He even sent me an email. I know if I consent to this casual class attender and give him his 1 absent in a term when he should have at least half a dozen, I'll just be opening the floodgates. I'll be making the next semester harder for myself AND all the other teachers. But the scholarship is significant! Like sometimes 70 or even 100% tuition paid! This kid is from Bangladesh or Nepal (not sure which). He's not from a rich country although I think he's rich in his country, which causes this entitled behaviour. I'm in a quandary.
And this is just ONE kid. It's the hardest place I've ever taught by a long shot already! It seems like every kid, and they ARE kids, has their own special set of circumstances that I could be a hardass about or sensitive to. I've been lecturing more than I like to just to get these kids to an understanding that they are here, it sucks, but rather than bitch about it, it would do them a world of good to embrace the suck and come out with a higher degree that they couldn't hope for in their countries. I can't be too sensitive or they take advantage (like kids if you give them an inch they'll take a mile), but I can't be too tough on them cuz they're trying very hard to do something that will earn them the approval of untold relatives, friends, and maybe themselves. I don't know them well enough yet, and probably never will, to be privy to THOSE deets.
The three teachers have decided that we will be pretty forgiving, even though it is an absurd chance to take for kids we hardly know, shouldering the culpability, and the possibility of punishment as severe as deportation, for their absence when we're positive they just shut the alarm off and turned over for another hour of sleep. But in their situations it is probably the right thing to do. We just have to find a way to keep up our strict exteriors and not let on that we're just powerless softies underneath. I haven't had kids but I've suffered plenty of the whips and scorns of parenthood!
I need scotch. This weekend when I'm finalizing grades and attendance for these truant students I think the best thing I can do is take a stiff belt and fudge the totals so they'll qualify for their scholarships. Despite the fact that few of them have. Due, of course, to circumstances that I dare not share......
What the hell? I'll do it all for Liberation Day. That's what August 15th is in Korea. I'm pretty sure it's the day they were delivered from Japanese rule. In a way I'll be liberating my students. ha ha ha. Even though I'm pretty sure some, or maybe most of them have just been lazy. I have some students who come to every class, even on time, and they have the same circumstances as the ones I might be playing Santa Claus to. There is NOTHING, I mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING I hate more than rewarding the bad students while penalizing the good ones.
I'm sure somewhere in the bowels of this blog you can find this story but I'll tell it again because it comes to bear. I once taught at a college in Yangju called Seojeong College. There they hired me without sharing the most important factoid that they obviously wanted to hide because they needed an honest person who would balk at the job if they were aware of this factoid. I, in fact, worked an entire semester at this "school" before I became aware of this undisclosed factoid. You see there was a 70% minimum grade at Seojeong College. I had a few students who had never come to class that I was being told at grading time to bestow upon their goldbricking, greazy hides a 70% grade. I would not be able to pick them out of a line of murder suspects, but I was being ordered to give them 70%. This, I looked up in the academic laws of Korea, was compulsory academic fraud. I seriously DID look it up and not only are we supposed to disobey employers to demand or even suggest we commit academic fraud such as this, we are OBLIGATED to report them to the authorities. So I was in a quandary then too. Report them - lose job. Sign falsified grades - lose academic integrity.
What would you have done? I said screw you, screw you, screw him, screw her, I'm not doing this. So they sent a barrage of people who fancied themselves to be superior negotiators, each with their own transparent and deceitful plans to get me to comply. I batted them away like mosquitos at a Korean summer barbecue. Finally the guy who I had dealt with most, my translator, the man who I could not have survived at Seojeong without was given money and told to take me out to an expensive dinner. There we talked and he said what all the other suitors had tried to ply me with. Sign the grades please. I gave him the two options I gave everyone else: You doctored my grades to give everyone 70% or more, you sign them, I won't. Option two: I'll sign the REAL grades.
I don't think I need to explain but I will. You see, all the good students' grades were NOT doctored. They stayed as what they had earned doing the weeks and weeks of work that I had assigned them. The only grades that were altered were those of the people who hadn't put forth sufficient effort, hadn't had sufficient intelligence, or hadn't attended class at all. In short reward the shit students and PENALIZE the good ones. The exact opposite of academic integrity. What kind of teacher would I be to agree to such a travesty?
But my cohort, I'll be damned if I can remember his name all these years hence but he was a nice guy, said, "Okay, the school has just paid for us to eat a nice steak and shrimp dinner. Please sign the fake grades. You don't need to use you actual signature." So I signed "Homer Simpson" and lo and behold, the grades went through! I quit that job after my one-year contract was up and after signing "Homer Simpson" to 4 semesters of doctored grades. His was the signature that I had to use to form a successful marriage between me and Seojeong College I guess you could say.
Try explaining THAT at the interview for your next job when they ask you why you quit your previous job. I have been put in similar positions more times than I want to think about here in Korea, yet, it's still the best place I've ever worked.
So anyways, long story short (TOO LATE) I don't think it'll be my largest accosting of my little angels of integrity and honesty that I have okayed with my little devils. You know the ones that sit on our shoulders. We've all had to choose between one or the other on many occasions. Suffice to say the thought of progressing toward something better (and maybe more honest) has hastened my reluctant support of the devil on my shoulder this time. Me and my shoulder angel talked about it and agreed that down the road we'd probably be kicking the devil's arse. We're losing the battle but winning the war.
Ever wonder why I drink? Ever wonder if I was drunk while writing the blog post you're reading? Right now? Yes. But I earned it.
And, at long last, I have completed this post!
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