Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Sister school of Gwangju Foreign school closed
Robert Holley had two schools, but his school in Chinju has closed. The staff of the school are now working at the Gwangju foreign school, and some of the students have transferred to Gwangju as well.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Gulu Walk
The Gulu walk is a community event to show how children in Uganda moved en mass to another country at night to avoid being conscripted into a children's army. A former teacher at this Gwangju Foreign school organized the first walk in this country several years ago, and he has left quite a legacy. I'm sure this event could expand if consistant effort is put into it every year.
There is a video on youtube called comastate showing what the students did at the end of their first gulu walk.
The walk is becoming an International event, and has spread from Canada where the idea originated.
I'm sure a lot of good causes could get marches and community support if a few individuals were willing to do a little ground work the way the individuals did for the Gulu Walk.
All it needs now is a catchy song to go with it.
There is a video on youtube called comastate showing what the students did at the end of their first gulu walk.
The walk is becoming an International event, and has spread from Canada where the idea originated.
I'm sure a lot of good causes could get marches and community support if a few individuals were willing to do a little ground work the way the individuals did for the Gulu Walk.
All it needs now is a catchy song to go with it.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Bungling Lawyers (probably similar to Robert Holley)
The below excerpts appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune. They were taken from real court records.
Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, in most cases he just passes quietly away and doesn't know anything about it until the next morning?
Q: What happened then ?
A: He told me, he says, "I have to kill you because you can identify me."
Q: Did he kill you?
Was it you or your brother that was killed in the war?
The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?
Q: She had three children, right?
A: Yes.
Q: How many were boys?
A: None.
Q: Were there any girls?
Were you alone or by yourself?
Q: I show you Exhibit 3 and ask you if you recognize that picture?
A: That's me.
Q: Were you present when that picture was taken?
Were you present in court this morning when you were sworn in?
Q: You say that the stairs went down to the basement?
A: Yes.
Q: And these stairs, did they go up also?
Q: Now then, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated?
A: By death.
Q: And by whose death was it terminated?
Q: Do you know how far pregnant you are now?
A: I'll be three months on March 12th.
Q: Apparently then, the date of conception was around January 12th?
A: Yes.
Q: What were you doing at that time?
Do you have any children or anything of that kind?
Was that the same nose you broke as a child?
Q: Mrs. Jones, do you believe you are emotionally stable?
A: I used to be.
Q: How many times have you committed suicide?
So, you were gone until you returned?
You don't know what it was, and you didn't know what it looked like, but can you describe it?
Q: Have you lived in this town all your life?
A: Not yet.
A Texas attorney, realizing he was on the verge of unleashing a stupid question, interrupted himself and said, "Your Honor, I'd like to strike the next question."
Q: Do you recall approximately the time that you examined that body of Mr. Huntington at St. Mary's Hospital?
A: It was in the evening. The autopsy started about 5:30 P.M.
Q: And Mr. Huntington was dead at the time, is that correct?
A: No, you idiot, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was performing an autopsy on him!
I'd say all the lawyers involved in the above sessions were members of the West Virginia Bar Association
Another Lawyer Joke
Some last minute requests
A man woke up in a hospital bed and called for his doctor (doctor Lynn). He asked, "Give it to me straight. How long have I got?" The physician replied that he doubted that the man would survive the night. The man then said, "Call for my lawyer"(Mr Holley). When the lawyer arrived, the man asked for his physician to stand on one side of the bed, while the lawyer stood on the other. The man then laid back and closed his eyes. When he remained silent for several minutes, the physician asked what he had in mind. The man replied "Jesus died with a thief on either side. I just thought I'd check out the same way."
All lawyers should be told that they can't take their money to heaven. They should be reminded of this constantly. In the case of Mr Holley, he should realize that a good way to use his extra money to insure reaching the pearly gates, would be to distribute it amongs't the teachers so that their salaries more better reflect the amount of work they do. The angels in heaven would, I am sure, look down smiling, and be quick to pass the word on to St Peter.
Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, in most cases he just passes quietly away and doesn't know anything about it until the next morning?
Q: What happened then ?
A: He told me, he says, "I have to kill you because you can identify me."
Q: Did he kill you?
Was it you or your brother that was killed in the war?
The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?
Q: She had three children, right?
A: Yes.
Q: How many were boys?
A: None.
Q: Were there any girls?
Were you alone or by yourself?
Q: I show you Exhibit 3 and ask you if you recognize that picture?
A: That's me.
Q: Were you present when that picture was taken?
Were you present in court this morning when you were sworn in?
Q: You say that the stairs went down to the basement?
A: Yes.
Q: And these stairs, did they go up also?
Q: Now then, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated?
A: By death.
Q: And by whose death was it terminated?
Q: Do you know how far pregnant you are now?
A: I'll be three months on March 12th.
Q: Apparently then, the date of conception was around January 12th?
A: Yes.
Q: What were you doing at that time?
Do you have any children or anything of that kind?
Was that the same nose you broke as a child?
Q: Mrs. Jones, do you believe you are emotionally stable?
A: I used to be.
Q: How many times have you committed suicide?
So, you were gone until you returned?
You don't know what it was, and you didn't know what it looked like, but can you describe it?
Q: Have you lived in this town all your life?
A: Not yet.
A Texas attorney, realizing he was on the verge of unleashing a stupid question, interrupted himself and said, "Your Honor, I'd like to strike the next question."
Q: Do you recall approximately the time that you examined that body of Mr. Huntington at St. Mary's Hospital?
A: It was in the evening. The autopsy started about 5:30 P.M.
Q: And Mr. Huntington was dead at the time, is that correct?
A: No, you idiot, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was performing an autopsy on him!
I'd say all the lawyers involved in the above sessions were members of the West Virginia Bar Association
Another Lawyer Joke
Some last minute requests
A man woke up in a hospital bed and called for his doctor (doctor Lynn). He asked, "Give it to me straight. How long have I got?" The physician replied that he doubted that the man would survive the night. The man then said, "Call for my lawyer"(Mr Holley). When the lawyer arrived, the man asked for his physician to stand on one side of the bed, while the lawyer stood on the other. The man then laid back and closed his eyes. When he remained silent for several minutes, the physician asked what he had in mind. The man replied "Jesus died with a thief on either side. I just thought I'd check out the same way."
All lawyers should be told that they can't take their money to heaven. They should be reminded of this constantly. In the case of Mr Holley, he should realize that a good way to use his extra money to insure reaching the pearly gates, would be to distribute it amongs't the teachers so that their salaries more better reflect the amount of work they do. The angels in heaven would, I am sure, look down smiling, and be quick to pass the word on to St Peter.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Sloppy International schools
Article from Korea Times
Sloppy International Schools
During a recent administrative inspection of the Seoul Office of Education, Lee Su-jeong, a Seoul Metropolitan Council member representing the Democratic Labor Party, said that some U.S.-owned and other international schools had become ``royal academies" for the children of wealthy Koreans. For instance, she said, 60 percent of students in the Seoul Academy International School were Korean. According to the education office's data, the U.S.-owned school had the highest percentage of Korean students among international schools here ― 101 out of 166 students. Coming next was the French Lycee International Xavier (43.2 percent), followed by the U.S.-owned Asia Pacific International School (36.6 percent), Korea International School (30.8 percent) and Centennial Christian School (27.9 percent). Students who have lived abroad for at least three years are legally allowed to enroll in international schools. However, many international schools will accept anyone willing to pay the exorbitant fees. In fact, there are many students attending these schools who have never lived abroad or who have only been abroad for holidays. Such schools are ``cash-and-grab schools," or greedy schools, and they should be fined and forced to refund the school fees of those students who don't meet the requirements to attend an international school. The school should have the students withdraw and look for education elsewhere. Maybe councilwoman Lee Su-jeong could set up a committee to visit every international school and demand to see the passports of every student for verification of time spent abroad. I'm sure enrollments at a lot of these schools would drop considerably, and some might even be forced to close.
Many international schools have a difficult time recruiting qualified teachers and some parents are not satisfied with some of the school's teachers.``I think the education authority should take more care of this issue,'' said the mother of a student enrolled at an international school in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province (from the Korea Times article in July 2008, headlined ``Korea Sloppy in Overseeing Foreign Schoolteachers"). If these schools paid higher salaries, more qualified teachers would come to Korea. As it is, a lot of international schools pay their teachers a salary comparable to that paid by the average English academy or government-sponsored public school to native speakers ― for doing two to three times the amount of work. Teachers at international schools are involved in various extracurricular activities and participate in a myriad of other activities as well . They also have to make tests , mark tests and meet student's parents in addition to their basic teaching responsibilities. Your basic English academy or government-sponsored public school teacher, among other things, has access to a lot of ESL (English as a Second Language) material online or from other sources, has the freedom to be creative, and is required to maintain a semblance of order in the classroom ― but is not responsible for a student's grade or the student's ability to pass the entrance test to gain admission to a Korean university. Unfortunately, very few good, qualified teachers would ever accept employment away from his or her home country for the low salary that is offered by many of these so-called international schools. Those that do are probably working from a different agenda and have other priorities for coming to Korea.
Many international schools have to accept whomever they can get, and that means they might have to hire recent graduates without any teaching experience. Some of these inexperienced new graduates do very well as teachers, but they usually only stay for a year before moving on to more meaningful employment. That doesn't lead to the teacher continuity that students need, and parents pay enough for tuition and other expenses to rightfully demand that their children be taught continuously by experienced teachers. The law pertaining to international schools requires that their teachers have at least two years of background in education (teaching experience), so those schools that hire new graduates without experience are doing so in defiance of the law. A foreign school in Gwangju, for example, consistently hires teachers without experience from the Princeton in Asia employment agency, and also accepts students who haven't lived abroad for the mandatory three years.
The Korea Times article I mentioned above stated that ``each regional office is not fulfilling it's duty properly, and they don't have the tools to correct any impropriety in international private schools". ``International schools are autonomous," said Kim Hong-sop, a director-general of the Education Ministry. In response, city and provincial education offices point out that the regulations are impractical. ``We have limits in supervising the schools. I don't know how many schools would report properly as we don't provide any subsidies to them as we do to other schools, " said Cho Wan-seok, an official of Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education.Why should receiving a subsidy determine whether a school be inspected to insure that it is providing the right services for their students? Shouldn't all institutions in Korea be policed equally for impropriety by the education department? How can international schools be autonomous, and why don't regional offices have the tools to discipline and penalize delinquent schools? Essentially, international schools have been given free license to charge anything they like for either inadequate or adequate education, and to hire any teacher regardless of his or her background and experience. The writer has taught at Kyungsan University, Uiduk University and international schools in Japan and Korea.
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Reader’s Comments
tsunami Del (128.113.91.66) 08-17-2009 04:12
Reference is made to a school in Gwangju that hires new graduates as teachers from the "Princeton in Asia" recruiting firm in defiance of the law. That only private international school in Gwangju is Robert Holley's "Gwangju Foreign School". That's quite a surprise. I checked the wikipedia site on the school, and it seems as though the statement is correct.
sambeh Del (59.19.124.48) 08-15-2009 17:11
Koreans want to get head with their PALI-PALI mentality. Do you know that the word EFFICIENCY is not in the Korean English dictionary?
sambeh Del (59.19.124.48) 08-15-2009 17:07
The writter should know that everything is done in a hurry! Thus, EFFICIENCY is always compromised..
jimbo1a Del (12.50.229.130) 08-13-2009 23:04
The schools discussed in this article are not true International Schools. To be an International school, under international rules, you need a Board of Governors and a set of rules that clearly identify the qualifications of the students. There are a couple of international schools in Korea that meet the correct criteria. However, most ignore residency requirements just to make money.
7001 Del (220.123.180.234) 08-13-2009 11:03
An incredibly biased article by a writer who insults teachers at international schools, yet the writer formerly taught at international schools! He also states that teachers often leave after only one year; has he considered that teachers only get one year contracts?
The Home Page for the Princeton in Asia Employment Agency.
http://piaweb.princeton.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=0&Itemid=143
Sloppy International Schools
During a recent administrative inspection of the Seoul Office of Education, Lee Su-jeong, a Seoul Metropolitan Council member representing the Democratic Labor Party, said that some U.S.-owned and other international schools had become ``royal academies" for the children of wealthy Koreans. For instance, she said, 60 percent of students in the Seoul Academy International School were Korean. According to the education office's data, the U.S.-owned school had the highest percentage of Korean students among international schools here ― 101 out of 166 students. Coming next was the French Lycee International Xavier (43.2 percent), followed by the U.S.-owned Asia Pacific International School (36.6 percent), Korea International School (30.8 percent) and Centennial Christian School (27.9 percent). Students who have lived abroad for at least three years are legally allowed to enroll in international schools. However, many international schools will accept anyone willing to pay the exorbitant fees. In fact, there are many students attending these schools who have never lived abroad or who have only been abroad for holidays. Such schools are ``cash-and-grab schools," or greedy schools, and they should be fined and forced to refund the school fees of those students who don't meet the requirements to attend an international school. The school should have the students withdraw and look for education elsewhere. Maybe councilwoman Lee Su-jeong could set up a committee to visit every international school and demand to see the passports of every student for verification of time spent abroad. I'm sure enrollments at a lot of these schools would drop considerably, and some might even be forced to close.
Many international schools have a difficult time recruiting qualified teachers and some parents are not satisfied with some of the school's teachers.``I think the education authority should take more care of this issue,'' said the mother of a student enrolled at an international school in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province (from the Korea Times article in July 2008, headlined ``Korea Sloppy in Overseeing Foreign Schoolteachers"). If these schools paid higher salaries, more qualified teachers would come to Korea. As it is, a lot of international schools pay their teachers a salary comparable to that paid by the average English academy or government-sponsored public school to native speakers ― for doing two to three times the amount of work. Teachers at international schools are involved in various extracurricular activities and participate in a myriad of other activities as well . They also have to make tests , mark tests and meet student's parents in addition to their basic teaching responsibilities. Your basic English academy or government-sponsored public school teacher, among other things, has access to a lot of ESL (English as a Second Language) material online or from other sources, has the freedom to be creative, and is required to maintain a semblance of order in the classroom ― but is not responsible for a student's grade or the student's ability to pass the entrance test to gain admission to a Korean university. Unfortunately, very few good, qualified teachers would ever accept employment away from his or her home country for the low salary that is offered by many of these so-called international schools. Those that do are probably working from a different agenda and have other priorities for coming to Korea.
Many international schools have to accept whomever they can get, and that means they might have to hire recent graduates without any teaching experience. Some of these inexperienced new graduates do very well as teachers, but they usually only stay for a year before moving on to more meaningful employment. That doesn't lead to the teacher continuity that students need, and parents pay enough for tuition and other expenses to rightfully demand that their children be taught continuously by experienced teachers. The law pertaining to international schools requires that their teachers have at least two years of background in education (teaching experience), so those schools that hire new graduates without experience are doing so in defiance of the law. A foreign school in Gwangju, for example, consistently hires teachers without experience from the Princeton in Asia employment agency, and also accepts students who haven't lived abroad for the mandatory three years.
The Korea Times article I mentioned above stated that ``each regional office is not fulfilling it's duty properly, and they don't have the tools to correct any impropriety in international private schools". ``International schools are autonomous," said Kim Hong-sop, a director-general of the Education Ministry. In response, city and provincial education offices point out that the regulations are impractical. ``We have limits in supervising the schools. I don't know how many schools would report properly as we don't provide any subsidies to them as we do to other schools, " said Cho Wan-seok, an official of Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education.Why should receiving a subsidy determine whether a school be inspected to insure that it is providing the right services for their students? Shouldn't all institutions in Korea be policed equally for impropriety by the education department? How can international schools be autonomous, and why don't regional offices have the tools to discipline and penalize delinquent schools? Essentially, international schools have been given free license to charge anything they like for either inadequate or adequate education, and to hire any teacher regardless of his or her background and experience. The writer has taught at Kyungsan University, Uiduk University and international schools in Japan and Korea.
-->
Reader’s Comments
tsunami Del (128.113.91.66) 08-17-2009 04:12
Reference is made to a school in Gwangju that hires new graduates as teachers from the "Princeton in Asia" recruiting firm in defiance of the law. That only private international school in Gwangju is Robert Holley's "Gwangju Foreign School". That's quite a surprise. I checked the wikipedia site on the school, and it seems as though the statement is correct.
sambeh Del (59.19.124.48) 08-15-2009 17:11
Koreans want to get head with their PALI-PALI mentality. Do you know that the word EFFICIENCY is not in the Korean English dictionary?
sambeh Del (59.19.124.48) 08-15-2009 17:07
The writter should know that everything is done in a hurry! Thus, EFFICIENCY is always compromised..
jimbo1a Del (12.50.229.130) 08-13-2009 23:04
The schools discussed in this article are not true International Schools. To be an International school, under international rules, you need a Board of Governors and a set of rules that clearly identify the qualifications of the students. There are a couple of international schools in Korea that meet the correct criteria. However, most ignore residency requirements just to make money.
7001 Del (220.123.180.234) 08-13-2009 11:03
An incredibly biased article by a writer who insults teachers at international schools, yet the writer formerly taught at international schools! He also states that teachers often leave after only one year; has he considered that teachers only get one year contracts?
The Home Page for the Princeton in Asia Employment Agency.
http://piaweb.princeton.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=0&Itemid=143
Friday, June 5, 2009
Spanish at Gwangju Foreign school
The foreign language of choice for highschool students in Korea is Chinese. English of course is compulsory. Japanese has quite a following as well. I guess there is a cultural affinity between China and Korea, coupled with the use of Hanja or the Chinese characters used in some Korean texts. Gwangju foreign school interestingly is one of two schools that offer Spanish.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
ESL and Gwangju Foreign School
Sad state of affairs that Robert Holley and his school should continue with their very illegal ESL programe. The requirement of the students for living abroad in an English speaking country has been dropped from 5 years to 3 years. Eligibility now favours foreign schools. Still a student who has had parents spend the money for him or her to live abroad to learn English isn't going to want their child to be learning in an ESL environment when they return.
The school actively pushes it's ESL programe, and there is no letting up from it. Can't believe Mr Robert Holley would so brazenly flout the law. The school has had this stuff going on for years, and he makes one hell of a deal about his legal qualifications, and the membership he has in the Chamber opf commerce. What a hypocrite. The information about the schools ESL programe was on the school news letters which it writes on the school website every month. They were available for everyone to read as well. Now these newsletters are only available to registered readers. All of a sudden they would rather not have there school matters open to the public the way they used to. Apart from the ESL information the school newsletters have nothing of interest to any non school personnel. One can rightfully assume that the Holleys are desperately trying to cover something up. Hide the dirty stinking incriminating evidence that so dissapointingly shows how lacking in integrity they really are.
Mr Robert Holley is of no credit to us waeguks at all. He used to be held up on a pedestal by us foreigeners to show that there was one of us who could cut it here in Korea. What a bitter blow to see the level that he has sunk too.
The school actively pushes it's ESL programe, and there is no letting up from it. Can't believe Mr Robert Holley would so brazenly flout the law. The school has had this stuff going on for years, and he makes one hell of a deal about his legal qualifications, and the membership he has in the Chamber opf commerce. What a hypocrite. The information about the schools ESL programe was on the school news letters which it writes on the school website every month. They were available for everyone to read as well. Now these newsletters are only available to registered readers. All of a sudden they would rather not have there school matters open to the public the way they used to. Apart from the ESL information the school newsletters have nothing of interest to any non school personnel. One can rightfully assume that the Holleys are desperately trying to cover something up. Hide the dirty stinking incriminating evidence that so dissapointingly shows how lacking in integrity they really are.
Mr Robert Holley is of no credit to us waeguks at all. He used to be held up on a pedestal by us foreigeners to show that there was one of us who could cut it here in Korea. What a bitter blow to see the level that he has sunk too.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Tough times because of the exchange rate. Watch out in case you get short changed.
OK the won is depreciating, and one's Korean paypacket aint worth much in U.S. dollars anymore. The Holleys have to be hurting too, so I'm sure they will look for ways to cut corners either legally or illegally so that they don't lose their investments in the U.S.
The pension should be watched. Some shonkey hogwons make their 4.5%(or whatever it is) deductions from your paycheck for the pension, and pocket it. As an employee of the Holley's who of course aren't that honest I would check to see that they are on the level, and not pocketing the deductions. The pension office in Gwangju is very accomodating, but it might be good to take someone who can speak Korean to help. Don't ask the Holleys, because they will tell you anything. Of course only citizens from Canada, the United states and the few other countries whom have reciprocal agreements with Korea can claim back there deductions and the matching payments of their employer. It wouldn't be that wrong of course if the Holleys didn't take pension deductions from those teachers whom aren't elligible to recieve the pension pay out. By law all employee have to be on the national pension plan, but then this would be breaking the law to help an employee.
The payout from the pension scheme is at least the equivalent of the severance, so the benefitting teachers finish their contract with a decent bonus in their hands
Now one is supposed to leave the country to get their pension back. I think one has to nominate a bank in that persons country , and it gets forwarded. There are ways to have it wired into a bank in Korea. Check DAVES ESL CAFE under the "KOREAN JOB FORUM" section and one can find the advice one needs
The pension should be watched. Some shonkey hogwons make their 4.5%(or whatever it is) deductions from your paycheck for the pension, and pocket it. As an employee of the Holley's who of course aren't that honest I would check to see that they are on the level, and not pocketing the deductions. The pension office in Gwangju is very accomodating, but it might be good to take someone who can speak Korean to help. Don't ask the Holleys, because they will tell you anything. Of course only citizens from Canada, the United states and the few other countries whom have reciprocal agreements with Korea can claim back there deductions and the matching payments of their employer. It wouldn't be that wrong of course if the Holleys didn't take pension deductions from those teachers whom aren't elligible to recieve the pension pay out. By law all employee have to be on the national pension plan, but then this would be breaking the law to help an employee.
The payout from the pension scheme is at least the equivalent of the severance, so the benefitting teachers finish their contract with a decent bonus in their hands
Now one is supposed to leave the country to get their pension back. I think one has to nominate a bank in that persons country , and it gets forwarded. There are ways to have it wired into a bank in Korea. Check DAVES ESL CAFE under the "KOREAN JOB FORUM" section and one can find the advice one needs
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