Wonderful Wonderland and Korea Co-teachers

"Everybody Smile At Wonderland"-My School's [grammatically inaccurate] Slogan

My school is a franchise called Wonderland. And yes, sometimes being 6ft tall, I do feel a little like Alice when she drinks the magic potion, grows into a giant and can't fit through the doors!

The franchise has a really bad reputation, so bad in fact that when our agent, the mysterious "Doyle", told us we had an interview with Wonderland we immediately wrote it off and decided that we'd do the interview only for practice.

Wonderland

Our minds were changed however, during the interview. The friendly laid-back manner of Ian, our supervisor, put us at ease and when we found out that the two teachers we were replacing had been there 2 and 7 years we figured it was worth re-considering.

The fact that the school is a franchise means that it's run like a business. There's no government funding, and the only income comes from the [extremely high] fees the parents pay. This also means that while my school is considerably well run, another Wonderland school just down the road could be completely different.

The bad reputation of Wonderland stems mainly from blog entries and sites such as "the hagwon blacklist", that claim "the school didn't pay me on time", "the school tried to dock my pay when I was off sick" and other such petty complaints. Having been employed at Wonderland for 3 months now I feel strangely protective of it, and of the wonderful people who work there.

My desk

Stereotypically a large majority of the people that come to Korea to teach English are American or Canadian, they've just graduated from university, they've left mummy and daddy behind and they have no frickin' clue about what life is like outside of their North American bubble.

The school didn't pay you on time?? Poor baby. Welcome to the real world. I've don't think I've ever had a job that did consistently pay me on time!

(I think this explains why my closest friends here are those who already have some considerable experience travelling.)

I want to set the record straight about Wonderland. It's not perfect, it's a business, it's a job. Deal with it.

Clockwise: me, Soomi, Claire, Haley,
Michelle (who Ric replaced), and Daisy

At my school there are four native English teachers (myself and Ric and two Americans), and six Korean teachers all of whom are young, funny and WONDERful!

On Tuesday this week all the teachers went out for dinner together to a traditional Korean restaurant whose theme was seemingly a Korea harbour 80 years ago. The decoration was cool, the smell was bad.

The Restaurant

We ate pajeon, Korean pancake made with spring onions, carrots and squid tentacles! And Korean stew (sausages and kimchi), and a variety of traditional Korean snacks (silkworm larvae included). It was surprisingly tasty.

Haley, Daisy and the pajeon

Wonder-teachers

Silk worm larvae, everyone's favourite snack.

Graffitti to mark the occasion, the Korea bit says "teachers"
in case you didn't know.