Home, James, and back for tea

Got home about a week ago, and now considering my options re: employment. Decided to play it safe, won't be staying in any "foreign" countries for a while. So that limits me to NZ, Aus, UK, etc. I'll probably change my mind in a week or so and go on some ill-conceived jaunt to North Korea, who knows? Just going to be temping for a while since the EFL market here in NZ is on such a downturn at the mo. In the meantime, I'd better look for some more private students. Nice to see friends again, though some of them are pretty shocked to see me back so soon. All of them have now got a tacky Mao pin, my sole souvenirs from the trip. I guess it'd help if more of them knew who Mao was. I just took it for granted that they would, considering my interest/unhealthy obsession with China. Ad hoc ergo proc ter hoc and all that. On the other hand, if someone bought me something with a picture of, say, Hirohito or Pol Pot I'm not sure I could identify it either. Just to reassure people that I'm not over my grudge-bearing state of being pissed off, I guess I should post a little more about the school. Not only was it in the middle of nowhere, but they also wanted me to be a junior school teacher, as opposed to being a senior school teacher (as advertised). This would basically entail (according to the curriculum I saw) teaching kids nursery rhymes. Uh huh, I slogged my guts out on a teaching qualification for this. Classroom management was also a bit, uh, fucked up. They wanted me to run the classroom like a Victorian Catholic school. No physical punishment obviously, but they allowed, even encouraged, shaming and mental abuse of students. One example: If a student is late, the whole class should stand up and wag their fingers at him, shouting, 'you're bad, you're late!'. It's only one step away from wearing a dunce cap and sitting in a corner. There I was thinking the Cultural Revolution ended several decades ago. It's all a huge contrast to Taiwan, where the attitude was "there's no such thing as a bad student, only a bad teacher". Both of these methods are so fucked up as to be unworkable, at least for me. It's a real good cop bad cop mentality, but kicked into overdrive. Aaah, glad to get that off my chest. Tune in next time for the thrilling explanation of why they wanted me to be a junior teacher. Truth really is stranger than fiction. On that note I'll sign off, and hurl obscenities about the Chinese educational system at the wall. Toodle pip.