ATEK 2: My farewell letter to ATEK Officers

Dear ATEK Officers,

While I have had a great time working with ATEK, it is time to inform you that I am now resigning from my role as ATEK’s National External Communications Officer. It has been an exciting but challenging experience, and I have learned a lot. I believe that another officer will be able to do a better job of promoting ATEK to the media than I have been, and I believe ATEK will benefit from new blood. Where I have failed, or proven inadequate to the job, I apologize. Where I have done well, I thank you for your support in giving me the opportunity to do so.

I will remain a supporter of ATEK, even after I am no longer an officer.

Before I go, I would like to say a few words about what ATEK is, and what it can become, and ask you all to consider this as you promote and recruit for ATEK, and plan events.

One:
While I believe that ATEK will grow stronger as more teachers volunteer and contribute, I ask you to consider that there are some people, in some positions, who will better serve English teachers from outside the organization. A journalist who supports ATEK will do a better job of helping ATEK as a friendly press connection than by becoming an officer, at which time, for the sake of journalistic objectivity, he/she would not ethically be able to write about ATEK.

This becomes especially true in two cases: (1) where there is money to be made (for example, if I am the publisher of a book about teaching) and (2) where ATEK’s goals and purposes could impede me from acting freely because, as an officer, my actions would reflect on the organization at large (for example, a human rights lawyer: where their work might help English teachers, a too-close affiliation with ATEK could lead to the appearance that ATEK plans to engage in human-rights agitation). There are organizations and groups that are developing services for English teachers and, while ATEK would benefit from having members of some of them, there are others that work best as allies or friends of ATEK. ATEK must be judicious in choosing when, and how, to form relationships and affiliations, in order to guard the organization’s image, both now and for the future. It is important to support ATEK’s President and Ethics Committee as they help make decisions about forming such relationships.

Two:
As a writer, writing guides often urge me to consider my audience. As members of an organization that can do a lot of good for English teachers, I ask all of you to consider the different audiences that are watching and passing judgment on ATEK. In particular: many of ATEK’s officers are foreign English teachers; however, foreign English teachers are not the only ones watching ATEK, and initiatives that read well among English teachers don’t always play well to other audiences.

Consider this:
Developing labor services looks great to foreign English teachers and having a record of helping English teachers, Korean and foreign, get fair treatment will look very good on ATEK’s record.

However, if the perception develops that this is the only thing ATEK does, this will damage ATEK’s ability to perform other goals that will, in the long run, serve English teachers. If labor is ATEK’s main strength, and the area where ATEK expends most of its energy, the hagwon owners’ association, and anybody else who employs English teachers, will look on ATEK as an enemy. This will ultimately hurt English teachers, as the ideal outcome for English teachers and, for English education in Korea, is for ATEK to have strong ties with such an association in order to work together and develop concrete steps for improving the resources and training available to English teachers, steps which can be developed by the talent contained in ATEK, and then implemented by the administrators and decision-makers who have final say.

This is why professional development initiatives MUST play a larger role in ATEK’s future. This is why community contribution: volunteering, social events, clothing drives, and other philanthropic efforts MUST NOT be scoffed at. ATEK is not only concerned with teachers getting their severance pay, as dishonest treatment from employers is only symptomatic of the bigger problem that foreign English teachers are being used as scapegoats for the problems in Korea’s English education system. In order to deal with the larger problem of scapegoating, building goodwill with community action is of VITAL importance to ATEK’s long-term goals.

Foreign English teachers are not the only group with whom ATEK must build credibility. Parents’ groups, school boards, school administrators, and others concerned with Education in Korea must also see something in ATEK that they consider positive, and the perception that ATEK is a pseudo-union will not be the thing that wins their hearts and minds. For these audiences, ATEK must project the image that we are reliable, that we are professional, that we are actively and concretely helping teachers improve as teachers, that we are actively and concretely helping teachers contribute to our communities, and that we are actively and concretely helping teachers transition more smoothly into life in Korea and work in Korean schools.

Our audiences are as follows, and we ignore any of these audiences, as an organization, at our peril.

Education administrators in the Korean government school owners and administrators in all kinds of English programs and departments short-term foreign English teachers long-term expat English teachers (including those with F-visas) Korean national English teachers, parents of children in school, adult English students, other NGOs and NPOs dealing with education issues, other NGOs and NPOs dealing with expat and migrant worker issues, the Korean media (English language and especially Korean language), and – through them – the Korean public in general.

Some of these groups might be impressed by short-term actions; for most of them, establishing credibility and building good-will will be a long-term project.

Three:
While this is a common issue in volunteer organizations, many of us know that a lot of stress and turmoil has come through ATEK lately. This came from numerous sources, but ultimately, it boils down to this simple issue: ego. A few very smart and capable people decided that their opinion, and their vision for ATEK, was better than that of others, and a few other very smart and capable people insisted likewise.

I’d like to remind all the officers in ATEK that none of us owns ATEK. ATEK does not belong to any of us, nor to any one body of the association. ATEK is an idea bigger than one or another of our conceptions of it, and the only way ATEK will grow to be as big and as exciting an organization as it CAN be is if people acknowledge and respect other points of view, other opinions, and look for ways to collaborate and compromise, rather than seeking ways for their view or vision to win primacy over others.

Those who have been with ATEK a long time must be mindful that, as more talent joins the organization, their level of sway over the organization will decrease, and THIS IS A GOOD THING, because it indicates that ATEK’s resources are expanding. Those who are new in the organization should be mindful that the ATEK has been around for a while. It is built the way it was built for a very good reason, and they should seek the insights and counsel of those who have been involved for longer.

Everyone should remember that, in everything they do, they are not just acting now but also creating an organization they will pass on to others when their time in Korea or time with ATEK expires. And, when there is a difference of opinion, the need to listen and respect others’ views is more important and serves the organization better in the long run than the need to say one’s piece.

Four:
One of the most practically useful things ATEK did in its opening months was to publish the English Teachers’ Guide to Korea.
Some officers are working on developing the second edition, the online edition of this guide. This is a practical, hands-on, lasting contribution ATEK can make for the English teaching community in Korea, and the scope of information an online guide can provide is inexhaustible, if we find and coordinate the people to help with this. This is also a project where many people outside ATEK, but sympathetic to ATEK’s goals, would be happy to help out. I strongly urge every officer in ATEK to consider how they can help with this project, and to do so.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please support the President, and the officers around you, as we try to build a better organization. Please support the next National External Communications Officer, and please continue working to support and improve life for English teachers in Korea.

Your (former) National External Communications Officer, Rob Ouwehand

ATEK 1

Been lots of talk about ATEK lately.

You can hear Greg Dolezal talk about it on the Seoul Podcast.

I'm going to write about this one time. (in a few parts, though)

First: Ground rules.

I won't be making any comment on specific personalities. Comments about specific personalities on my blog will be deleted.  If you wish to participate in character assassination of either side, here's your link.  Comments will be closed on this post: only the fourth of my four will have commenting. Keep it in one place. It's tiring moderating comment discussions, and ATEK has already gotten as many fifteen hour weeks of unpaid effort and time as I'm willing to offer up for now. And I've got midterms.

I have lots of thoughts about some of the specific people... but they'll stay between me, myself, and maybe people I know who have zero chance of publishing communications between me and them on the internet.

Because if I let a little out, I have to let it all out... and nobody really needs to know which former or current ATEK officer hates puppies, which one can't hold his/her soju, which one eats babies, which one has a habit of "adjusting" in public, which one once accidentally killed a tranny in a Cambodian bar fight and which can quote season and episode for the entire run of Dr. Who, and will punch you if you think "Firefly" sucked.

I made all those up.

But here are the points I'd like to make:


1. If 3WM's traffic works like my blog does, a controversy, and a lively comment discussion means lots of hits.  

A whole year ago, 3WM stumbled onto the fact that picking on well-meaning people DOES stir up lots of comments.  If their site is anything like mine, a good lively comment discussion is also a web traffic bonanza.

Screenshot taken last week.

Screenshot taken last week

Let's also note this: (from their right-hand sidebar)

Had to be said.

[Update: after a polite email from one of the Three Wise Monkeys, it's only fair to inform my readers that the advertisements on the side of the 3WM page are unpaid, and the site is, for now, non-profit.  So add that to whatever you've already put in your pipe, and smoke it, too.]

So... 3WM is doing well on this. Do they give a damn about the plight of English teachers? Who knows? The series didn't offer a single productive suggestion except "disband" (which is destructive, not productive)... but they got the eyeballs. So congratufuckinglations.

Equivocation:

Also to be noted: 3WM isn't just the editor or the three main writers. In the comments after posts, you'll notice that the 3WM community is pretty tight, too: they seem to look out for each other and back each other up. Good for them... when they're not bullying people like Chris Backe, with even site admin joining the mean-spirited pile-up. Etcetera.

And some of the articles on there have been very interesting and well-written, and some have been done by writers whom I respect a lot. That's not to say I have any respect at all for the way THIS story was investigated or presented... but if The Korea Times gets Michael Breen AND Kang Shin-Who, I can be impressed by some of the writers at 3WM while this article and the apparent intentions behind it can still make me want to punch through a wall.

Next thing:

2. Critical thinking 101: Don't trust a one-sided story

When a narrative makes one side sound completely virtuous, and as if s/he and s/he alone was the one wronged, and the other side is always and invariably the one in the wrong, either through ineptitude or malice... 

That's not a narrative you should trust, folks.

Are ATEK's leaders, and the organization in general, all the bad things presented in the 3WM article?  Is the former Seoul Chair the well-meaning hero (presumably on a white horse, and maybe even with a crown of thorns,) out to save all English teachers, only to be foiled by the cackling ATEK executive wearing black hats and rubbing their hands together?

No.

Are ATEK's leaders totally guiltless little hippies, who were on their way to a utopian English education atmosphere, only to have their kumbaya-singing circle spoiled by a big bully who joined the organization in order to launch a pipe-bomb into it, and may or may not have been wearing a mecha suit?

No.

3WM will tell you that the stories they gathered corroborated... but folks, if you go down to rural Georgia, find a house with a confederate flag in the second story window, and ask the six good ol' boys sitting on the porch to tell you the story of the US civil war, you'll get a story that corroborates... corroboration doesn't always mean a lot.  Even my research design class highlights the fact a high rate of non-respondents undermines reliability.

Ask six Koreans about colonial Japan. Then ask six Japanese about it.  Bet the Koreans' stories corroborate, and so do the Japanese's.  But I also bet their stories are so different you'd barely know they were talking about the same region, and the same time period.

The truth is somewhere between the narratives you've been presented in the 3WM article, and the view you get from commenters like Oh Really in the 3WM piece, or the view you get from Greg in the Seoul Podcast, or whatever ATEK's official statement will be, when it comes out.  I have my own ideas about how blame should be divvied up... most people involved acted not in malice so much as over-certainty of their own perspective, or simply on bad advice, and some of them are bad listeners, or bad communicators, and some of them lost perspective, and a few people simply had lapses in judgement or vigilance at crucial points... but I'm keeping the specifics to myself, because finger-pointing and he-said she-said distracts from the thing that's actually important: What's good for English teachers in Korea?

So go back to the other narratives, and decide for yourselves where the truth lies.  Be suspicious of anyone whose story is too well-told or juicy, because good storytelling requires a massaging of facts, and don't forget these events happened, mostly, last October and November, meaning there's been a good five months for people's memories to color what actually happened.  Having witnessed the whole thing myself, and been party to even more of the e-mails than our dear former Seoul officer, here's what you're getting from me:

3. A titanic battle of egos it was.

But for a titanic battle of egos to occur, requires titanic egos on both sides.  Both sides, folks, despite what 3WM would have you believe.

There were people on all sides (not just two people, not just two sides) who refused to budge, who were bullying, who were disrespectful, who were rude or petty, who dismissed and scorned the other side, who sulked, who stomped their feet, and who did things that seemed to demonstrate that to them, being right had become more important than helping ATEK help English teachers. Everybody looked bad at some point or another, from where I stood, myself included. And anybody who looks back, and finds a way to hold themselves blameless, is missing something.  Any narrator who makes themselves sound blameless, is being dishonest with their audience, and themselves. 

It was a perfect storm of incompatible personalities, communication styles, and visions of what ATEK could/should do/be. It was ugly, and I hated being witness to it. I'd meant to take my last months with ATEK and use them to get the second edition of the English Teacher's Guide to Korea on its feet.  Instead, I spent them writing e-mails, talking various people off various ledges, sorting through bullshit and ego and accusations and threats and distortions and personal issues made into ATEK issues.  The Teacher's Guide project remains in limbo, and I'm fucking choked.  

At EVERYBODY involved.  I want my fucking three months back.

That said, there were a lot of smart (not always mature, and not always polite, but very smart) people trying to come up with the fairest way they could, for dealing with a situation the organization hadn't encountered before, trying to implement it at the same time as developing it.  And dealing with it this time it was ugly. Really ugly, but the things the organization has learned from this, mean that next time, similar issues will be dealt with much more quickly and efficiently.

4. The full dish on the former Seoul Chair. 

Nah. You're not getting anything from me. I'm not a muckraker.

I have, before, during, and since the ATEK blowup, recommended the services of that firm to English teachers. Because I'm on the side of English teachers, and that's a service for English teachers. And that's all you're getting from me.

5. Change of Focus:

Here's what has been forgotten in this mess:

Anti-English Spectrum is still out there, organized, and active.  Anti-English Spectrum members continue putting bugs in the ears of Korean policy makers, and going through foreign English teachers' trash, and "following" them. And English teachers (and various non-English teacher expats) continue cannibalizing their own, rather than mounting/supporting/contributing to an organized response to it.  

(yeah, go ahead and tell me ATEK has gotten in its own way in letting people help mount/support/contribute to that response.  I know. I'll cover that in a future post)

And that's a fucking shame, because that's the bigger picture here.

Look for a few more posts on this, and then I'm done with this topic until ATEK, or another organization, is showing results worth reporting.  The first time I threw down on ATEK's behalf, I ended up looking stupid, and moderating the discussions about ATEK back in 2009 at Roboseyo and the Hub Of Sparkle (did you forget about that, 3WM, the part where I gave ATEK's critics an equal voice in discussions even then, or did it just not fit your narrative, so you ignored it?) was so time-consuming and stressful it very nearly cost me the most important friendship of my adult life.  I still volunteered as communications officer, because I think ATEK is a good idea, and no other organization was trying to do what ATEK wanted to do.

And now I'm tired of the histrionics, frankly, and I'm tired of having my good intentions thrown in my face by a muckraker pretending to be a journalist who never even approached me for a fucking comment.  I'm not an English teacher anymore, I gave it the best shot I was able, given the circumstances, because I believe in the idea that English teachers should be empowered to help themselves, and ATEK, supposedly, and painstakingly, is moving towards that.  But if this is the atmosphere that's going to perpetuate itself, if the axe-grinders, naysayers and dart-throwers carry the discourse, and the ones who want a more rational and mature way of dealing with issues stay silent, and people who have the knowledge and qualifications and energy to help English teachers get intimidated or bullied away from an organization that can (ideally) give them an opportunity to do so... then maybe English teachers in Korea deserve to drown in their own piss and vinegar. Fuck it. 

Posts to come:

1. The farewell letter I wrote when I left office as communications officer. 

2. My personal set of prescriptions for what I think ATEK needs to do next, to rebuild its reputation, and moreover its usefulness.

3. How ATEK's members, whom ATEK's leadership ultimately answers to, can take control of the organization that purports to represent them.

The final post in my ATEK series will be open for comments. Until then, go talk about ATEK on another discussion board where somebody else can moderate the fireworks.  

Somebody must be studying for midterms...

'cause he keeps posting random weird stuff on his blog.



Seriously, though, it's intellectually dishonest of many Korean scholars reinterpret their colonial history through the false binaries of (Japanese) exploitation/ (Korean attempts at) development, Japan/Korea, Imperialist repression/Nationalist modernization.  The hegemonic strategies Japan deployed were not monolithic, but nuanced, changing over time, and a complex mix of different cultural forces, interactions, and negotiations, while Korean responses to colonization were likewise.

For everyone who's EVER played Tetris...

XKCD.com has another classic:

Even better: somebody actually made the game.

(if the game doesn't embed properly in your browser, click on "somebody" to play.)

I should be studying for midterms.


(update: let's not forget the counterpoint, also an XKCD comic: Tetris Hell)

Also playable. http://www.geekosystem.com/xkcd-tetris-hell-game/

Question of the Day: Chicken Pot Pie in Seoul?

Hello, dear readers.

The question of the day, from my fearless, small-faced friend Cynthia, is this:

Where the hell does one find a really tasty chicken pot pie in Seoul?

(image source)

I had a nice meat pie at Tartine in Itaewon, and an OK one at that Aussie bar up the hill between Itaewon and Noksapyeon.  Any other suggestions?