Homework time!

I started an online graduate class through WSC and we have to do weekly discussion postings on certain subjects from our book and this weeks had to do with the organizational culture in our workplace. You may not know anything about organizational culture, but I talk about work (I actually vent a bit), so I thought you might be interested in reading :D


My workplace currently consists of 8 'foreign' teachers (America, Canada, and South Africa) teaching English in Taiwan, a Chinese culture. This causes many issues to answer these questions. Reading about Wal-Mart stores in Germany on page 82 and understanding the attention needed to cultural differences around the globe is something I definitely relate to. What is "normal" to me in businesses and in schools in the US is very different from here. I'm at a small privately owned school that tries to follow American customs and include Chinese traditions, which honestly doesn't always make for an easy work day. Another problem is that this isn't a job that has much long term potential. Most of the employees (Chinese and Foreign) are on one-year contracts and few continue after that year. At the moment the organizational culture whether compared to other Chinese or other American businesses is not very stable. There have been a lot of recent issues mainly involving communication between owners/supervisors and subordinates which concluded often with toes being stepped on and misinformation. As for it being effective right now, I would have to say not really. Americans focus on the product and the customers. Our product is education and to me the customer is the student, but at school the main focus is making the kids look good for the parents since the parents pay the money. That entails re-writing students homework and making art projects with the kids name on it. I understand it's a private school and the parents pay a lot of money to send their children there and I also understand that most of the kids are between the ages of 2 and 7, which makes me wonder why they even have a school just so the kids can look good. And I apologize if this is more of a rant, it's been a long day!

I am following most of the steps to be socialized into the school. There is a organization called Reach-To-Teach that finds teachers for a specific school and it was through them that I applied and then had a long phone interview. After RTT accepted me I had a few options for schools and then the school I like called and interviewed me to make sure I would fit into their company. After I arrived in Taiwan I had three days of training and then was just thrown into teaching (no previous experience necessary). There wasn't a humiliation step since I just went straight into my normal teaching schedule. I have the job mastered to the point where I can understand my class and the best way to get the information across that I need to for that day. And after 6 months of work you are evaluated with the possibility of a raise. One thing I do like about the school for rewarding performance is you get a set performance incentive every month that is only decreased if you miss days of work or are repeatedly tardy, it's not much but it makes a difference each month. Adhering to values is tricky because the owners I think are still trying to figure out what their core values are, they try to say it's about the kids and education, but sometimes it tends to focus a lot on the parents. A biggest concern is punishment since hitting the students (slap on the hand specifically) is still allowed in Chinese culture. Some parents want their child to be punished this way and some are completely against it. The school won't make a stand one way or the other, so we end up with "special cases" of kids that can't be punished in any way and others that are supposed to be punished. It's hard to work for people when they don't take a stand on their values, or even tell you what those values are. And don't worry, foreign teachers, like me, are not the ones that do the punishing, we're not allowed (not that any of us would). Stories and folklore mainly follow past teachers experiences and ideas passed down.

I would definitely work better in a more structured environment. I agree with Lois on working in a place that is well-established and has a dominant culture. I don't mind a changing organization and this one is always changing. An organization should know it's values and tell their employees what they are so that they can be carried out. This school is not specific on what it wants and is not very good at keeping the lines of communication open. There is always someone to talk to about specific situations or issues, but you don't always know whether or not anything will come from the talk and eventually you just stop communicating altogether. It makes me sad because this could be a good school, it has a total of 300 wonderful students, but because of management decisions, no one is planning on continuing work once their initial contract is over and that's more upsetting to the kids than anyone else.