SONGSENGNEEM

29 December 2009
8:50 pm


October 16, 2009

Dear Sir/Ma’am,

Greetings!

One fulfillment of being a teacher is to see that her/his students are learning something from her/him. A teacher can only do so much for her/his students. Teaching is a two-way process. I believed that a teacher and a student should work together to achieve one common goal, which is learning. It’s a hopeless case, if only one is functioning and the other is not. I also believed that a tutor or a teacher shouldn’t be blamed for the kids’ performance in school. After all, we’re not the one who’s attending classes. And besides, they also have their respective teachers in school. Will you also blame the school teachers, if a child gets a low grade? I want to stress out, that we are only here to help the students. The students should also do their part. They should also strive hard to help themselves.

As with Sharon’s case, I believed that I did my best in teaching her. I have done my part 100%. You can check out her books and look for the exercises which I asked her to answer. I bring worksheets all the time, just to remind her of all the lessons that they took in school. As for her reading, you can also check her reading book, “A New Day”, the stories with date and star on top of the story title are the stories that we read at home. You can also ask your daughter, about my teaching style.

As a teacher, it is also frustrating to know that even though, you already gave your best shot, it feels like it still wasn’t good enough.

Sir/Ma’am, Effective today, I’m resigning from work. I believed that I did not meet your expectations. Personally, I don’t want to accept or receive any salary which is not well worth. If I immediately knew that a client or a student wasn’t satisfied from the responsibility or duty that they asked of me. I willingly quit. I know you can find a better teacher than me.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work with you. It’s a pleasure.

God Bless!!!

Respectfully yours,

The letter above was a copy of my resignation letter 2 months ago. It was intended for my Korean boss. That letter also caused my career, my life and my wallet! I have no idea that handing a resignation letter would make things worst!

Here's the whole story.....

It was Thursday, October 15, the child's READING test paper was returned by her teacher. Out of 20 questions, she got 15 correct answers and 5 mistakes. As Usual, when I saw the paper, I immediately showed it to her dad who offered me an orange juice during that time. I guess her dad showed it to her mom, then all of a sudden, after a few minutes, her mom came to our study room, and her face looked disgusted upon the results of the child's test paper. As she talked to me, her face was serious and she breathed deeply as if to show me how disappointed she is. She talked to me as if she was blaming me for the results that her daughter got. She then told me that I need to practice her child with her reading comprehension. I told her, that I was indeed practicing her child to read. Actually, we already read a couple of stories from her book. I also told her to tell her daughter to listen to me, because, I found it hard to teach her daughter since she's not listening most of the time, and sometimes looses her focus in studying. I said, I cannot do it alone. Her daughter should also help her self with her studies. And if she will compare her daughter's grade before and at present, there is no doubt that her daughter improves a lot. I also told her to be "reasonable", she should not expect her daughter to get a perfect score everytime she has a test, she is only grade 1. And some english words are really difficult to understand. Even adults are having difficulties sometimes. My point is, why is she reacting that way, when actually it's only five mistakes. After all, it is not a failing grade. I also showed her the LANGUAGE result of her daughter's test and it was perfect!!! Why didn't she apprecate it? After our discussion, she went back to their room and she slammed the door loudly.

Then Friday came, October 16, I decided to resign, so I went to their house and submitted my resignation letter. I thought it was already okay, when I gave my letter to her husband. And in fact, I'm getting ready during that time to teach their daughter for the last time. I was even happy, because her daughter got a perfect score in Math! Then again, all of a sudden, she came in the room and told me, "excuse me, excuse me, can we talk?!". Then I turned to her and explained.

Yes , I might have spoken loudly that day. That is because, I'm already angry. For me, she has no right to treat me that way. And she was speaking in korean when she was talking to me. I dont think that it's polite, since I dont know how to speak Korean and cannot understand Korean language. And then, she said, " I cannot give you your salary, it's not salary day today! We are not prepared!". Then I replied, "okay, I dont need your money. I just came here to give you my resignation letter." Then, she went, "You have to sign on this paper that you are not getting your salary anymore." I am not after their money, So I signed on that paper and gave her my full name. Then she said, "Wait, i'll talk to my lawyer," then, she slammed the door again loudly. After that, I went downstairs and talk to their "ate". After a few minutes, she came down, but was already calmed. And she was explaining to me in a nice way that she was sorry, and that she misunderstood me and everything..... Then, she's handing down my salary. I said, "I'm sorry, I cannot accept that. You asked me to sign on the paper, and now you want me to get the salary? No, I can't accept it. I will not give you a chance to sue me." Then, I said goodbye, I thanked her and I even hugged her and told her that I felt sad that something like that had happened. She smiled and said, "I hope only good memories!". I dont know what she meant with those parting lines. So, I thought, when I went home everything was okay.

Saturday, October 17, I dont know why I am bothered and had that feeling that something bad might happen during that day. True enough, me, being a charmed one, my premonitons came true! Around 5pm, I received a text from a korean friend/ex-student/concern citizen informing me that there's a bad write-up about me in PHilcafe. PHILCAFE is a korean website. It is where the Koreans go to browse everything related to Philippines including teachers!

I didn't expect that she would really write something about me in philcafe. I think, it's improper to write bad things about a person, especially, if that person doesn't even have a chance to defend her self. Since Philcafe is a Korean website, I cannot write and defend my self. It's not just and fair. I think her plan was to destroy my reputation, to ruin my career and not be able to find new students. For me, it's a traitor's act. She didn't fight fairly.

" YOU CANNOT PUT A GOOD MAN DOWN!", so they say, so after a week of contemplating, I decided to work again, since there are still people/ students who still trust and believe in me. A month later, I figured out that I'm not happy working with them (koreans) anymore.... Knowing that those were also the same people who degraded me.

It saddens me that inspite of everything that I've done for them, they still took it for granted.
My efforts were never appreciated!
And since,"tutors" are home based and we are being paid for the services that we offer, they think that they have the right to manipulate us!!!

Kaya, "AYOKO NAaaaaaaHHHH!!!!"

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