Empty head

This week, very few things have captured my mind to be able to write about it.  February is always a slow month, due to schools still not going into full swing.  Normally March is when the big push is.

Maybe just a few ideas, very small things.

1. When people find my site through Google, they often find it with the sentence “why do we need teachers“.  This strikes me as odd.  Either it is a reader who constantly forgets my URL, and only remembers I wrote a piece on my defense of teachers vs. technology, or there is a genuine concern that teachers might become an extinct species …. I don’t really look at my stats but today I just might.  Just now, I even have a link stating that my webpage was translated into German, that is nice.  Another funny search term is “should you worry if a student complains at your hagwon and drops your class?“, I would say if it only happens once, it is not you, if it happens five times, it’s you.  Finally, we got “what is the meaning of wangjangnim”.  Well, Wang means prince, and wonjangnim, means director.  First, I made a mistake when registering the URL, but when a Korean family member asked me why I called myself the Prince man, I decided to stick with it.

2. The most popular pages are: Trust the mediaKorean MumsA rebuttal  , Probably because they are cross linked with blogs far popular then my own.  Trust the media is me complaining about the glorification of money, especially done in such a way as to give the person making the money for him to make even more money.  So the title is short for Trust the media to screw with your mind.  Korean mums was written in response to the pressure society pushed onto woman in Korea to be a “perfect” mom, a “perfect” wife, etc …  If only people realize that perfect is like the speed of light, to attain it you need infinite  time and energy.  The rebuttal was written to try and fight the skewed perceptions that ALL HAGWONS ARE BAD.  No, they are not.  If you have attended a score of bad hagwons, maybe the problem IS you.  If I have hired a score of bad teachers, are ALL teachers bad?  No.  I suck at finding good teachers.  People should stop blaming everyone else for their misfortunes, and start dealing with the source of the problem, which simply said is, themselves.

3. My average visits per day is around 20.  That isn’t much. When people write something, they write something so they can share their POV’s with the world.  The reason I write is because I want to get feedback.  I want to test my idea’s in the real world, even if it is just a sparring of words, sometimes comments do turn on a light in my brain.  I just don’t get many of them!

4. Luckily, I had someone giving me some advice on my site, too bad I don’t have the skills to implement.  He said that reading my blog chronologically makes the most sense, from first to last, so I should find a way for readers to do that with the click of a button.  I am happy I got this blog online for so long!  He also told me my search button dissipated and that makes me angry.  I have no idea how I lost it in the first place!  Talking about SEO, I still haven’t figured out what it even means.  I got enough people trying to sell it to me though, even though I don’t make a single won on this site.

5. Hagwons going under.  A recurring idea that I hear left and right is that hagwons are going under left and right.  The problem is, I don’t know.  Are they?  Where can I get that kind of info.  I wish the hagwons in my neighborhood would all go belly up …..  What I do know, or feel, is that in my direct vicinity, capacity is just too much. People are not having a disposable income to spend on education.  And many people are starting teaching from their homes to supplement their income.  I do think that people starting hagwons, or any other small time educational center, haven’t realized the market is on the down.  Adding capacity to the market might not be the best strategic choice.  I also see a lot of fellow expatriates who normally operate in the education Industry, to try and branch out into other Industries or find a way back home.  These are all signs of the time, interconnected with each other.  The Education Industry in Korea is waning.  Now is the time to expand your options, and look for greener pastures.

Cheers, enjoy your weekend.

Wangjangnim.com