You are here
Small Successes
When GEOS went under, I suggested that the event to the die-off of the dinosaurs where the large schools would give way to the uplifting and positive piece in The Japan Times on some thriving, smaller schools.(Pay no attention to the jaded guy he quotes throughout the article, though.)
For example, he describes Tower English, a drop-in school where mothers pay 500 yen a week to play games with their children. There is Primrose English School in Ibaraki Prefecture, a school built onto the owner's home that boasts plush carpets and warm colors. Another teacher offers tailor-made mini-courses.
What is common among all of the examples is that they have an angle. They have something unique to sell that fills a niche. Moreover, they are local and know their students, and have built up trust and goodwill. It's also important to point what they are not doing, and that's teaching in a Starbucks with photocopies from an old textbook. When you can sell yourself or your idea, you are in a position to thrive as opposed to simply getting by. And when you are in charge and calling the shots, you are doubly motivated to do a good job.
It's been a while since I've seen something positive about eikaiwa in the newspaper.
- Shawn's blog
- or register to post comments
Comments
How stupid 00:55 anonymous's
How stupid 00:55 anonymous's message is :
1.) Maybe that "Owner" you are attacking does publish books and articles and go on speaking tours !!
2.) How will that owner get more clients into his schools' doors by writing his schools' teaching strategies HERE on THIS Blog ?????????????????? Why would his/her business become more successful if s/he gave YOU information about what makes his/her school effective?????????????? He/she must have more effective ways of advertising his/her business than writing about his/her schools' selling points on this crappy "Shawn's Eikaiwa Sucks Blog".
3.) So I guess my son's swimming school and Kendo teacher and my daughter's piano teacher are also very unethical by your standards.... because they don't write up their teaching methods and blast them to all the blogs on the internet related to their field. ( ??)
1 Maybe he does. The point is
1 Maybe he does. The point is that he shows little willingness to present his 'real' interests in a positive light on this forum. Only to gloat about how he underpays workers and claim that people who post on this site are losers. Would you want to work for someone who carries on like that, in any forum. I wouldn't.
2 I am not suggesting that he would get more customers in his doors by advertising here, although he might find employees, if he was a serious operator. What I was doing was contradicting his claim that posting information about his educational practices would benefit his competitors. I sincerely doubt that it would.
3 Of course not. Why would a school owner, an apparently professional employer, decide to post rather provocative,ranting, unpleasant remarks on a site like this though, but yet be completely unwilling to engage in serious dialogue about the nature of his business - apparently because this would only result in his being scorned and humiliated.
That would make sense if he had not already opened himself up to this kind of reaction by his provocative and irrational behavoiur. He gives examples of ways in which employers will rip off their employees, but also claims that employees who are mistreated deserve what they get and that he has no sympathy for them. He also says that people who post on this site, many of whom warn people about just such practices are just out to get school owners and are a bunch of whining losers. What kind of way is that for a professional educator who believes in the value of what they are doing to carry on? It creates an impression that he is exactly the kind of operator that needs to be avoided like the plague.
Frankly, I think 'school owner' is a troll. It would take effort to sustain his disguise by engaging with more serious questions which is why he has now disappeared.
Pages