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The Tunnel at the End of the Light
The Christian Science Monitor ran a piece on Nova's collapse that views eikaiwa through rose-colored glasses. This quote in particular caught my attention because it conflates all Westerners working Japan with eikaiwa teachers and illustrates some seriously delusional thinking about the realities of eikaiwa.
Here's an example:
The collapse of Nova might not just be Japan's largest consumer story this year. Foreign embassies, Qantas Airlines, and local unions and media are rallying behind students and teachers, who Sunday night set up a "Nova Relief Fund" to help hundreds evicted on short notice from apartments supplied by Nova. "We just need to think about the 1,300 Australians who are suddenly finding themselves out on the street there in Japan," said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
Nova's demise is also illuminating Japan's worsening reputation for its dealings with thousands of skilled Western workers who, despite speaking Japanese and raising Japanese children, are denied voting rights, tenure at universities, promotions, and contracts beyond one-year agreements with few benefits.
Somehow Nova is representative of the poor treatment of foreigners in Japan as a whole. Never mind that the author seems to think eikaiwa teachers are skilled labor--that's for the next paragraph down.
"We're being treated like cheap migrant labor down in the southern United States," says Paul Baca, a young Canadian. One of thousands of "perma-temps," he has been going from job to job over the past decade. "About 99 percent of us have university degrees.... [W]e're not treated like skilled workers in other countries."
Sorry to burst your bubble, Paul, but you're not a skilled worker. When you turn over the rock that is eikaiwa, you'll see all sorts of things squirming under it: the lack of training, no benefits, the lack of a career path, emphasis on sales over education, one year contracts that can be canceled or not renewed on a whim, substandard in-house textbooks, falling wages, part-time employment, the list goes on. Let me be blunt: Eikaiwa is unskilled labor. It's a dead end job. You are a first-world migrant laborer, functionally illiterate, and working in a foreign land. The vast majority of teachers bring no skills to the table other than the fact they can tie a tie and speak English.
If you stay long enough, you may end up like Sam, a used up party boy:
Sam Gordon, who came to Japan five years ago, says he became attached to his students. "I don`t want to go back to America, I have no job there. Now foreign teachers have a bad image in Japan. I feel bad for the students, too. They didn't even get to say goodbye to their teachers."
Give your head a shake, Sam, foreign teachers have a bad image because of Nova? The teachers are not at fault here. People like Sam, however, are the hardest hit by the collapse of Nova. They have nothing to show for their service and generally have no other marketable skills in Japan, which forces them to start all over at the bottom of the eikaiwa ladder. If they have families, it's a even bitter pill to swallow. I have great sympathy for them, but in the end, they are victims of a terrible career choice.
But that doesn't mean eikaiwa has to remain a McJob.
Mr. Tench says teachers should be treated as professionals rather than tourists who speak a language. Some teachers say they fear a new trend of schools hiring cheaper college grads from the Philippines.
The sentiment is right, but the question is, how does one make eikaiwa more professional? Do you introduce standards and regulations? Demand qualified EFL teachers? Use professionally recognized texts and curriculums? Unionize? Maybe it would be better to encourage people to start their own schools, the thinking being that smaller schools could offer higher quality lessons. I think the eikaiwa gravy train has officially derailed and will never run again. Nova's model of big schools in expensive locations offering cut-rate English lessons has failed.
That leaves eikaiwa at a crossroads. If it doesn't transform itself into something more closely resembling a career, and if the General Union, or the teachers themselves, fail to unionize in greater numbers, then I think eikaiwa will forever be an entry level job that's good for shits and giggles for a year or two. The failure of Nova is an opportunity to change the status quo for better, but will that opportunity be seized upon?
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and I`m not the person who
and I`m not the person who put up the wiki link. I haven`t posted since the first offence.
When will you clowns realise
When will you clowns realise that those who work for language schools are...wait for it...instructors and not teachers? hence the lack of a need for qualifications, or the lack of a real career path. it's easy, it's comfortable, it's fun: but it's not teaching.
Canadajin and Anonymous3
something to read: www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99473.htm
Canadajin and Anonymous3
something to read: www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99473.htm
Anybody want to do mankind a favour by updating wiki on NOVA?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_(English_school_in_Japan)
Anonymous3 (thanks for
Anonymous3 (thanks for adding the 3), do you really want to know about light speed in wires? I have the feeling you're making fun of me, but I'll explain anyways.
First, the temperature thing.... Increased temperature increases resistance of the wire. Increased resistance basically means that it becomes harder to drive the electricity through it, lowering the current (electron flow) for an equal voltage. That's why superconductors (which have no resistance at all) are often at very low temperatures (scientists work hard to make them operate at higher temperatures so that we can make more practical applications).
For the light switch? I'll admit it probably isn't the "BEST" way to describe speed of light, but here goes. The electrons in the wire with electricity moving through it only move at about 1/100th of a mm (0.01 millimeters!) per second. Imagine if that were what was making the light come on! It would take days for those electrons to get to the bulb from the switch, and the thing to turn on! But what really happens is that flipping the switch changes the voltage along the entire wire, very rapidly. This causes the electrons at the end of the wire, near the bulb, to start moving very soon after the ones at the switch. This information that the switch was flipped is transferred by the electric field, which moves at the speed of light in the wire (about 2/3 of the speed of light in vacuum). So, when you flip the switch, the electrons near the switch start to move immediately, but there is a very slight delay until the electrons at the end of the wire start to move and the light comes on.
Then, of course, it takes a while for YOU to KNOW that the light came on, which is related to the time it takes for the light to travel to your eye through the air.
Shawn, you need to start a physics blog! :)
Oh Pedantic the Wise...........
"They(eikaiwa) lack both the academic rigor and organizational grounding to be considered places where English can be taught and learned as a second language. But why should they?"
But they're marketed at such, which is kind of a problem, isn't it?
"since I've only been in Japan a short time, but it's odd to assert that the trend is irreversible (lower pay in eikaiwa industry), as Shawn seems to."
If you had been in Japan in the last 10 years, you would have noticed a steady decline in the rates offered. Furthermore, it's a buyer's market now with the death of NOVA- it is unlikely that the eikaiwa industry will completely rebound due to the loss of customer confidence and the increasing realization on the part of customers that as you so aptly pointed out, "....(eikaiwa) lack the academic rigor and organizational grounding to be places where English can be taught and learned as a second language." As such, what kind of an idiot would pay for that? (I can think of a few, but Japanese people, as a general rule aren't entirely stupid and naive)
"It may be the end of the Eikaiwa gray (sic) train, but only for the time being. The vacuum will eventually be filled under different regulatory conditions."
Which, if one lives in the real world, would seem to preclude the hiring of unqualified, inexperienced, UNSKILLED workers. But, I haven't seen a unicorn so I can't rule out the possibility that they exist. So you might be right. This may be a temporary blip but I wouldn't bet on it.
You also said, "and yet, I believe the main thrust of criticism against Shawn is correct. The majority of people who frequent this website (and most especially now) are deeply concerned about the ongoing dissolution of a company they, a friend, or family member either work for or have worked for. They’re interested in finding out reliable information and this website happens to be one of the few that has been prominently name-checked in other, mainstream news outlets."
The purpose of this site (since its inception) was basically to take the piss and have a laugh. I don't believe Shawn ever advertised this as a means of disseminating information regarding the collapse of one of the eikaiwa. If friends and relatives have no other means of finding news regarding the conditions in Japan and the most recent news about NOVA's collapse, you can hardly blame Shawn for that.
And,
"Although it hasn’t been as frequent as before, Shawn tends to come off sounding hectoring and condescending. The permanent post at the top, “So you want to teach English in Japan”, is the most obvious indication. It’s ironical but incredibly mean spirited, hardly a greeting a concerned relative would expect."
The permanent post on top has been there for years. Again, if it offends the delicate sensibilities of a "concerned relative" then they have the choice to abstain from visiting this site. Is it really of any significance whether or not a "concerned relative" would expect to find such a "mean spirited" opening to a web page? One that is independent and affiliated with no company in particular? A site that was created for the amusement of one person and people possessing a similar sarcastic, sardonic, and cynical sense of humour? Why in God's name should he care? Better yet, why do you?
Finally,
Your pedantic criticisms reveal no real argument at all. You've not conclusively shown that eikaiwa teachers should by any means be considered skilled workers in any sense of the term. Furthermore, the only point you've really made is that some people might be upset at the tone of the site if they are looking for news regarding the plight of a loved one caught in the Great Eikaiwa Collapse of 2007.
Too bad.
Honestly,
Your psychological "analysis" of the tone of Shawn's postings reveal your own latent insecurities.
Me?
I'm just a dick who dislikes pompous windbags with nothing to say.
More physics talk
Ah, I see. Maybe one of the problems is that you don't see how "light" can get through a copper wire, right? Well, let's call it the speed of EMR (electro-magnetic radiation), then. Visible light, radio waves, x-rays, broadcast TV signals, infrared, ultraviolet, they're all EMR, just at different frequencies. Visible light is just absurdly high-frequency radio waves. They all travel at the same speed, about 300,000,000 meters per second in vacuum, less in materials. So, if you can't see how "light" moves through a copper wire, think of radio waves. We know they move through a wire, right? That's how your radio antenna works. It takes time for the radio wave signal to travel from the top of your antenna to the inside of the radio. That's the speed of light in metal (whatever metal the antenna is made of). Also, EMR waves have a speed through ANY material. When radio waves enter the wall of your house, they slow down. They speed up when they exit the wall on the other side and start to move through the air in your room.
Why the physics?
If anybody is reading this and wondering what's with all of the physics talk, we didn't just find this website and figure that it was a good one to hijack and use to have a physics lecture. It is a major tangent to run off on, but if you start reading this thread from the post at 10/31/2007 - 16:51, you'll see how we came to this :)
You're absolutely right!
That is a good distinction to make. Teaching well is a skill, and not everyone can do it, even if they have a TEFL certificate or and advanced degree in TEFL. The degree doesn't necessarily make you a good teacher.
Ok, that is really
Ok, that is really interesting. Since my brain is an electro-chemical system, are impulses sent along my nerves also moving at the speed of light? And you have opened my eyes about light waves and radio waves, but don`t we usually talk about the speed of light in terms of the speed at which light travels in a vaccum? I get your elequent explanation, for the most part. Do all radio waves or other radiation (all the other ways that I can think about light) travel at the same speed in a vaccume? Or in any given medium. If so, then I 100% understand your explanation. If not, then it seems like light speed doesn`t actually describe the speed of light, it describes the speed of any type of wave-energy (or at least those types that you described above).
Are ocean waves moving at the speed of light, but through the medium of water. Do high and low frequency radio waves move at the same speed?
EMR
OK, EMR. If light is just EMR, why doesn`t it also pass through the walls of my house? Is it about frequency? Are those EMR waves that travel through my walls (the ones that speed up when they leave) are they traveling at the same speed that light is when it hits my wall and can`t get through?
"Since my brain is an
"Since my brain is an electro-chemical system, are impulses sent along my nerves also moving at the speed of light?"
I'm not a biology person, and there are probably other factors, but it should be linked to the speed of light in some way. Human reflexes are slower than speed of light calculations would suggest, I think because there is also some chemistry involved (our nervous system is not the same structure as a long wire).
"And you have opened my eyes about light waves and radio waves, but don`t we usually talk about the speed of light in terms of the speed at which light travels in a vaccum?"
Yes. It travels fastest in a vacuum, and slower in all materials. So you can express the speed in any material as a fraction of the full speed in vacuum. Some materials are faster than others.
"I get your elequent explanation, for the most part. Do all radio waves or other radiation (all the other ways that I can think about light) travel at the same speed in a vaccume? Or in any given medium."
Yes, absolutely. The only difference between radio waves and the light you see is the frequency. Speed is the same regardless of frequency. The speed is affected by the material, but all EMR slows at an equal rate in any given material. Light travels through air faster than through water.
"Are ocean waves moving at the speed of light, but through the medium of water."
Definitely not! Nothing with mass can move at the speed of light (or so we think). The speed of wave disturbances (such as the Asia 2004 tsunami) isn't related to light. If they were moving at light speed, then there would be no use in a tsunami warning system, because by the time you get the warning, the wave would already be on top of you. I'm not good at physics of material waves. We skipped those units because of a teachers' strike at my university.
"Do high and low frequency radio waves move at the same speed?"
Yes.
"If light is just EMR, why doesn`t it also pass through the walls of my house? Is it about frequency?"
Yes. Different materials absorb at different frequencies. That's why we have colour. Red light is a different frequency from blue light. Some materials absorb red and reflect blue to our eyes, so we see blue. Black materials absorb all frequencies of visible light, which is why you get hotter in a black shirt in summer than in a white one, and why things are painted white to avoid heating too much. Your walls are transparent (mostly) to radio waves, but absorb and/or reflect the higher frequencies of visible light. X-rays pass through soft tissues, but not bone, so we get x-ray images of your broken arm.
"Are those EMR waves that travel through my walls (the ones that speed up when they leave) are they traveling at the same speed that light is when it hits my wall and can`t get through?"
Yes, they always travel at the same speed. But the visible light gets absorbed and/or reflected by the materials in your wall. A window, as you surely can figure out, is a different story. They absorb infrared pretty well (creating heat for plant greenhouses), but visible light mostly passes through, with a bit of reflection. There is some absorption (some percentage of the total), which is why a super-thick slab of glass is harder to see through than a thinner one.
It's possible there are some minor mistakes in here, I typed it up pretty quickly.
SHAWN, SORRY FOR HIJACKING YOUR BLOG WITH THIS PHYSICS STUFF, BUT IT MIGHT PROVIDE A NEW JOB TRAINING OPPORTUNITY FOR SOME DISPLACED NOVA PEOPLE. :)
That's Right!
Shawn was right. I would say that the posters that took offense where Eikaiwa teachers who take themselves too seriously, and are delusional.
That's one reason why I hated working in Eikaiwa. It was full of these self-important, ignorant, but college educated (Everyone knows that a college degree these days is about equal to a high school diploma awarded about 20 years ago.), assholes.
Tests
I can't speak for Nova, but when I joined GEOS, we all had to take a basic grammar test. Not having studied grammar in any serious way, we all freaked. It wasn't that difficult, but it got us thinking of the nitty-gritty bits of English grammar that you understand instinctively but can't explain if your life depended on it.
The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.
-Albert Einstein
Shawn
Wait a minute, Anon 2
"Electrical signals in a wire typically travel at something like 1/3 the
speed of light"
So I`m right then. Electrical signals are NOT moving at the speed of light. Word up to me! But something tells me that you posted that info to make your point om this issue. But I thought that your point was that electrical signals ARE moving at light speed. Am I wrong?
Wow
Cool, thanks, that clears it up. But I would reiterate that to describe the speed of light to a layperson by making reference to the time it takes for the light to go on when you turn on the lightswitch is cumbersome and circuitous at best. Especially when you could just give the simple light from the sun 8 mins explanation. Do you reckon the person giving this explanation was aware of the physics involved, or were they making some crazy assumtion that the time lag is just us noticing the time it takes for the light from the bulb to fill the room, tee hee. This is what was on my mind, and that of the origional poster. At any rate, thanks.
Your quote from last
Your quote from last message:
"But I would reiterate that to describe the speed of light to a layperson by making reference to the time it takes for the light to go on when you turn on the lightswitch is cumbersome and circuitous at best."
My quote from before that:
"For the light switch? I'll admit it probably isn't the "BEST" way to describe speed of light..."
Your quote:
"So I`m right then. Electrical signals are NOT moving at the speed of light. Word up to me! But something tells me that you posted that info to make your point om this issue. But I thought that your point was that electrical signals ARE moving at light speed. Am I wrong?"
My quote from before:
"This information that the switch was flipped is transferred by the electric field, which moves at the speed of light in the wire (about 2/3 of the speed of light in vacuum)"
The "speed of light in the wire", the fastest rate that information can be transferred in the wire, is slower than speed of light in the vacuum (as it is slower in all materials relative to the vacuum). It's roughly 2/3 of the full speed of light in vacuum. This is called the "speed of light in the wire". Nothing can move faster through the wire. Your comment said the same as I've been saying all along.
There's also the "speed of light in air", the "speed of light in water", "speed of light in glass", etc, etc. They're all slower than the vacuum speed, but we refer to them is this way, because it's the maximum speed any information can move at through the material. We also usually express these speeds as ratios to the full speed of light in vacuum.
Now, there is some really funky stuff going on in modern physics, with "faster than light" transmissions, etc, but that's WAY over my head (and the heads of many teachers and professors).
"...lightswitch is
"...lightswitch is cumbersome and circuitous at best..."
Was this clever pun intentional? Circuitous, electric circuit, ......
Our little misunderstanding above I think comes from the way you're reading,
the speed of light in the wire
If you read it as "the speed of light" "in the wire", you could misunderstand. You have to read it as "speed of light in the wire".
who cares if its skilled or
who cares if its skilled or unskilled???
It pays (paid) :-) money so that could get drunk at the weekend and eat tons of yakitori. End of story
Needless to say this has been a sober, chicken free month
Whether eikawa workers are
Whether eikawa workers are skilled or unskilled...I read all these posts but no one has proffered a simple definition of the word.
According to Webster's, skilled means:
1 : having acquired mastery of or skill in something (as a technique or a trade)
2 : of, relating to, or requiring workers or labor with skill and training in a particular occupation, craft, or trade
If you consider the trade to be teaching, not many who work at eikawa schools are skilled teachers. But by definition eikawa are "conversation schools." I'd say you and I have kind of "acquired mastery" of the art of having a conversation in English, wouldn't you? A skilled worker is by definition someone who can do a job that not just any joe off the street can do. It seems like all you people are judging this as if Japan is the US, Canada, the UK etc. Not just any joe off the street can teach an english conversation class in Japan. So in Japan being able to speak English is a valuable skill. Don't be asses about that, it's quite obvious.
Just move to the American south (am living in Dallas now.) Being able to speak spanish here is a skill that people put on resumes. Nobody gives a shit about how it was acquired: in university, night classes, or in the home growing up. It means that you can communicate effectively with the growing number of people who speak spanish, something not every joe off the street can do. THAT's what makes a worker skilled and valuable.
And because not just anybody can do it, skilled workers have choices. An eikawa teacher can leave his job BECAUSE he's got a skill. He/she can rest assured that someone else wants them, and their skill. An unskilled day laborer in the US doesn't have that kind of choice. They stand on a corner and take the jobs offered to them. Of course, that being said, what's considered a meaningful skill is dependent upon what's in demand by society, so it changes (not much use for "arrow makers" or "cloth tramplers" today) English teaching in Japan may indeed be an unneeded or less in-demand job like these feudal occupations, but it doesn't change the fact that the person that can do it has mastered something that not just everyone has mastered or can easily master.
And I think that's really the crux of the debate. The amount of training time, regardless of the type of training (on the job, classes, etc. etc.) matters a great deal. I work as a video editor/video production/post production guy. I can work with Avid, Final Cut Pro, I know cameras, lighting, scripting for tv, radio, etc. It took me years to learn how to do this. I do something you can't just walk in off the street and do. No matter how much you hate the eikawa schools, it's a fact that the majority of the world can't just walk in off the street and speak good English...in front of a class no less...It takes years to be able to do that. On the other hand, I think most people in the world could go learn to pick cotton rather effectively in a couple days. Or sack groceries. Flip burgers? Paint houses? Move boxes? Pick up trash? While you can become skilled at these things you can become skilled at anything, what makes it skilled labor is how easy is it to acquire the basic skills necessary to do the job effectively. I learned how to sack groceries after watching a 6 minute video in the backroom of a grocery store wen I was 16. That's unskilled labor. You telling me some random guy in Japan or wherever can watch a six minute video and teach an English conversation class...?
Yeah it's me! My name has
Yeah it's me! My name has served me well, but the pronunciation is bachya, but I use both!
The speed of light thing is kind of off topic, but electricity travels at near the speed of light, the problem is electrons have some weight, next to none, but that is still enough to keep them going slower than light.
Back to the real issue, teaching in Japan, good luck with that! Get out if you can and that means a job other than in the eikawa industry as it stands! IF you are up for it try and fight to change it! A year from now they will be hurting for teachers since Nova was the main source of labour and once the current flood subsides the numbers coming in to replace the workers (ie 25% of Berlitz teachers leave each year) wont match the demand and then the power will shift!
I still stand by what I say! We are like the migrant workers down south! It happens all over the world and it shouldn't happen anywhere so we have a duty to stop it where we are, AKA here and now!
Good luck to all teaching or otherwise!
ポール バチャ
Paul Baca
As I see it after reading
As I see it after reading the post, optimistic people see the light at the end of the tunnel but pessimistic ones see, if their lucky, the tunnel at the end of the light.
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