Effortless English Archives

Automatic English For The People

Friday, August 19, 2005

Diversity

by AJ

Another thing that impresses me about Wisdom 21 is their obvious commitment to diversity. They were founded by an African American and their staff contains a diverse mix of races and nationalities. What a pleasant change from the whitebread world of TESOL.

Ive worked in Korea, Japan, and Thailand-- at every school Ive worked at (including my current job at Thammasat)-- the native speaking teachers have been 100% white. Not 95%.... 100%. In Korea, the school staff openly said they would not hire African-Americans (or Canadians)... because "Koreans are scared of black people". I heard this same nonsense in Japan.

Yet here is Wisdom 21... founded by an African-American... with a staff packed full of non-white teachers-- and they are doing very very well in Japan. I have no clue what their teaching methods are, but I applaud their commitment to diversity and I applaud them for challenging the dirty racist secret of the TESOL industry.