On the fourth episode of Forum Confidential, we’re boarding the EO Global Jet to take you to the North Asia region! Our host, James Li from EO China North, in China will interview EO member Ta-Wei Wang.

Episode Summary

Ta-Wei is an education industry professional from Seattle, Washington with nearly 15 years of education management experience. Ta-Wei's educational career began in 2005 in South Korea. His six years in South Korea brought him experiences in teaching, faculty training, content development, center management, and franchise expansion. In 2011, Ta-Wei moved to China to develop a new education program and later moved on to co-found Shang Learning to serve as the Director of Education. In this episode, he shares his path as an education industry professional and the challenges Education faces nowadays. Tune in now!

Timestamped show notes

0:58 Tracy Neal presents Forum Confidential Host James Li
3:19 Ta-Wei Wang presents himself, he was born in Taiwan and his family moved to Seattle when he was 4 years old
4:26 After graduating he wanted to travel abroad for one or two years. He went to South Korea to teach English, from that experience he was able to do R&D, curriculum development, becoming a faculty manager and train teachers.
5:25 From South Korea he moved to Beijing and was able to help start two different education companies, helping students with their admissions processes, to fulfill their dreams to be able to study abroad.
6:44 To the question: “Is being an entrepreneur something that you are born with or something that is developed over time?” He responded that thinking back to his childhood he started working in his family business at 11 years old, at the chain of a Chinese restaurant. Thanks to the experience of learning the value of money at a very young age, a lot of that work ethic was already in place when Ta Wei turned 16 and started getting a job.
7:40 A lot of the jobs that he got were on the entrepreneur spectrum. It is something that Ta-Wei enjoyed, being able to start companies.
8:30 He learned a lot of his work ethic from his father who works in the cooking business. which he learned from his father. His father never missed a day of work, never complained about was he was doing. Ta Wei Wang addresses that hard work does pay off.
10:00 One of his biggest challenges was that he was teaching English but he was rejected because he had a non-American looking name and I looked Asian.
11:00 Luckily a company in Korea looked beyond that and now the market has become a little savvier and looking for people that share the same experience that their children are going through - being a person who was born in Asia and studied in the United States.
12:00 In the education industry this is very common. It is so stereotypical and racist but also understandable.
13:22 To being able to hire good mentors or good educators you have to look to their background.
14:00 We get to hire American looking people that went to Harvard or Stanford or Yale. They come over to be teachers and the thought for a lot of parents is like “this person will be a great teacher”. But that’s not always the case.
15:15 When looking at who might be a good educator, the most important thing is how you can effectively deliver the information.
16:40 The Programs I have been working on, help students develop critical thinking skills and XXI century skills such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creative thinking.
20:30 One of the large challenges that his company faces is that before a lot of the focus was on the memorization of knowledge. We have to educate families that now knowledge is at the tip of your fingerprint and the important thing is being able to know what to do with this knowledge.
23:30 Most of our classes don’t have any grades and the question is how do you measure progress? We do it through project-based learning.
26:00 Ta-Wei Wang talks about his mentor, who was his boss in the Korean company.
29:00 Joining the Chapter and being in the Forum has helped Ta-Wei discovered himself more deeply.