Job Discussion Forums

[JL]

Glenski,
"Since when was education free in the USA?"
Ha ha! Touche, on that. Not only do I pay local property taxes here, the local schools are sooo bad, we ante up to pay for Catholic school tuition for our two. And we're not even Catholic!

[AgentMulderUK]

Kids have no respect for you, as you are no more worthy of it than a clockwork doll would be. In public schools they are forced a little more to show you some respect, but not in the English factories.

Adults have a lot of respect for you, apparently.

As they say, kids tend to show their true feelings.......

[cafebleu]

who have considerable experience in both Japan and Korea. I worked in Japan for some time and spent more than that time in Korea.

There is no comparison - Korean students generally are far more ruder and disrespectful to foreigners. I had my problems in Japan but I found the civility of the Japanese generally included students of all ages. There IS a marked cultural difference.

You can see it everywhere - in Japan there was far less dirty behaviour such as spitting and pissing in public places compared to Korea, few people screamed abuse and continually honked their horn or tried to run over pedestrians on crossings, kids who played up in public were usually scolded by their parents, Japanese schoolkids might be a bit nosey around foreigners but hardly engaged in the kind of oafish comments and yelling and screaming that Korean kids I saw from Seoul to Yeosu did.

I couldn't believe how lacking in decency so many Korean kids were in places like fast food restaurants - taking up space next to foreigners, rudely interrupting the foreigners' meals with "Hey wayguk (gaijin)" and constantly talking about their appearances and laughing about them. Such crassness only comes from little children in Japan who don't know better because they are 3 or 4.

The Koreans tolerate things that Japanese never would, both from adults and children. There's a very pronounced lack of refinement in Korea that hits you like a hammer after the general civility of Japanese in public and private. I saw many Korean mothers indulge absolutely rude behaviour from their kids that Japanese mothers would have been ashamed of had their kids done the same.

In schools Japanese kids may be apathetic but apart from the rough, hard nut cases in some schools with poor academic standards and with rough kids, generally Japanese students show levels of respect lacking in Korea.I didn't find they talked over the teacher continually - it was much easier to maintain discipline. In Korea the constant talking at full volume over a foreign teacher is a depressing sight.

It doesn't help that the Korean national curriculum teaches absurd xenophobic myths such as they are 'one blood' and have been for 5,000 years (garbage) and lies about Korean superiority in just about everything.

For people who didn't invent anything over the couple of thousand years that is the true timeframe of their culture, except for kimchi, their own Hangeul alphabet and a kind of floor heating (their claims to being the first to do woodblock printing can be contested successfully), their constant belittling of foreign things and people is laughable.

Remember - the 40 or so years of Japanese rule destroyed all Korean culture and means that they did not lead the world in electronics etc like the Japanese after WW2. What a joke - what was Korea doing before that?
I often heard Korean 'Social studies' teachers belittling other countries and making foreigners' ways an object of ridicule.

When you know about those things, you start to understand why they won't look critically at their very rude public manners and general lack of civility throughout their society. Korean students in general are lacking in basic manners. Hagwons are the worst places to teach - by contrast juku are fine. I found Japanese mothers far more inclined to understand when their kids had been rude arses. Korean mothers tend to encourage crass behaviour by doing nothing about it.

If you see the normal way Korean kids kick at, strike at and throw stones/poke sticks at chained animals like dogs, and then see how Japanese kids normally behave around animals including dogs, it really is a lesson in a crudity that is part of the Korean culture.

[Hoser]

Well I work at a private junior highschool and the kids aren't bad. I mean I don't have any "problem" kids per say (thinking back to some of the little *beep* in my own school days). Sure they love to talk and they WILL continue their conversation again immediately after you tell them to stop but that's as bad as it gets. Sometimes that causes me to lose my cool a little and believe me, they stop talking then! They may not understand English too well but they do understand tone of voice and when you're angry they will know it and be quiet real quick!

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

My TCW is that cafebleu has hit the nail on the head. The worst thing possible in teaching in NE Asia is to have taught in Japan before Korea. Cuz' if you do, only disappointment and anger will ensue!

Hey, I'm a poet an' don't know it!

NCTBA