Korean Job Discussion Forums

[captain kirk]

I've been at a public elementary school for two months, first time, and it has suddenly occurred to me that I don't see much 'teaching' going on. You know, learning, the stuff you're supposed to do in things called 'schools'. I see homerooms where the desks are arranged in quads and little bits of coloured paper are ripped up to make mosaics, based on a photo of Picasso's Starry Night, expanded in size onto white paper 16 by 20 inches. And if they're not doing that, or making things out of egg cartons (grade five we're talking about here) they're out in the yard doing a communal exercise, or carrying eggs (races) on spoons.

This wouldn't bother because I know, if the parents can afford it, the kids can, maybe, learn something later, when they're tired, at the hagwons . What does bother me, though, is the English program seems to have NO expectations and no 'hustle'. My co-teacher seems to think, along with the Korean homeroom teachers, that 'English class with a foreigner' is just a big, snoring joke, a vacuous timekiller (maybe like all THEIR classes) and ought to remain within that definition. I have never seen any of the public school elementary Korean teachers raise their voice. They all act sedated; why is this? I actually miss the fierceness of the hagwons, which I recreate in the public school class but it seems to disturb my co-teacher's pastoral, salaried, hokey-pokey/ do-nothing, don't make waves equanmity. This is at one school.

The other school I work at, elementary too, has passionate teachers on the whole. The difference is the 'passionate' school is out of the way, more rural, and accepts itself for what it is. While the snoozing school, just going thru the motions, is a 'big school', more capable, supposedly, with more citified/qualified teachers. But I think the teachers there are stuck-up, and just wish they were somewhere else less country (the most idiotic thing this 'choice' school did was have a 'science day' (English classes were cancelled) and do you know what that was? Grades 5,6 made bottle rockets in the morning and launched them in the yard in the afternoon. Grades 3,4 made balsa/paper winged gliders in the morning and launched them in the afternoon. We're talking ALL day here). I like working at the 'honest'/down to earth/truly friendly school. I don't like working at the stuck-up, pretentious, lazy school.

Do you notice differences in schools? And do you think the students do too much arts and crafts? Back in Canada, in grade 5, I wasn't doing cut and paste things in arts and crafts throughout the day that's for damn sure. We learned how to take down moose, roast beavers on a spit, and build snowshelters using a snowshoe for a spade.

[Corporal]

[tomato]

[captain kirk]

Raising their voice not in the negative connotation, as in yelling at their students. Raising their voice like they are passionate, and therefore instilling the room with fervour. Maybe it's because they are trained teachers and the Korean teaching method is not question and answer/give and take. It's be quiet and listen to me, repeat. So a very soft voiced adult to child kind of dynamic. In the Western style teaching allows kids to think and speak in return. The teacher speaks loudly to get the class revved up. This issue bothers me, 'raised voices', because the co-teacher I really can't stand tells me I'm too loud.

This is not an issue I get from homeroom teachers, who act as co-teachers, at the other school. This co-teacher is a pain in the side, anyway, but I have to work with her in EVERY class at one of the two schools. A very stupid system instead of working with varied homeroom teachers. What if your co-teacher is a damn screwball, incompetent? So I have an issue about the lack of raised voices where the teachers see the students as 'inferior, quiet little mice' and don't bother to be passionate in their teaching because they are teaching to 'rodents'. Which is sort of my co-teacher's attitude. She'd rather be doing anything else because she was somehow assigned the job.

Otherwise I could care less about how the public school can be 'dodo daycare'. IF they help me instead of hinder, with comments like the batty aunty co-teacher ('you are too loud'). Oh, yesterday she started writing words like 'pencil, pencil case, ruler' on the board (this is grade 4) saying, 'they don't know'. SHE doesn't know any new words, beyond the book she clings to. And in a soft voice she would teach the kids to sleep. I like class to be active, as wild as a kiddy brainstorm, she doesn't. She'd rather put a lid on them and a lid on me. I notice there are other teachers like her in the school, taking the path of least resistance, doing arts and crafty kind of things. The kids don't seem to mind, of course, because they can talk with their buddies and make rockets out of toilet paper tubes, houses out of popsicle sticks, whatever! Killing the kids' brains with kindness.

And, to top it off, they seem to figure they are REAL teachers, and I am not. The other school, nice people, not a problem. The stuck-up school with the co-teacher who'd rather not be there; problem. I can't really communicate to the upper ups how incompetent she is because of the hierarchical system. As a subordinate, I'd be wrong. As a foreigner, and not as a Korean, I'd be wrong. It's driving me batty; I'd like to get transferred. Stuck three days (of the five day workweek) with the same (idiot) co-teacher for four classes; 'beam me up, Scotty'. And, the thing is, it's just one person in the way, like a kind of workplace psychological hangup that talks, and walks, and pisses me off.

[Gamecock]

At least on the elementary level, it does seem like Korean public schools are WAY more fun than elementary schools back home. There seems to be an excessive amount of "fun days"- school picnics, sports days, science days, etc.

It was an adjustment moving from a hogwan to a public school in that when the bell rang I was used to jumping up from my seat and rushing to class (at the hogwan), whereas it seems the norm at my public schools for the teachers to sit around the teachers' room for 5-10 minutes after the class is scheduled to begin.

I'm most astonished at the amount of unsupervised time young elementary students have at school. It is quite common for a teacher to go to a meeting and leave a class alone for an hour. This is in addition to the unsupervised time students have randomly before, during, and after school. Back in homeland, the students would probably destroy the school or each other with such ample opportunities. I guess that's a testament to Korea....or something....

[Wrench]

Funny I noticed that as well its funky isn't it. I have a big school that is my main school I like teaching here the kids are less retarted. The rural school is full of DoDos. The teachers in this country make learning a chore not fun. I have been at my school here for over 8 months now and what a huge difference it is to have kids more or less understand me. Before me the teacher did a runner. The kids attitude is so bad when it comes to actuall studying.

[tareze]

i agree. when they're not cutting and gluing, they're running around the school smacking and poking each other in the butt.