Korean Job Discussion Forums

[kentucker4]

I was wondering how much respect the kids show the rest of the teachers on this board. I love most of the kids that I teach...but sometimes I get a feeling that they regard me very different than a Korean teacher. Almost like they are a little racist at times...maybe that's going too far...I dunno. The biggest thing that ticks me off with the older ones is when I'm explaining sometime or ask them something and they say ok ok ok in this tone like i'm an idiot or something. Even some of the very young ones will do it. When they do this...it might sound crazy...but i envision their parents and other Koreans telling them bad things about foreigners.

Lately, I have found myself getting a lot more sensitive to things like this when in the beginning I overlooked everything. Now I even mock some of them when they say ok like that...not mocking in a mean way but in a way that let's them clearly know I understand their meaning and don't appreciate it. They always laugh when I do this and realize that I am not being mean..they get the meaning, though.

I even had one second grader call me a waygook seki. That got to me a little because I really like him. I realize that it's just what he has heard from his elders and peers, though. I grew up around a lot of racist people in Georgia. Nigger is a very common word where I live. I used to say it when I was younger just because I heard it so much until I knew better. So I understand the mentality. My dad to this day badmouths black people all of the time as do many of my friends and cousins. He is a good person, but he is very stubborn and has refused to change his line of thinking from the old days. Much like an older Korean person. So when my students treat me a certain way, I can't help but wonder what they hear from their parents and other Koreans about white people. When you are surrounded by people who think a certain way, odds are you will be influenced by it.

[poet13]

Out here in the country, a Korean friend explained (at great drunken length) one night that many people don't trust foreigners because they are foreigners, but that foreigners have something they want. English. So the chore is to get as much as they can from the foreigner, and be done with the unpleasant task of having to deal with them as quickly as possible. In the spirit of market mentality, everything is a negotiation, but that since they can't communicate with us, both in language and culture, they get as much as they can gratis, or until the foreigner rebels. They don't feel bad for taking what more they can because they don't see that they have done anything wrong.

I was pretty drunk at the time, but I think I got the gist of it.

[bondjimbond]

Most of my students seem pretty respectful, but some of them have called me "dirty" because of the visible hair on my arms.

Lil' bastards..

[Tony_Balony]

Foreign teacher = party time

[Scotticus]

[Burndog]

O.P. If your Daddy is saying horrible things about the 'black people'...he is a bad person. The kids treating you like a waygook s h i t bag...well that's called Karma!

[bejarano-korea]

Hey Kentucker, what does your old man think about you and your Korean girlfriend?

[curtiscurtis]

[Becka]

How could I expect the same kind of respect a Korean teacher gets? I'm not one of them. It would be unreasonable for the kids to regard me as such.

What I DO expect in my classrooms is mental engagement and responsiveness on their part. And I do what I can to get that from them. If, over time, they respect me for helping them learn and enjoy their studies, then cool - I've done my job. That's the kind of respect I want. I don't want them to respect me just 'cause I'm older and have the power to break them into pieces if I want to.

Kids say all kinds of rude things just to provoke, or as the OP said, just 'cause they haven't been taught otherwise. I believe it's part of our jobs to challenge that way of thinking by how we engage with the kids in the classroom.

[asylum seeker]

When I was at high school, our class had a Chinese math teacher who would get teased mercilessly because she couldn't say 'twelve' properly (it came out more like 'twah'). Now was that racism or was that just kids being kids? I don't know but I don't think its something that is unique to Koreans.

[Mi Yum mi]

[PeteJB]

If these kids saw white folks every single day, they'd soon forget you were a foreigner because it'd be a part of everyday life to them. But that's not the case. Ofcourse, being a in a fairly reclusive and homophobic culture you're bound to encounter a reaction that sometimes feels like being singled-out because of your colour. Imagine, this was the United Kingdom fifty years ago - And you were an Asian teacher coming to teach a foreign language, let's say French. I can only imagine the reactions from students, and they'd be a far lot worse and considerably more racist than those you can expect from harmless "Helloooss" in the street. Today ofcourse, such reactions are rare to foreign teachers in the UK - As many people from all cultures interact on a daily basis in the largest cities. If Korea can become a global village like many countries in the West have achieved, you may find those attitudes and reactions gradually fade away as Korea itself will one day too enter into a new era. Either that, or Korea will gradually fade away until it becomes a forgotten land. That is the nature of globalization and the survival of a country depends on globalising.

[Cerriowen]

In general, I find it to be more of a "power" game, than real racism. The kids get to show off to their friends that they are brave to insult the teacher (in another language). When I hear them say something like that, I say "YA! What was that?" or (if they are older) "Do you want to die?" They usually blush and say "Sorry Teacher!" and that's the end of it.

But these kids are usually pre-teen.

[whatever]

[Yu_Bum_suk]