Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yu_Bum_suk]

My goodness did I just read something that made me feel old. One of my grade 1 MS students, on her mid-term essay question, wrote 'my father is 32 years and my mother is 30 years'. She used Arabic numerals so surely it can't be a mistake. If she's using Korean years, and from her level of English I'm guessing she is, that would mean her father was born in 1978 and her mother in 1980! When I was finishing secondary school her mother was finishing grade 5! Had I done a BA in four straight years and come to Korea I could have been her mother's teacher.

Damn do I ever feel old now.

[tzechuk]

So your student is what, 12?

Meaning she was born in 1997, and her father would have been 19 or 20 and her mother 17?

I highly doubt it....

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I just got another one from a grade one MS student who said her mother and father are 35. Since she says she's 14 she's obviously thinking in Korean ages. That would mean her parents turn 34 in western years this year. Since I've never met a 21-year-couple wanting kids I wonder if that was a shotgun wedding.

[Xuanzang]

[SandyG21]

Happens alot - have a kid at age 15 - that kid has a kid at 15 - your a grandparent at age 30 to 32.

Hey I am over 50 (not yet a grandparent) and I sure don't feel old!

[Ya-ta Boy]

Suck it up. I'm older than most of my adult students' parents.

[Underwaterbob]

Just wait until you teach the child of someone you taught previously. My mother taught the same grade for 35 years, this happened to her a few times.

[Otherside]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[oldfatfarang]

Forget this old nonsense. That's for Koreans caught up in their outdated Confucian mindset.

When I was 26 years I had 19 people working for me - and 17 of them were older than me. Nobody said anything about that - we just got on with the job.

I see age - and Confucian preoccupation with age-related behavior - as one of the major cultural factors holding this society back. Thankfully, we don't have to buy into that.

You are, in fact, as old as you feel. I've met 22 year olds who're already 'old' - their minds are conservative and closed. In contrast, I've got mates who are much older than me - and they are open minded and live life to the full.

NB: My user name is a take off of Confucians' preoccupation with age. There's not a week goes by here without some idiot mentioning my age and how someone should be living their life at a certain age.

Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'.

[antoniothegreat]

speaking of age, a few of my coteachers went to the school we teach at now as students, and they work with their old teachers.

what makes it really bad, is when one of the old teachers asked the younger females on a date.

[Hyeon Een]

In a conversation class one of the questions was "Do you know anyone who got married at a young age? Talk about them"

One of my students (about 20 years old) told us that her grandparents got married when they were both 13! The other students asked whether they waited a few years before having children. Apparantely not. Honeymoon baby.

[Straphanger]

In my youth, the requirements for being a substitute teacher were few. In fact, you needed only to have a certain amount of college credits and a clean FBI record check (my third set of fingerprints that year, dontcha know..)

I had many students older than me. Awkward.

[Yu_Bum_suk]