Korean Job Discussion Forums

[missfroggy]

hi, im at a school where the korean staff dont talk to the foreign teachers, has anyone else experienced this?

[kentucker4]

[missfroggy]

most of the korean staff know english

[Changwon Charlie]

They either:
1. Don't want to appear to be too good as they will be excluded from the other teachers as being to foreign,
2. Not too good and don;t want to to be seen making mistakes in front of their co-workers.

It will be up to you to break down the wall. It happens at all larger schools in Korea.

[iggyb]

This made me think --- do the public school staff do the typical Korean co-worker thing regularly after classes let out? Is group semi-mandatory socializing the norm like it was for Korean workers back in the 1990s when I was teaching adults? (Or has that changed for Koreans too?)...

[DAC]

All it takes sometimes is someone with bile in their blood and some influence among the Korean staff to exclude those Koreans who either like the foreigners or try to understand us when there are inter-cultural conflicts between the Koreans and foreigners.
In cases where there is no contact at all, I think it's because some of the stronger personalities among the Korean staff have cowed the friendly ones into censoring their own social tendencies. Sadly, these stronger personalities, again in my experience, seem to be older, unmarried women...not 100% sure why, but part of it may be the crap they have to put up with from their own families, as well as just about anybody they meet who asks "So, why aren't you married?"

[DAC]

Meaning of course "what's wrong with you that no guy has chosen you?"

[D.D.]

A older unmarried women made my job hell as well and she worked to distance me from the other staff. Interesting that you noticed the same thing. Korean is the land of the same. They tend to like things that are the same. For every one person who thinks it is cool to have differences there is at least 20 who want to keep everything from changing. We are also lesser in the eyes of many people here, to put it lightly.

[iggyb]

[url]these stronger personalities, again in my experience, seem to be older, unmarried women[/url]
Koreans will tell you this is a type. I heard it referred to every once in awhile teaching adults.

I don't know how true this still is, but in the late 90s, once woman went from 29 to 30, her prospects collapsed big time.

One of the new class conversations I'd have was to ask each student where his/her long term and short term goals were. I was surprised at what a large percentage of the 20 somethings said "Get married" - and usually without even having a boyfriend or girlfriend. For girls, however, it seemed rather imperative to get it done before she became "too old."

If I were a female teacher and it was like that for me, my attitude might not be great either....just saying.