Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Mr Lee's Monkey]

I read a thread that started when Sheba said she had a rough realtionship with her coteacher. Last year, I was placed in a public school with the Korean equivalent of the wicked witch of the east. She was abusive as hell, and made my life miserable. It's easy to say that no one can make us do or feel anything unless we allow it, but that's a bit trite and unrealistic in actual context. My principal at the time spoke no English and was trusting this coteacher to manage his fledgling English department well. He had a new English center in his school which cost somebody a ton of clams. This lady put his students and reputation at real risk by indulging her ego. Let's remember it was the Korean education system's idea to employ NET's at their schools. Anyway, I looked a lot of places for relief. I talked to the manager of English affairs at my POE, which stands for Provincial Office of Education. She strongly encouraged me to contact the supervisor of the coteacher and provide an honest account of what my experience was. She expressed a real concern that this coteacher might be placed with an NET in the future at another school, and how detrimental that would be for the school, the program, the principal involved, and the foreign teacher. She really cared about my situation and me, and agreed that there was no viable reason or excuse for the abuse I dealt with for four months. So, maybe buying gifts and schmoozing is the answer. Everyone has to decide for themselves. It is important to know that there is another avenue that was built into the system from the outset, and that is to contact someone in the POE and get some help that way. It's a jump above talking to the principal, and that can be really messy..... so many faces to save. I'm told that witchiepoo was subsequently placed in a position totally unrelated to anything involving English studies, so in my situation I was able to spare someone else some heavy grief, and talk truth to power effectively. It's an option. Not all Koreans in the system are the way they are often described on this board. I've met some who really want their programs and foreign teachers to succeed.

[nautilus]

Thats nice to hear you got a positive result OP.
This is such a widespread problem. Personally I usually try to find a way to deal with such problems by myself as I have developed reasonably effective ways to deal with it.
I guess people are wary of going to the POE because there is some possibility that they will not get you into all kinds of trouble within your workplace while not solving the problem. If my coteachers knew i'd reported them to the POE and yet we were still going to have to work together, it would be all-out war from them -for a year.

[Manuel_the_Bandito]

Three schools and countless co-teachers and I've never had a problem beyond some of them not being able to speak English or teach very well. I think a lot of people are seeing problems where they really don't exist.

[Mr Lee's Monkey]

Three schools and countless coteachers means nothing to anyone but you, Bandito si. Lots of problems are very real for the people experiencing them. The fact that said problems are not in your frame of reference doesn't mean they don't exist. Had you walked in my shoes last year, you might not be so quick to jump on Dave's and dismiss coteacher issues or suggest you know something that you don't. You're certainly entitled to toss in your two cents, but you might rethink harboring the illusion that you can speak to someone else's experience. There's no use in it. Take care.

[conrad2]

OP,
You need to tell us what exactly this coteacher did to make your life a living hell.

[Mr Lee's Monkey]

The point of the post was to suggest an option - a possible alternative to buying gifts or pulling a runner or any number of things one might choose if they are struggling with a coteacher. I thought the information might be useful, and I thought the manner in which my particular situation was handled by the Koreans in the system was worthy of mention. As for exactly what happened with my coteacher, suffice it to say I was unable to do my job and unwilling to quit trying. For me, that was hell.

[Fishead soup]

Find the root of her behavour. Often the person who has the responsibility of having a foreigner dumped on then also has tons of other responsibilities too. It might be this is the first time to deal with a foreigner in the workplace. She might be dealing with lots of misconceptions she's getting from the media.

Meet up with her often. Tell her exactly what you expect from her.
Have her do the same for you. Once you have clarrified your roles there should be very little confusion.

Listen to her advice carefully and decide is this useful. If the advice is neither useful nor helpful. She might be setting you up to fail. In that case
SNIP, Smile Nod Ignore Proceed as usual.

[Goon-Yang]

[Manuel_the_Bandito]