Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ddeubel]

I hope you guessed it! I just blogged about it and here are my thoughts/findings. http://bit.ly/9TvTc1

Let us know what you think/feel.....

DD
http://eflclassroom.com

[Louis VI]

Teachers are stupid if they go into teaching for the money. There are much better ways to make $$$.

Teaching is a vocation, a calling, a passion, when one is locked in and ripping it's the ultimate wave. At the end of a good day a teacher wonders how they could be paid to do such engaging work. A bad day is hell. Money is entirely beside the point (except in the world of unions, that insidious reductionist collective).

Be the best teacher you can simply because you must. Otherwise, go do something else. Life is too short. Eight years in and I'm still excited to go to work on Mondays.

[ddeubel]

Good thoughts to ponder Louis.

But I would be my bottom / last dollar that if you were paid half of what you get now, you'd do a worse job.

I used to think I wouldn't and even argued on multiple occasions that I didn't when in all honesty, I did.

But I won't presume to think for you and this is just myself thinking out loud ....

DD
http://eflclassroom.com

[The Gipkik]

[Louis VI]

[ddeubel]

Gippik wrote,

[The Gipkik]

When you put it that way, it's probably true for any kind of work.

[Mr. Pink]

I don't think money is the PRIME reason I am into teaching. If it were, I wouldn't be working at an international school, I would be milking my F2 visa for all it is worth, which means taking two or three jobs plus some privates into the mix.

For me the number one reason is job satisfaction. That includes knowing I've made an impact on someone in my class, knowing that I've done the best I could do, and feeling a sense of fulfillment in doing something that adds value to society.

Yes, you could argue, "but would you do it for half as much money" - but that argument falls into a fallacy. Would you spend 5 years in university (6 if you have a masters) to work for $10 an hour if you had a choice? That is essentially what you are asking, and if I was THAT inclined to help society at the cost of my own self getting ahead, chances are I would work with a church or NGO at even lower rates and higher hours.

Teaching is a profession, and professionals should be well compensated, no?

It is funny because my wife recently mentioned that I should go for the money and milk my F2 instead of going for what gives me fulfillment...I am guessing a lot of people go for the money.

EDIT: To reply to the post above:

I was working at an elite FLHS and was the head teacher. I could have stayed there forever, and if I was still there I'd be at about 4mil a month before taxes. Why did I leave? I wanted to be a better teacher and I wanted to work in my own areas of specialization, not just EFL/ESL. I paid a lot of money to go back to school and get more education. Will I really make back what I've invested? I doubt it, when I consider I could have stayed at my old job until retirement. I am currently doing an MA and spending a lot of money on that. Will I make it back? If I decide to milk my F2, I am sure I could, but if not, probably not 100% over my career as the difference in my field with those with a B.Ed and MA is only 2-4k a year extra. My MA will cost me quite a lot when I am done, and then how long will I teach? I'll be 40 when I finish it. Thus, money isn't the prime factor. I want to be the best teacher I can, and I invest a lot of money back into PD and the like.

Your statement applies to all jobs. I could have skipped the B.Ed and MA and tried to join a government agency back home like Border Security...they start out at 40-50k a year...the fact is I know I won't get rich being a teacher, but for the investment I've put into schooling and PD I should be able to live comfortably, no?

[schwa]

I love my public middle school students. Pay rate totally incidental, but comfortable.

Just signed up for year 10.

[air76]

I think that you really do need to divide the teaching labor force into different groups if you are going to accurately discuss this issue.

At home, I'd say that 95% of the teachers are people who went into teaching because they thought that they'd enjoy teaching. With all of the qualifications that are needed to teach at home you generally have to decide well in advance that you want to be a teacher, and it isn't something that people just fall into or a job that people take as a back-up job. Similarly, there is nobody in the US teaching "just because I always wanted to live a year in Cleveland", whereas there are thousands of teachers here who got into teaching generally for reasons completely disassociated with the profession.

So I think that you need to look at the motivation on a group by group basis....there are career EFL teachers here, there are people who came here just to travel, there are people who came just to pay off loans, and more recently there are people who came here simply because they couldn't find a job at home. Each of these groups surely has different motivations when it actually comes to the "teaching" aspect of their lives.

The logic that you would do a worse job if you were paid 1/2 the money is A. true with any profession and therefore kind of irrelevant, and B. dependent greatly on perception.....if my school slashed my salary in half tomorrow, of course I would be pissed off and my job performance would suffer, but if it were merely that every other school paid double what mine did, but I was unaware of this fact and was happy with my salary, then there would be no effect from the fact that I was making 1/2 what others doing the same job were making.

The first time I came to Korea the money was not really a big motivator at all...I just wanted to travel and to try living in a country for a year as opposed to just backpacking around for a couple months and going home. Sure, I had some expenses at home so at that point in my life I couldn't have afforded to teach somewhere that would have allowed for zero savings, but my primary motivator was simply to travel and nothing more. I could have cared less about the teaching. If there had been a different job with the same benefits and same hours doing something else I would have been fine with that, in fact I probably would have preferred that.

The second time I came to Korea it was all about the money....we came here to save up money so that we can get out of teaching. Bar none. Coming back to Korea to teach ironically was the quickest and easiest way to save the money that we'd need to ensure that we'd never have to teach again.

[The Gipkik]

[air76]

[Summer Wine]

[schwa]

[The Gipkik]