Korean Job Discussion Forums

[kangnam mafioso]

A lot of people believe that teaching in Korea is much better than teaching in their home countries, and I��m not really sure where I stand on the issue. I��m in the process of getting certified to teach high school English in the States, and so I��ve been thinking about it quite a bit having ��divorced�� Korea following a two year stint in Seoul (one year in a Uni; one in a glorious hogwan in Kangnam).

One has to look at these issues:

Salary
Benefits
Hours
Vacation time
Work Environment
Taxes

In the hogwan, I received 2.1 million won per month ($19,000 per year), health insurance, pension, a free apartment and 2 weeks off in the summer in exchange for 30 hours per week (except during the summer and winter intensive periods when you get to work twice as hard (just what you want to do when everybody else has a vacation!!).

At my university, I received the same but shorter work weeks (15 hours) and longer vacations (10 weeks paid) – and no bloody intensive sessions!.

Income taxes in Korea are about 5-8 percent if I remember correctly.

In America (southeast region):
Secondary (middle-high school)
$30-35,000 per year, health insurance, pension (401K), 10-12 weeks paid off, 35 hour weeks, 15 percent income taxes.

Community college:
$35,000 –45,000, 3 months off, 15 hours teach load.

Hmmm �� still confused. It looks about the same after you factor housing costs, etc. In the southeast States, a one bedroom apartment will cost about $450 per month ($5400 per year), utilities will run $50-100 per month, possibly more for high speed internet and other things.

Work environment �� well, the Korean university is definitely better than American high school, but the hogwan isn��t much better. It��s a tough call. For those interested in other cities, New York City pays $41-45,000 per year for secondary teachers. Has anyone else taught both in Korea and their home countries? Which is better?

[Jensen]

I worked in high school and adult ESL courses as a volunteer assistant for about three years and really enjoyed it. I thought about becoming an English teacher and sat in on a HS English lit class and the teacher was nice and the kids were quiet and polite but goddamn it was boring. It was all I could do to keep from becoming an instant subversive.

Several of my friends teach in the public schools in WA and OR and they say the same thing: if the state and the administration would just back off a little, it wouldn't be a bad job. Science and math teaching are kind of different, but language arts is a joke. I have a BA in Asian lit, tons of other literature and writing classes, with a double major in journalism, but to teach high school language arts in WA I would have to spend more than a year in basic English lit classes before I got started on the MAT program. Moby Dick and all that. What a joke...all the PC talk about diversity but by god we won't have any of that in our "English" classes. Then once I graduated and found a job I'd have to teach lit and writing the way it's "supposed to be taught" and more than half my time would be spent preparing kids for standardized tests. No way man, I'd freak out and burn the school down.

It seems like a lot of ESL teaching positions are part-time in the public schools in my area, but I'm looking into it anyway. Something about the practical need for language skills, where your work actually helps somebody, is very appealing. Much better to help Manuel and Maria learn English than to have to spend lunch hours being advised by a lazy administrator in a cheap polyester suit about what is "appropriate" material for a high school lit course.

I agree that hawgons suck, lots of hassles and stupidity. The actual teaching is fun though. I haven't tried uni-teaching in Korea or Japan, I want to get a MA and give it a shot, just for grins.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I don't want to nit pick and be petty. However, , the theme in your list of topics that you compared have a common theme: money.

I would like to add another category to be considered, but it can't be measured in terms of dollars or pounds (or other local currencies): life experience.

The couple of times I went home I found that everyone was doing the same old, same old. Get up, go to work, get married, have kids, live from pay check to pay check. That is the reality of life everywhere. Well, I guess in pre-industrial societies it might be a bit different, but you get my point.

Those of us who chucked that have a set of life experiences that are out of the ordinary for people brought up where we were brought up. Pretty much all our friends will turn 65 and look back and see pretty much the same life story. And I'm not criticizing it. For the vast majority of people that is right for them.

But for some of us, we will be able to look back and say, "Well, from the age of X to the age of Y I lived abroad. At the time, it was frequently inconvenient and out right difficult, but it was also challenging and stimulating. I learned a lot about myself and I think I am a stronger person for it. I have a set of experiences and memories that I cherish. Some of them include the wretched human being, and I use that term very loosely, that I was forced to share an apartment with for a while. I had a boss that literally spoke a different language. I also had some terrific experiences. For example, one time there was...."

There is no way to put a monetary value on that.

I know some people are here because they couldn't find a job at home. They have my sympathy. But many of us are here by choice. The experience is beyond price. The experience is beyond compare. We are here because that is our path in life.

(I was a teacher back home. I don't care to indulge in meaningless comparisons. Each was what it is. Lots of benefits. Some disadvantages. Hey, that's life.)

[ajuma]

Another aspect that you didn't look at was "teacher freedom." Here, you have the freedom to teach WHAT you want, the way you want to teach it. Sure, you may have to use a horrible book, but YOU can pick and choose how to get the info across. Many places (hagwons and unis) let teachers choose the books.

Discipline is also an issue. Just looking the wrong way at a kid in the States could get you called before the school board or the principal. Here, while sometimes frustrating, we have a lot more options.

Safety is another consideration. Probably the worst that can happen to you here is that you get the "double finger" (you all know what I'm talking about! ). I've NEVER seen a student with a gun or knife!

[Yaya]

[Falstaff]

I think your figures are a bit off, Kangnam.

I currently teach near Atlanta, Georgia. A one bedroom apartment for $450? The only place you could find an apartment for that cheap is one where you will have bars on the windows and be on a first name basis with several local police officers. $700 is more realistic, although it will probably still be in a dodgy area.

You also haven't factored in a car. Public transit in the South is rare, and where it does exist, it is pathetic. A cheap car note will run you $250 a month, and that doesn't include gas, repairs, or insurance.

Taxed at 15%? After taxes, insurance, retirement deductions and the like, I lose about 30% of my paycheck to taxes. These are all mandatory deductions; I'm not including 401K contributions or other voluntary deductions in this.

In my district, a teacher with a bachelor's degree and no experience will make about $35,000 a year. Take 30% off that for taxes and the like. That leaves you with 24,500. Say $600 a month for rent. Down to 17,3000. $250 a month car note? Down to 14,300. Use your figure of a $100 a month utilities (mine is closer to $250, no high speed internet, but I do have satellite TV), and we're down to 12,100. A thousand a month for gas, car repairs, entertainment, paying off loans or debts, and you haven't bought any food yet.

And my district is one of the highest paying in the state, and Georgia is the highest paying state in the South. I have a friend who teaches in North Carolina: starting salary for a first year teacher? $18,900.

I'm a 190 day employee, which works out to 14 weeks vacation a year. But to keep my certificate valid, I have to complete 10 college credit hours in classes related to my field every 5 years. For most of us, we do this during the summer. Oh yeah, and it's at our expense. My district requires an additional 20 hours of staff development every year.

Work enviroment? It's called No Child Left Behind, and it has sucked all creativity out of the school system. Education is now all about the test and achieving standards that by all reckoning are impossible to achieve. I teach at a school that is labelled a "failing school". And some of the bullsh*t really gets to you after a while. For example, I had a student last year in a 10th grade English class. I noticed he was struggling, suggested some testing, and we discovered he was reading at a 2nd grade level. Six months later, we had him reading at a 6th, almost 7th grade level. 5 grade level increase in 6 months! But it wasn't enough to get him to pass the test, so according to the government we failed in our job to educate this young man. We left him behind.

Even given all the horror stories I've heard here, a hogwan sounds more and more appealing every day. A co-teacher of mine taught in Korea for several years, and he constantly asks himself what he's doing here. I'm doing the same thing.

[Yaya]

[Falstaff]

As far as administration harrasment goes, I don't get much of it anymore, but my first few years were hellish. I guess I'm fortunate. I'm good at what I do, and I get results, so when I bend the rules (or completely disregard the curriculum ), the administrators don't say much to me.

But yeah, it can get pretty hairy sometimes. For example, last year I taught 2 Acting classes, 1 Technical Theatre class, 1 College Prepatory Sophomore English class, and 1 Team Taught Sophomore English class ( a class of extremely low level regular education students mixed with special education students with a wide variety of academic and behavioral disabilities). When I complained that I had 4 preps, I was told that I only had 2. After all, Acting and Technical Theatre are both theatre classes, and there's no difference between the class of students going to college and the class that's half special ed.

To be honest, with the stuff I've seen in my classroom, it's amazing I'm not in a padded room somewhere, drooling on myself. But teaching is what I was meant to do. I've only had one incident that made me question whether I needed to be in the classroom or not, but even that didn't last long.

And some of the complaints I see on this board about working in hogwans make me laugh. "I have to stay x number of hours even though I'm through with my classes". Well, my students go home at 2:10, but I have to stay until 3:10. My working hours are 7:10 to 3:10. Now if I come in early to help out students, can I leave early? Nope. That's part of being a salaried employee.

"I have to fill out student progress reports." Yeah, so do I. Every six weeks. For 140 students. That's a part of teaching.

"My director wants me to do x. That's not teaching, so I'm not doing it."
One of my fellow teachers has over an hour and a half of non-teaching duties per day. He monitors the parking lot before and after school, and monitors the cafeteria during lunch. We have a clause in our contract that says the principal can assign us other reasonable duties and responsibilities. Hall monitor, after school tutoring, staying until 9 p.m. for parent conferences, all stuff I am required to do.

Nobody teaches in the States for the money. We do it because we love teaching. It's all the crap that gets in the way of teaching that drives people out of this business.

[kangnam mafioso]

pretty depressing portrait, falstaff. why are your deductions so high? that sounds almost as bad as canada. aren't things like insurance included in your benefits package?
atlanta rents are more expensive than the smaller southern city i live in (south carolina). and luckily my car is paid off. $250 sounds a bit much for basic electric/ water, but i guess if you factor in cell phone/ cable internet ... that would be about right.

it's pretty sad they don't pay teachers more. people want sustainable communities, but they don't do much in the education department.

[Dawn]

My cousin just signed on for $34,200 at one of the better elementary schools in the north suberbs of Atlanta. She's looking at 30 percent for taxes, $800+ a month for rent unless she can find a roommate (is hoping to get an apartment that's about $1,000 a month, then split it with someone), plus insurance, utilities, etc. She took the job outside Atlanta because starting salary was $4,000 a year higher than in the small South Carolina district where her mother taught for 25 years and where her father currently serves as a school administrator.

I signed on at a good preschool/language institute last year for W30 million take-home pay. School pays taxes, supplies me with a non-shared three-bedroom apartment, pays all insurance costs and supplies me with more classroom materials than the average school in the U.S.. Plus, when I agreed to a second year, I got a healthy salary boost and added vacation time. I did come on board with an M.Ed., as well as prior teaching experience, so that boosted my starting salary range. But even our first-year instructors who hold only a B.Ed. are faring better than their counterparts in the U.S.

As for the teaching environments themselves, there are good kids on both continents who make the teacher's efforts worthwhile. Here, though, my classes are comprised solely of kids who want to be there and who are willing to make an effort to learn. (Not typical of the industry, I know, but a prerequisite for admission at our school.) For the most part, it's an ideal work environment. Oh, and since I don't have to jump through umpteen hoops engineered by politicians who don't know jack squat about education (read "No Child Left Behind"), I can actually focus the bulk of my time and energy on TEACHING my students. What a novel concept!

All that said, I agree wholeheartedly with the poster who said teachers don't teach for the love of money, but rather for the love of teaching. I walked out of the classroom seven years ago because teachers' salaries didn't hold a candle to what I could make in private industry. Left private industry last year to return to the classroom because I finally realized that job satisfaction mattered a lot more than dollars and cents.

[Falstaff]

I just went and looked at an old paystub. Grand total of 26.7% of check taken out in deductions. Of that over half is state and federal taxes. My retirement deductions eat the remainder.

Looking at my bills: power ran $75 last month, satellite $60, cell phone $30, home phone $35, internet $16, water and garbage $25. I drive a 15 year old car, so my car insurance only runs $13 a month, and renter's insurance is $15. If my math is correct, that's $269 a month.

I live in a nice two bedroom with my fiancee, rent runs us about $1000 a month. We could find a liveable place for about $200 less, but there are some amenities here that are worth the extra money.

My employer does pay a significant portion of my insurance. I had surgery a few years ago, and my share of the $7500 hospital bill was $10. Very nice. But my prescription co-pays suck. I spend about $100 a month in prescription co-pays.

Here's the ugly part about No Child Left Behind. It's designed so that
all schools will fail. It's that simple. There is no way that a school can get 100% of its students to pass a test. Just not going to happen for hundreds of reasons. So why would the government want all its schools to fail? A provision of NCLB provides that after a certain number of years as a failing school the district must provide a certain level of funds to parents to be used in "alternative schooling" (read private schools). At the same time this is happening, President Bush & Co. are pushing "faith based initiatives". That's right folks, this is a round about way to take federal tax money and have it pay for religious education.

The real joke is this: for all the requirements that the Federal government puts on us from NCLB and other laws (Americans with Disabilites Act of 1990 and Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act of 1973), the feds provide the funding to cover roughly 6% of the requirements. The state has to make up the other 94%. Oh, the stories I could tell. (Like spending $150,000 on one student because the district wouldn't do the right thing. They were too afraid the parent would sue )