Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bithy75]

This sounds familiar to me. When I taught in a university English program in the States (before coming to Korea), I had a Korean student (a wrestler) who didn't even know the alphabet. It was soooooo hard for him to catch up because the other students were so far ahead. We eventually had to arrange some private sessions for him, but he didn't seem to have a clue about study skills. After reading the original post in this thread, it all makes sense.

[Zed]

What do the parents of these kids think of this situation or are they entirely unaware that their children are learning nothing until they have to pay for extra tutoring sessions like in the case of this wrestler?

Who considers them employable afterwards? Surely they must collapse in the face of their ignorance on their first and subsequent jobs?

[mithridates]

It would be interesting if the students here stopped wearing uniforms and were able to do what they wanted with regards to hair, earrings and the like. I used to get special treatment by growing my hair long and pretending to be...evil. I would tell people that I spent the weekend up in the foothils nearby reading Allistair Crowley and so on. Come to think of it I've only seen one really morbid kid here, and that was a grade 3 girl. I would say "What did you do on the weekend?" and she would talk about the nightmares she had and scare the other kids.

[SarcasmKills]

I was told to "help along" two football players who I had in one of my classes when I was a G.A in the states.....

These guys (disregarding their heavily ebonicfied vocabulary) could barely string a sentence together.. yet alone write an essay (which is difficult when you're trying to teach a communication writing class)..

I approached my director about the situation, and although he was ashamed of it, he told me to help them along because they are important to the schools reputation... These guys knew the score and, when they would actually show up in class, would act like class clowns and see who could throw out the wittiest comment... it got old really quick..

One guy went on to sign as a free-agent with the Lions.. but I have no idea where he is now... let's just say he wasn't the brightest light, although if you read the school-funded promotions on him, you'd think he was an ideal student-athlete...

[PEIGUY]

[Falstaff]

Having worked with athletic departments at several high schools and one university, the one story that takes the cake is this.

I was working food service at an athletic dorm. When we put the hot entrees into the serving wells, the steam would cause the sneeze guard to fog up so that you couldn't see what was being served. Part of my job was to write on the sneeze guard what the dishes were. So I would write in large, all capital, block letters words like "PIZZA" or "POT ROAST".

The day that my faith in humanity was shattered was when one star football player, a man about 6 feet 5 inches tall, about 280 pounds of pure muscle came to the line, looked directly at what I had written and then asked what was being served. A little investigation, and it turns out he was illiterate. It was claimed he had a "learning disability", but I would think that someone his size would have learned to identify the word "STEAK". The real kick in the teeth is this. . .




He graduated. From college. One consistently rated in the top 50 public Unis in America. And he was illiterate.

[Alyallen]

[ladyandthetramp]

Some of you seem to have just given in to the whole system of passing the jocks, regardless of how well they perform in school...

WHY?

Aren't you educators? Isn't your job to educate, not just pass students? Aren't you ashamed?

Granted, if you're teaching in Korea I understand a bit...since job security seems quite low, but in America and Canada?

[ajuma]

ladyandthetramp: You're right! We ARE educators! Even though my uni "encourages" us to just pass the jocks, I make sure that they have to do SOMETHING. Even if it's doing a 1 on 1 on a weekend (and yes, most of them do speak/understand a LITTLE English!), or having them write SOMETHING for me, I expect SOME work out of them! There is no free ride!

[CanadaCommando]

[Duder]

Hello, just wanted to know if anyone here has played university sport in Canada. THere seems to be alot of rumours turned into fact to make it sound like jocks get all these things.

they repealed that law couple years back but the scholarships are only limited i think
very true, the scholarship is limited to academic performance. It is offered to those that play a specific sport but they must achieve a certain academic level. Check the levels at various schools to see what it is. At my uni it was the same as those scholarships offered to non-athletes.
Back home, jocks get days off, and special trips.
What special trips? Where do they go? The trips taken by student athletes in Canada are, they travel to play in florida for a week and get one day with their family for christmas and might miss classes. Any student can go on a trip to any where and miss classes, example to florida for spring break. What are the days off? THeses are the same for regular students as for student athletes. Anyone can take a day off.
Student athletes in Canada have a tough go of it. There are some perks but hey are not what you think. At my uni we had a laundry service that we could sometimes sneak into to use. Also we had a private study hall in the athletic department that was for 'us' only, but most people opted for the library. We did get some jobs out of it. We organized a camp for students in the summer and had to organize it all ourselves and we had to work it for he two weeks, this is the same as any other job for a regular student. Get a gym, put up some flyers at local schools, make a schedule, teach the campers, give them a t-shirt, and finish.
Word, hope that all makes sense.

[FUBAR]