Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Mr. Pink]

From previous posts you have expressed your dislike for Korea's education system. This bias presented today has:


Essentially insulted the MoE, every Korean teacher working in a university or high school, every foreigner who is working in those settings, taking their job seriously and most of all THE STUDENTS WHO STUDY 14-16HRS A DAY JUST TO GET INTO UNIVERSITY. Universities may be a joke to you - maybe you worked at a 3rd or 4th tier university. I know 1st tier universities work their students VERY hard.

Do the students take the grading seriously? YOU BET THEY DO. I work at a high school. Derrek works at a high school. This argument is about HIGH SCHOOLS. Considering you have no experience at one, I am surprised you felt the need to jump into this post.

Have you ever seen a student crying because they were 1% off making it into a university they wanted? Have you ever seen students so stressed out they faint, they start shaking, or they always have headaches? Do you know even with the inflated system, a class ranking is very important, and so the difference between that 92 and 93 can put the kid down as many as 5 rankings? That can be the difference between getting into university or not.


How do I think these things up? I think that if you aren't assessing the students, how are you doing them a service as a teacher in their environment? What makes you different from the guy who teaches them after school at their hakwon? So by not assessing are you a "real teacher" - that being one who isn't there sololy for the entertainment of the students.

Is it difficult to assess grades, YES. Do you have any idea of what you are talking about - I am guessing not by your post. Do you seriously think the grades of a hakwon or a university have the same effect on a person's life as their high school grades? Not in Korea. What are hakwon grades? Making a report card? Sheesh I think most ECC employees have to do that. Are those REAL GRADES? Do they effect the students future? I think not.

As I said before your bias against the Korean educational system has been thrown around on not just this post, but on others. Do you honestly think *I* am doing a disservice to my students? I am working withing the Korean system. If anything I do them a great service, because by having grades, they are FORCED to study that much harder, and they actually learn more than they would from someone who wasn't grading them.

Congrats to you. I hope on your next job you put:

How much you disapprove of the Korean educational system. How you think all the teachers who function within that system are just doing a disservice to their students.

Perhaps that will land you something OVERSEAS...where if I read correctly, you will be going sooner, rather than later.

[the eye]

Mr. Pink....

Perhaps I should explain myself before you assume any further conclusions.
Yes, I think the education system here is shit!!, so what? why do you need to repeat yourself about it..?? i wonder why you fail to see how archaic and inneffective the system is.
You seem to have NO problem insulting people on this board....but not the magical MoE...right?

However, my remarks about the system do NOT address those foreign teachers here who are committed to doing a good job. My comments are specifically directed at your claim that 'you are a real teacher because you submit grades'. Giving grades....doing a good job....quite different things, man. I never associated the two.
You made it clear that if you don't give grades, you are basically a hakwan teacher.
I'm surprised you just don't see the obvious here. My intent was to show you how insane the grading system is here...and that it is not what makes a teacher.

Regarding my comment about you contributing to this warped system....yes, i realize that all of us foreigners do that... However, not all of us agree with the ground rules. You obviously do....

Some of us try our best to get around the rules and really try to help these kids learn something useful..... THAT is my idea of of a real teacher.
I don't know what kind of teacher you are, and i am not addressing it.... all i am addressing is your blanket statement.

I do not need to be a high school teacher to understand the student's experience. I teach high schoolers in the hakwan and i 'volunteer' teaching a few privately as well. Believe me, i know the stories....that's why I don't work in a high school, or a uni. I would feel like a total hypocrit if i did.
While i completely emphasize with the plight of high school students here, i only meant to illustrate how the system fails them.

[Mr. Pink]

Seems we won't see eye to eye on this subject.

I have argued this with you before, I believe the Korean education system has shortfalls, but so does the western education system.

I thought I was being clear when saying if someone isn't doing grades, what is the difference between them working at a hakwon or a school?

I never said there aren't "real teachers" at a hakwon, I was trying to define a "real teacher" as someone who does more than just "teach" - someone who also evaluates. There is a lot of debate on what a "real teacher" is. In part I used that term because it is so open to debate - that by adding the grading part, I was trying to show there is a difference.

So guys like Derrek think I am a sucker because I have to grade and evaluate the students. I feel guys like Derrek aren't living up to their full potential as a teacher - thus not a "real teacher". Why aren't they living up to their full potential? When you grade and evaluate students, you give them a reason to study. There are probably 1000 threads on this board about how unmotivated hakwon students are. Or how the "foreign teacher" can't do anything to control them. Having grades is a very big responsiblitiy as well. Even on a "curved system" - it is still a responsibility that the "hakwon babysitters" probably wouldn't like. You mentioned universities. A lot of these are BAD. I will give you that. I will give you that grading isn't as important a factor in determining what a "real teacher" is there. The reasons are as you stated. Dept. heads who change the grades or force certain curves etc. So realize my experience is dealing with highschool, my replies are dealing with high schools. Comparing those to universities, is in most cases comparing apples and oranges.


Your idea of a real teacher is someone who bends the rules? Who tries to put THEIR ideals of education into a system where it doesn't necessarily fit?

I try my best to enlighten the students and help them think "outside the box", however in most cases it is an uphill battle against what their culture and society teach them. What is 1 grain of sand against an ocean? If the educational system here bothered me that much, I would be in my home country. I deal with the things I can, and let things go that I know I couldn't change in a 1000 years.

"I do not need to be a high school teacher to understand the student's experience"

Why not? Do you think just a few students can give an accurate picture of how it is? The best way of understanding, is by experiencing. It's like never teaching in a hakwon, but saying you understand it from what the students tell you - that understanding is very limited.

[the eye]

Mr.Pink....

you and i have never discussed the education system before....i think you have mistaken me for someone else. the first time i crossed paths with you was when you slammed insults at me regarding my job situation a few weeks ago.

anyway...
i don't believe the 'evaluations' of your students are yours alone. your evaluations are part of s system of fabrication because they are inflated and adjusted to suit a dishonorable system.

case in point- what happens when a student at your school has an actual grade of 80...and is bumped to an 85, say.

then a student at another school with the same actual grade is bumped up to a 90. who ends up crying and shaking?

i realize that class rank comes into play...however, students also compete for university spots between high schools.

when i compare highschool to university, i did so because both systems obscure the reality of the situation. what's the point in offering an evaluation if someone else ends up fabricating an official one?

also, i don't believe that hakwan students are unmotivated simply because they are not graded.

you know better than to suggest that.

there are a whole slew of reasons why they are unmotivated and uncontrollable by us westerners.
one very large reason is that they are stuck in an educational system that draws the life out of them in the first place.

[OiGirl]

[deessell]

Just to weigh on this debate. I work at a high school (as a L1) as a CONVERSATION TEACHER. As you know, in the public school system we teach 40 students in a class. I see these students once a week. How can I possibly manage to assess their speaking ability effectively, I can't even remember their names.


I agree that some students take this as an opportunity to frig around however I also see it as an opportunity for the students to have some much needed fun and a release from the "korean style" education system. By not assessing their marks I feel that students have less pressure on their performance and are free to begin to reproduce all that otherwise useless vocabulary that they have.

Sure, sometimes I feel that I am banging my head against a wall and that I am part of the publicity machine of the MOE but I have seen the students willing to try and communicate. I am also there to provide an opportunity for the teachers and the students to USE their English. I must also add that I don't teach any set texts and I only teach freshman.

[deessell]

[jaderedux]

In my school (middle school boys) I found that giving me some responsibility for grades does actually help my class. Twice a year I give speaking tests to all the students.

I also contribute 5 questions to all exams. It has made my students realize that Miss Jade's class isn't just a fun and games class. There are consquences for not paying attention.

Whether it makes me a "real" teacher is irrelevant. What is relevant is that my students take it more seriously because I can make a difference in their grades.

jade