Korean Job Discussion Forums

[NQ]

[JustinC]

"the open class is part of the re-hiring procedure"

Right, so your co-teacher's / co-teachers' experience with you over the last nine months has little to do with your being hired for another contract?
Or maybe it has 99% to do with you being re-signed?

"is part" is very inconclusive, CentralCali.

"The GET's score from the observers and from the student evaluations are listed on the re-hiring application. Of course, nobody ever shows the GET what they're going to be evaluation on."

So why take scores from observers and students? In fact, why even mention those scores or take them at all? Does anyone at all give any credence to anything except how your Korean co-teachers feel you can do the job? Does your principal even ask the students how they feel you have been a good teacher, compared to the other NET they haven't had during that year?

[CentralCali]

It's not inconclusive. The application--at least for the last few years I was involved with EPIK--required a minimum score from the principal's evaluation, the vice-principal's evaluation, the co-teachers' evaluations, and the student evaluations. Other parts of the application were the principal's recommendation to keep you with EPIK, the principal's recommendation to keep you at your current school or to transfer you, and your desire to continue at the same school or transfer. The stuff I mentioned about the scores is what gets put on the application after you submit it.

Obviously, there's plenty of room in there for pencil-whipping. The biggest BS, though, was the student evaluation. Some of the questions on that had absolutely nothing to do with the NET's actual job performance, but rather with the whole idea of having an NET working at the school in the first place. And that's not even touching on the number of students who can't be bothered to actually complete the eval in a serious manner but who just mark all 1s or all 5s or make pretty patterns such as 1-2-3-2-1.

I'm glad NQ got to see what they're evaluated on. Sadly, for most of us, it's just a great big secret, one that affects our future.

[newb]

In my experience, it doesn't matter who's evaluating you on what. Some Korean teachers think I'm the biggest A-hole and some think I'm the greatest English teacher to walk the Earth.

What really matters is what your principal say will ultimately determine your final evaluation score even though your co-teachers/VP says otherwise.

[roguefishfood]

I agree that picking your battles is SO important.

If you really don't want to do something don't let them steamroll you into it, but realize that going along to get along when you can tolerate it CAN earn you brownie points.

I was asked to go to a funeral for someone I've never met, a relative of someone who works at the school. I went and gave money and did the whole Korean funeral thing, and now I don't think it'll be a big deal when I quietly don't go to the Principal's son's wedding (TWO HOURS AWAY BY BUS) this weekend, because I showed a willingness to put myself out for co-workers/the school.

Also, if you have to turn something down, do it the way this culture does it -- defer and, if needbe, cite filial responsibility. There's no need to be confrontational about it. If someone asks me if I'm going, I will do that tooth hissing noise and say "I'm not sure... My father hasn't been feeling well and he wants to talk to me on the phone at that time [that time being important due to time zone issues]..." With the Confucian overtones, excuses for stuff like that that involve family seem to be more easily accepted and lead to less ill will. At least that's been my experience anyway, YMMV.

Having a history of being agreeable to everything you can tolerate really really really helps when you have to say no, though.