|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
Hogwons = racist, ageist and sexist
Goto page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Next
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Chaparrastique
Joined: 01 Jan 2014
|
 Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2015 9:02 pm Post subject: Hogwons = racist, ageist and sexist |
 |
|
..question is, does anyone in this perverse industry (from hogwons all the way up to universities) actually possess a moral compass?
It starts with recruiters. Because they get a bonus of 1M won if their dupes finish their contracts, they autmatically look to employ only the most gullible, hapless pushovers possible. That means, employ only the youngest people they can find.
Because of attitudes to race prevalent in this society, aryan blondes are preferred over all else. It doesn't matter that the person has zero experience or ability and their "teaching" efforts resemble a seal trying to mate with a giraffe (no offence to them personally), they are held up to be model teachers. Darker-skinned teachers- who may be qualified and brimming with ability, are actively persecuted and hounded out of their jobs.
The parents seem to want a mix of experience and age. ie, a scenario that reflects the real world. But its the directors and recruiters who are foisting a monoculture of 20 year olds onto them because a) they want to pay them less and b) they want employees who simply do whatever they're told without question.
I have seen women teachers terrorize the young children in their care like psychotic harpies. I have seen male teachers that are ten times more nurturing and talented than their female peers. But none of that matters to koreans. Because ajosshis cannot bear the sight of foreign males on their territory and have co-opted the media into demonizing them as drug addicts and criminals, that means male teachers are hounded out of their jobs.
Hogwons are bastions of ageism, sexism and racism. Do Koreans even know that this is wrong? Wake up, Korea. Take a look at the kind of society you are encouraging! |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2015 10:13 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Let the market place decide. If hagwan owners put looks and age above teaching ability because that is what the parents really want then they'll do good business in the same way as a bar that continues to employ attractive bar staff will. You wouldn't tell Hooters, for example, they had to employ middle aged men so why tell that kind of hagwan? If you think Korean hagwans have that kind of hiring mentality don't apply to work there. If you think everywhere in Korea has that kind of hiring mentality maybe it's time to look at other countries. If Korean parents actually place education higher than looks, the hagwans that employ people with experience and qualifications will eventually thrive. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Coltronator
Joined: 04 Dec 2013
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 12:31 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Edward has a good point. Look at the most successful Hagwon in korea. For all its myriad of faults, Chungdahm is actually a beacon of hope when it comes to its hiring practices. Favouring experience over age, not caring about skin colour, putting ability to teach above all else. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Chaparrastique
Joined: 01 Jan 2014
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 1:36 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Coltronator wrote: |
| Edward has a good point. Look at the most successful Hagwon in korea. For all its myriad of faults, Chungdahm is actually a beacon of hope when it comes to its hiring practices. Favouring experience over age, not caring about skin colour, putting ability to teach above all else. |
Exactly. Inclusiveness is the recipe for success.
The west knows this, which is why they have made advances in eliminating racism, ageism and sexism.
What edwardcatflap actually suggested was just to let directors continue being small-minded and treating education like a topless bar because they don't know any different.
No. When it comes to korea, progress has always had to be forced on it from the outside. Left to its own devices, this country settles into its own familiar groove of backwardness.
If the government actually cares about creating a quality education system and improving society, it would be easy for them to step in and regulate the industry. All they would have to do is e.g. make an EFL qualification an E2 visa requirement. Or put E2 approval in the hands of a body commisioned to ensure hiring standards- that the most qualified people get hired regardless of age or ethnicity.They've already gone part-way to this with their E2 interview clause.
Because at the moment Korean males (whose tiny minds are a feverish whirlpool of every imaginable prejudice) are treating education like some kind of beauty pageant. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 1:58 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
If the government actually cares about creating a quality education system and improving society, it would be easy for them to step in and regulate the industry. All they would have to do is e.g. make an EFL qualification an E2 visa requirement. Put E2 approval in the hands of a body that had to meet gender/age/ethnicity quotas and ensure hiring standards.
|
I think it'd have to be something like the CELTA, not the online one people in public schools need to have. Otherwise everyone would get an online cert and hagwans could still hire based on the looks/age of the people with the qualification. At least if people invested a reasonable amount of time/effort/money in the qualification, it'd show they were serious about teaching. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
alongway
Joined: 02 Jan 2012
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 4:05 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Coltronator wrote: |
| Edward has a good point. Look at the most successful Hagwon in korea. For all its myriad of faults, Chungdahm is actually a beacon of hope when it comes to its hiring practices. Favouring experience over age, not caring about skin colour, putting ability to teach above all else. |
Are you high?
Would this be the same chungdahm currently tied up in court for ripping off teachers? Or would this be their book/kindy subsidiary that pushes pretty young female teachers on kindergartens because that's what they prefer and hire any white guy with a pulse to put on a show for parents when they wander by?
I've heard a lot of words to describe Chungdahm, but bastion of hope has never been one of them. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
earthquakez
Joined: 10 Nov 2010
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 4:06 am Post subject: |
|
|
| edwardcatflap wrote: |
| Let the market place decide. If hagwan owners put looks and age above teaching ability because that is what the parents really want then they'll do good business in the same way as a bar that continues to employ attractive bar staff will. You wouldn't tell Hooters, for example, they had to employ middle aged men so why tell that kind of hagwan? If you think Korean hagwans have that kind of hiring mentality don't apply to work there. If you think everywhere in Korea has that kind of hiring mentality maybe it's time to look at other countries. If Korean parents actually place education higher than looks, the hagwans that employ people with experience and qualifications will eventually thrive. |
Ha - I love the Hooters example you used! 
Actually I think as the OP mentioned the recruiters are the most toxic aspect of English teaching in Korea. Forget about the few decent ones for EPIK/GEPIK.
The bog standard recruiters exert too much influence over the whole process by prioritising young stereotypes who have little to no experience and are sometimes vacuous in terms of being able to genuinely go about the business of planning lessons, teaching and controlling students who are from kindy to university age.
Yes the hogwan owners are often to blame but a lot of the rot starts because of the parasitical nature of the way recruiters still dominate the English teaching industry in Korea. From my experience Korean parents will tend to be favourable towards a foreign teacher who is presentable in their dress, looks after their appearance even if they are not model standard, gives classes that have interest for their children and does care about the students.
But they have to be given the opportunity to see such teachers and the way in which Korean recruiters work to ringfence the selection process blockades them from encountering these kinds of foreign teachers most of the time.
Most Korean recruiters waah on with the old rubbish such as a school or boss or parents or all of them won't accept an older women for example because they 'don't want to respect foreigners of mature age. They say they won't accept a foreign man especially a single mature age foreign man because they don't trust them or unmarried men are 'strange'.
My last hagwon boss used recruiters at first but he became tired of young teachers who looked good but couldn't plan lessons, come up with any real ideas and were either too serious with the kids or too slack to deal with misbehaviour. He was also pizzed off when he found out a black teacher with experience and a great cv had been told by a recruiter that my boss didn't want black teachers.
He only found out because this teacher cold called on him after somehow finding out that it was his hagwon that was advertising the job. Another toxic point about the role recruiters play - the schools are hidden at first so teachers cannot know what school wants a teacher. My Korean boss employed the black teacher and was very happy wth him. This was before I worked at the school. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
alongway
Joined: 02 Jan 2012
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 4:29 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| You wouldn't tell Hooters, for example, they had to employ middle aged men so why tell that kind of hagwan? |
Yet in America, there was a restaurant called..hmmm.. "Joes" that's signature style was to have young men dressed in fancy suits as waiters. They were sued by some women who forced the company to consider women for employment and forced to hire them. So yeah, there are those kind of people out there. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Coltronator
Joined: 04 Dec 2013
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 4:39 am Post subject: |
|
|
| alongway wrote: |
Are you high?
Would this be the same chungdahm currently tied up in court for ripping off teachers? Or would this be their book/kindy subsidiary that pushes pretty young female teachers on kindergartens because that's what they prefer and hire any white guy with a pulse to put on a show for parents when they wander by?
I've heard a lot of words to describe Chungdahm, but bastion of hope has never been one of them. |
Notice how I said Myriad of faults. That being one of them. However can you point to many complaints about Chungdahm's hiring selections being racist like the topic is about? They are about as racially diverse in their faculty as they are in their applicants. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
earthquakez
Joined: 10 Nov 2010
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 4:48 am Post subject: |
|
|
| edwardcatflap wrote: |
| Quote: |
If the government actually cares about creating a quality education system and improving society, it would be easy for them to step in and regulate the industry. All they would have to do is e.g. make an EFL qualification an E2 visa requirement. Put E2 approval in the hands of a body that had to meet gender/age/ethnicity quotas and ensure hiring standards.
|
I think it'd have to be something like the CELTA, not the online one people in public schools need to have. Otherwise everyone would get an online cert and hagwans could still hire based on the looks/age of the people with the qualification. At least if people invested a reasonable amount of time/effort/money in the qualification, it'd show they were serious about teaching. |
Reasonable points but before I got CELTA I had already worked in English language related jobs including research jobs and teaching at higher education institutions in my own country and others.
I know this is unfair from one perspective to decent fresh graduates who genuinely want want to teach abroad, not just go to Korea because they need a job and their mates are all over there but the best way to solve the problems we're discussing in this thread and to cut out parasitic recruiters is to set a minimum of 3 years experience in teaching or English language related employment or professional employment requiring a decent level of communication skills.
The employment wouldn't have to be full time as it is becoming more and more difficult for young, in between and older people to obtain what is genuinely full time work. But it would have to be verifiably significant employment - not just casual tutoring work for a few hours a week.
The E-2 visa would in this way be based on skills but not set the bar too high nor exclude people who cannot afford to pay for qualifications other than the basic 4 year degree. In saying this, I know it will never happen but it should. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Chaparrastique
Joined: 01 Jan 2014
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 5:30 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Coltronator wrote: |
| Chungdahm's hiring selections being racist like the topic is about? They are about as racially diverse in their faculty as they are in their applicants. |
If that is true then great. I know of at least one school that was happy to employ blacks, philippinos and also even disabled people. And it always had plenty of students.
| Earthquakez wrote: |
| From my experience Korean parents will tend to be favourable towards a foreign teacher who is presentable in their dress, looks after their appearance even if they are not model standard, gives classes that have interest for their children and does care about the students |
yeah, I don't think the parents are as biased as recruiters tend to think. If anything it is the older teachers that have been the most popular with parents and students at the places I've worked.
The problem is the ajoshi bosses (who want only young american women that they can control) and the recruiters. Between them they've made a mockery of the private education system.
As things stand, Korea basically says "don't even bother trying to be a good teacher or acquiring EFL qualifications or experience, just make sure you're born with blonde hair and have a pulse". Its insulting. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
alongway
Joined: 02 Jan 2012
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 6:22 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Coltronator wrote: |
| alongway wrote: |
Are you high?
Would this be the same chungdahm currently tied up in court for ripping off teachers? Or would this be their book/kindy subsidiary that pushes pretty young female teachers on kindergartens because that's what they prefer and hire any white guy with a pulse to put on a show for parents when they wander by?
I've heard a lot of words to describe Chungdahm, but bastion of hope has never been one of them. |
Notice how I said Myriad of faults. That being one of them. However can you point to many complaints about Chungdahm's hiring selections being racist like the topic is about? They are about as racially diverse in their faculty as they are in their applicants. |
I just did. Their subsidiary which handles their books and kindergarten hires and sticks a white foreigner in every school to show off to the parents and hire attractive young Asian F visa holders to shore up the back-end. Just cause some franchise of Chungdahm hired a black guy once doesn't mean they are hiring the same across the board. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
radish kimchi
Joined: 20 Mar 2014
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 6:52 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| Hogwons are bastions of ageism, sexism and racism. Do Koreans even know that this is wrong? Wake up, Korea. Take a look at the kind of society you are encouraging! |
What kind of society is the West encouraging by bombing and orphaning kids in the Middle East? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 7:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
| By bombing ISIS the U.S. is orphaning kids? I guess if you mean the kids of the ISIS thugs, the U.S. is technically doing that. But by stopping the murderous thugs they're actually saving more lives in the long run. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Stain
Joined: 08 Jan 2014
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 7:39 am Post subject: |
|
|
| We're talking about money here, not morals. Morality doesn't jive with business. Ok, so there have been examples where it does, but that's called a good job, and they are not easy to find. I'm talking about anywhere. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
