Korean Job Discussion Forums

[teachingld2004]

Well, I can't wait to see the responses on this thread! Well, here goes. What do you think about children and teachers who come to school when they are sick? And also, what do the Koreans consider "sick". And I am talking about physicly sick, not mentally sick!
I have one kinder student. Yes, one. There are 2 kinder classes, and in my class there is only one student (i teach 27 hrs a week, and for 6 of those hours there is one kinder student) Today she came in with a bad cold. The director said she was not sick, but to me runny eyes and nose and looking quite pale and uncomfortble is sick. Now also this child does not go to the bathroom herself, and at first I was told I had to take her to the bathroom (she is 6) and I just said "no way". Yes, some one else takes her, I refused. (don't get me started on why a 6 yr old can't go to the bathroom alone...) Anyway, I said I will not touch her, I don't want to get sick. (and that means I would not take her hand or pick her up) My supervisor (whose English is excellent, and who is very smart and good) said "you cant get sick from holding her hand" I said "of corse you can that is how germs are spread". And as you guys all know kids and teachers come in sick all the time. (and not only with colds. but with high temperatires) Well, my supervisor could not get over that I believe germs can be spread by holding hands. SHe said , "If that is what you believe....." and I said "its not what I believe, its true". I did 2 "lessons" today, and played with her, but did not get too close or touch her. I did not argue with the supervisor, nor did she make me do anything I didnt want to do, its just she thought I was silly.
This is just an "I can't believe it" message, I know no one can really say much.

[Zenpickle]

I have had kids have high fevers and projectile vomits in class. Five minutes after sending them to the front desk, they're back in class, moaning and complaining.

It's getting better now that many of us have persistently asked if we're expected to teach a class or coddle the crying or sick child that has been returned to class. Both -- not an option.

[crazylemongirl]

there are a lot of kids that come to school sick spreading their glee to others. Pink eye spreads really quickly here.

I will send my students to the nurse if they are sick. They aren't going to learn anything and then going to make everyone else sick. I swear that I've probably got a number of years worth of immunity to colds and flu after being exposed to all these damn bugs at school.

[sadsac]

Common as mud in this wonderful place. No one at home, send them to school and then the hogwan. Had a teacher contract Chicken Pox, as well as most of the class. Parent didn't think it was contagious. They just don't care and the institutes won't send them home because it is lost revenue. Pathetic really.

[Alyallen]

[Sleepy in Seoul]

In January this year, I contracted pneumonia:) I was really sick over the lunar New Year period . Just the worst time to be sick. At the time, I thought I just had a really bad cold, so I spent all my time in bed. I didn't go to a doctor, because he spoke no English (except medical words), and as it was a holiday, I had no-one to go with me as a translator.

When I did go to the doctor with my Korean teaching supervisor, the doctor told me "absolute rest" (in English). I remember looking at my supervisor and seeing her shaking her head at me. I nearly fell off my chair laughing it was so ridiculous.

It took me over 1 month to get better, and I only took 1 sick day. I hate to think what bugs and germs I passed to my students. I was also asked to stop telling my students that I had pneumonia, as the parents weren't happy about it. Needless to say, I increased my efforts.

I have no complaints though, as the Korean teachers had to go through exactly the same things, and were treated worse than me.

[discostar23]

My girlfriend and I contracted a lot of colds from the kids when we first got here in the winter. I have seen kids come to school who have the flu and pass out in class because they are so sick. Sometimes I have to blow the little kids noses and its like holy shit where did all that come from???

Korean's seem to think medicine will cure anything. When ever my girlfriend and I had a complaint about our health we always got the question "Did you take some medicine?"

[Gord]

[jaderedux]

[Gord]

[lush72]

In the last 10 months I have taken a total of 28 days off as sick time

Part of that was for a broken ankle though-

Been paid for every single day as well...

[oneiros]

I'm guilty of this, I'm afraid. In the past two and a half years, I've taken two sick days.

I feel a little guilty when I come to school sick, and then the next day half my class is missing because they're home sick.

[ryleeys]

The only students that come to my class sick are relatives of my director.


I've come to class sick several times. During the Yellow Dust, I had a nasty sinus infection that made standing up kinda difficult. Not to mention the inability to speak... yet I came into school. My director insisted I go get medicine, I relented, though I hate medicine... especially with how overdone it is here. Anyway, after we got back (I missed one class), she told me to go teach my last class. I still couldn't speak... couldn't stand up by myself... and generally wanted to die. But I went and taught.

I also taught on a Monday after losing 15 pounds over the course of a weekend due to food poisoning... nasty nasty stuff. I've missed exactly two classes in 9 months from sickness, but had some nasty things in my body.

[schwa]

I havent taken a sick day in 5 years of teaching here but neither have I really taken sick -- just a generic cold once or twice a year, the ones that go around regardless.

But I think a point being missed in this discussion is that a healthy adult immune system is not automatically subject to all the germs & bugs & sniffles the young'uns undergo. Kids naturally & necessarily get ill more often than adults -- its how they build lifelong protections.

I believe a lot of adults subconsciously will themselves ill. Someone sneezes in their direction & they're conjuring pleasant memories of lying on the sofa for a few days & being pampered by mom. Nice little escape from life's pressures.

Rude awakening though when a boss isnt quite so solicitous!

[captain kirk]

Four years ago, I guess it was, I worked in Kwangmyung, near Guro, in the suburbs of Seoul, off toward Inchon. I was the first foreign teacher hired for an opening school, then two New Zealanders were hired. One stayed on. The other NZ'er had some troubles with the pollution in that area. It's pretty bad with the factories of Inchon not far away, just across a sea of apartments. I did, too. We got run down and the director carted us off to a local general practioner where he injected us with clear fluid. I don't know what it was, but I perked right up. The NZ'er who eventually left homewards went back for some more of these intravenous injections, some kind of pollution fighting concoction. I've heard the pollution sickness afflicting some newcomers to certain severely polluted areas of Seoul can be fierce enough to put someone in bed for a week. And I heard that from a Korean co-teacher. There was a pall of grey haze on the horizon, like a grey aura, part of the sky across the horizon.
The NZ'er who eventually left was a lean, high energy type, wiry. He kept working and began to look very gaunt, his face frightening for that -you looked at him and worried about his health. He had bouts of diarhea as well and we joked, in that constantly joking NZ way - I really liked both these guys- about getting it on the wall and not the trough, all three walls. These gooshes would assail him while at work, 'between classes' as much as he could manage, if you can imagine.
The important thing to the boss was that he kept working, thus the jaunts to the doc for the anti pollution shot. Well enough. Eventually he left, just as he was in that alarmingly gaunt condition, because his father passed away.
His successor, an American guy and only 19!, roomated with the remaining NZ'er. And the boss called them evening weekends to make sure they weren't thinking about going out, drinking at Hongdae where they liked to go, and so at risk of becoming sick. Rather 'family', like the monthly weekend wjn and his wife and the fteachers trips to places like the DMZ tunnels, Soraksan, etc, but also rather 'closely minding'.

Another 'sick at work' story was the last job I had. Nothing unusual or dramatic, except it sure felt rough. Some bad kamgi (cold) or virus, complete with fever at one stage. At one point I sat down in front of the boss in his office and said I was just too sick to work. He looked extremely pained, as if I'd shit in his kimchi (sorry, I can't resist that ), thought for a bit in that state, then suggested I hold class but not speak, just be there. Assign them something to do and passively be present. Well, we all know that's impossible with a class of active, rambunctious children. I kept working through it, no time off, the usual taking care of business teaching style. But I had an experience of how much the boss cared more about money and the student body than my almost corpse (or so it felt ). He was a funny guy. Thin, cadaverous looking, rather 'reptilian looking', like a 'Korean Sicilian' .