Korean Job Discussion Forums

[humanuspneumos]

"If you don't like it- LEAVE!"

Really?


A true artist/entrepreneur/professional will look at the clay and see both what it is and what it could be for the good of humanity. Lazy minds only see the clay and merely squeeze it and enjoy its texture- tactile persons by nature.

I'm trying to imagine what a world where people happy with status-quo would be like- I guess that would put us back in caves (Geez- stop btchn so much- it's a nice cave!) or back to the days when disease would fell humanity like a mega-size swathing machine in one swath (Geez- forget that nonsense of asking why or trying to cure anyone- just let them be to die in peace). Such persons would say- "Go away!" and then after a house has been built or cure found would come snivelling up to the "negative" person's door to ask for a roof and a shot.

From where I'm standing- people negative about negative people are the one's who are really negative and are cowering in the corner in fear. "Change can't come!" Shiver Shiver

I find that persons deemed as the most negative people in Korea are actually optimists at heart because they believe that change would bring good results- and they can see that- the good. They have a heightened optimism that believes that the positive can be really positive- however, surgery is required first.

I've worked with cowering people who have taken the "don't be so negative" road and it really turned out they were cowards at heart and moved in packs of "positive" people because they were too intensely negative about change- and fearful to become part of it. So fearful- they would back-stab other teachers to keep their happy little world in place.

What do you think- "positive" bandwagon teachers in Korea are truly the most negative people in Korea that you'll ever meet?



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"We read to discover we are not alone." CS Lewis

[Korea Newfie]

Interesting.

OR...

Maybe the positive people move in packs to avoid the whining of the negative people, and the negative people complain just for the sake of complaining.

[Mosley]

You've pretty much nailed it on the head ,OP. Korea's EPIK Programme is a case in point. It has many problems for waygook teachers, but some of those same go to great lengths to defend it and often use the "love it or leave it" line. 19th C. factory workers and miners in the Western world were free to quit at anytime. Many didn't. They fought(even died) for a fair deal. They were right to do so(I'm a neo-con,BTW, for the record). If a programme has a good deal for the vast majority of its participants(like Japan's JET), it should be given credit for it.If the opposite is true, it should be given *beep* for it. Otherwise, nothing will change for the better. A final ironic note:a couple of us have become well-known for battling the "love it or leave it" EPIK apologists. But when I was a JET, a few GENUINE whiners accused ME of being a "cheerleader" for the programme!

[Mody Ba]

Sooooo...the original thread was locked,the posts disappeared,and now we have th thread back again. Hey....OKAY!
As for the EPIK apologists...some of them have never had a job before ,so how would they know the diff between good and bad anyway?And a lot of them are just comfortable farting around(Hey,you GUYS!Leave EPIK alone!They are like,GROOVY.Dude!).....

[humanuspneumos]

Korea Newfie- I'll admit that some people whine for no apparent reason. However, when people pin-point why they are whining it could be they are testing others to see if they have the same disease as them- eyes to see and ears to hear.

It's a commonly known fact in psychology that people who are extremely critical are extremely creative- so we have the stoic face of the violinist, the melancholy of the pianist, the sullen/hermit-like activity of the artist in his/her garage. The "positive" people tend to skim over life and group together in skimmy activities- never going that deep. The negative persons- who in my opinion are the true optimists- dive to the deepest depths and bring up pearls of wisdom for any wise enough to take.

As Mosely pointed out- when it's not broken- then he doesn't cry-out "fix it." Some pieces of art are just that way- unbroken. So- Mosely gets labelled as a bandwagon person for "JET."


"Shut-up or put-up" is just another way of saying- "I'm a life skimmer." Industry needs both- the diver and skimmer. However, it becomes vogue for managers to love skimmers to maintain restrictive power. That's why communist nations put to death divers.

[William Beckerson]

There is the saying that the worst people in the world are the ones who do things with the best intentions.

Mind you, I think I heard that in a movie the other day.

Regardless, there are those who are smart enough to pick their battles, and "Korea need to change to make life more like what we're used to." isnt a battle for us temporary visitors to fight.

[humanuspneumos]

I was thinking more like- the battles pick you. Meaning- there are no shortages of events that stumble across one's path on a day to day basis both teaching/living in another country. You don't think a person actually has to look for them (battles)- do you?

Also- I can't remember a day where some advice about making either a school/program better wasn't asked. Korean language programs/schools shouldn't set the atmosphere of asking/wanting to know something if they really don't want to know.

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The skimmers keep their head down when some demand/request/event goes a-flying. It's a survival trait they have developed to skim along into the next event. And you know- there's a time too where divers need a break and have to do something skimmy just to forget it all.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[humanuspneumos]

I get what you're saying: Leave the small stuff alone. Sometimes I think I have a pretty good grip on the stats in Korea by this board and having so many hours clocked-in. But I wonder- what percentage of teachers are getting swamped by battles coming to their door that are big enough to justify a reaction.


I think what it is a lot of the time is that a very large number of teachers love Korea on enumerous levels and would just like to know that things are set for them to actually make a long-term career out of it (Maslow's hierarchy of needs tension can't just be blown away like Dandy-lion fluff). When things are "so close, and yet, so far." It's like teachers just want to give that soccer ball the final small nudge to get it in the net. That my friend is human nature. The things teachers "whine" about are often so small and easily solvable that it creates an even larger tension than if things were great-big-humungas and so dismissed as "moving mountains."

Also- we're told that the goal is to make a top-quality program and bla, bla, bla- so- we roll-up our sleeves just to do that only to discover that the teleos of our teleological nature is frustrated by light-weight blocks held down by someone else's foot on our fingers saying "Make it better. Make it better."

That my friend produces a whine that reaches the roof-tops.