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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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Sody
Joined: 14 May 2006
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 Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 5:07 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for bumping that up! YBS that was amazing!  Thanks a lot for sharing that with us.
Sody |
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ThePoet
Joined: 15 May 2004
Location: No longer in Korea - just lurking here
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| Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 5:25 pm Post subject: |
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First, this was an excellent post and I am very impressed with the planning, development, teachable moment experiences you gave them, and the outcome. This is what TESL should be.
You should submit this to the KOTESOL journal as well as (I am not kidding here) the Korean Air inflight magazine, and a few other travel magazines that you may get paid for.
and to Yesanman,
If you are taking a group of Korean children to Canada after the school year starts, and you are worried about the differences in maturity, I implore you to contact a local junior high school or high school where you are going to visit and ask the principle if you can let your students observe a typical school class. 99.9% of the schools would welcome a student exchange possibility and would probably invite you for lunch at their school as well..this way, your students could observe a class before lunch and then sample what the typical north american student eats on any given day.
This whole thread is enough to rejuvenate me!
Poet |
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kermo
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Location: Eating eggs, with a comb, out of a shoe.
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| Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 5:45 pm Post subject: |
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| I second what everyone else has said, and commend you for your kindness, persistance, organization, commitment and creativity. This was a monumental task, but it's sure to be a treasured memory for these lucky kids. Well done! |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Yesanman wrote: |
Wanted to bump this post back up.
Mr Bum (I hope it isn't Mr. Suk) wrote an interesting long post and I thought more people should see it.
I also am taking some Korean kids to Canada. Most of the problems encountered (table manners, etc) I had thought of previously.
But one thing that you mentioned that I hadn't thought about was the maturity level of Korean students vs Canadian students.
I foresee this as a problem my students will encounter when they meet Canadian studetns of their own age. Hadn't thought about this before and must try to prepare my students for it.
Thanks for the interesting post. |
I think that if they were in the minority, Korean kids would likely clam up a bit at first and then try to fit into the social habits and mannerisms of their peers. What they might not be comfortable with is the independence and spontinuity of their peers - i.e. 'let's all pile in a few cars and go off to MacDonalds and then hang out for the evening, etc.' Actually my students didn't get to do a lot of interacting with kids their own age, unfortunately. The two times they did, with a 14-year-old boy and girl, the white kids were alone surrounded by Koreans and they seemed to find my kids a little odd, whereas mine were just acting as they always do without giving much thought to their manners.
There are a few things, however, like eating with one's mouth shut or appropriate and inappropriate touching of same-sex friends, that I'd stress very strongly to a Korean student going to the west for a while. |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 6:50 pm Post subject: |
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Great story and congratulations on giving your students a great experience. Your family and friends (and all those other people who, as you said, were patient and kind) deserve a lot of credit for giving you so much help and making the trip such a success.
But you do know what the Korea Herald headline will be:
Foreign male teacher lures Korean teen girls to drug lair in Canada |
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celticjay
Joined: 27 Aug 2005
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| Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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| I usually don't post here, but I just had to thank you for such an enjoyable read. I've seen some of your other posts in the past and you always add value. Thank you.. |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 3:31 am Post subject: |
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| Nice one YBS, a good effort. |
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KumaraKitty
Joined: 09 Jan 2006
Location: Bucheon
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 6:17 am Post subject: |
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| That's an awesome Post YBS! I really enjoyed reading it! My fiance and I are planning to start up some sort of homestay company taking kids to Vancouver Island(My Home). It was great to read some of the ideas you came up with! The Supermarket Scavenger hunt is great! |
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steroidmaximus
Joined: 27 Jan 2003
Location: GangWon-Do
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 6:54 am Post subject: |
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Sounds like you did well. Congrats on a job well done.
Try five 12 year olds for 26 days for hard work. I lost 10 pounds. It was awesome. Everyone had a great time, except my mom who'll have to replace one of the bathroom floors following several flooding incidents. Our schedule was packed with study and activities, the specifics of which I'm willing to share via PM with any who make a non-refundable deposit for next summer. I'm also looking to hire a Korean halmony and some Canadian college guy with a passenger van license. On that subject, you should have just gotten an international driver's license here in Korea for 10 bucks.
Next time, make sure you get waivers and permission slips signed by all the parents. Waivers should specify against compensation for accidental injury or death, while permission slips specify you as legal guardian who can seek medical / legal aid on the student's behalf.
Did you check out what other schools / homestays are charging for what you just described in the Vancouver area? Your students got a steal of a deal. Next time, please don't sell yourself so short. Makes it harder for the rest of us.  |
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bellum99
Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Location: don't need to know
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 7:22 am Post subject: |
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He didn't sell himself short....the school probably got all the money for him doing this favor (nice of them ).
It is so nice for him to do it for free...he could have got at least a million or more for each kid.....but he didn't. When he is at the end of his contract and his happy nice boss is screwing him over at the end...he will remember this kindness. I never do anything for free...work equals money and he lost at least 10 million this summer (The school and I say "sucker").
--- I simply don't understand why people don't approach teaching as a business. This personal garbage always blows up in your face. It is always about the money. The kids and the parents have short memories and the boss just wants to look good. I will read here eventually how his boss is trying to screw him even though he did this big favor. Here is a hint: THE PARENTS, KIDS AND BOSS DO NOT APPRECIATE ANYTHING YOU DO, SO DON"T EXPECT IT. |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 3:42 pm Post subject: |
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| steroidmaximus wrote: |
Sounds like you did well. Congrats on a job well done.
Try five 12 year olds for 26 days for hard work. I lost 10 pounds. It was awesome. Everyone had a great time, except my mom who'll have to replace one of the bathroom floors following several flooding incidents. Our schedule was packed with study and activities, the specifics of which I'm willing to share via PM with any who make a non-refundable deposit for next summer. I'm also looking to hire a Korean halmony and some Canadian college guy with a passenger van license. On that subject, you should have just gotten an international driver's license here in Korea for 10 bucks.
Next time, make sure you get waivers and permission slips signed by all the parents. Waivers should specify against compensation for accidental injury or death, while permission slips specify you as legal guardian who can seek medical / legal aid on the student's behalf.
Did you check out what other schools / homestays are charging for what you just described in the Vancouver area? Your students got a steal of a deal. Next time, please don't sell yourself so short. Makes it harder for the rest of us. |
Hey there, 'don't flood the bathroom, put the shower curtain inside the tub, and flush toilet paper down the toilet' were things I had stressed repeatedly in my briefing, lol. I was especailly worried as my sister has a floor-level heating vent that would look just like a drain to Korean eyes.
As for permission and waivers, from what I could gather from Canada Immigration someone 16 or older can travel independantly into Canada. One of my students was only 15 and I got her parents (one of whom teaches at my school) to get a notarised permission slip signed by both parents. For the others (16-17) I had permssion slips signed by a parent and my principal, so I think that as far as Koreans are concerned any liabilty would be held by my school. There was only a slight problem with one student getting through Immigration, and that was because she got diverted to a different gate from the one I went through and got an official who apparently couldn't understand her (even though her English is better than many Korean teachers).
As for costs, I know that it's generally way higher than what my students' parents had to pay. After airfaire I think it came to less than $500 / per student, and had we avoided nicer restaurants it could have been far less. |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 3:58 pm Post subject: |
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| bellum99 wrote: |
He didn't sell himself short....the school probably got all the money for him doing this favor (nice of them ).
It is so nice for him to do it for free...he could have got at least a million or more for each kid.....but he didn't. When he is at the end of his contract and his happy nice boss is screwing him over at the end...he will remember this kindness. I never do anything for free...work equals money and he lost at least 10 million this summer (The school and I say "sucker").
--- I simply don't understand why people don't approach teaching as a business. This personal garbage always blows up in your face. It is always about the money. The kids and the parents have short memories and the boss just wants to look good. I will read here eventually how his boss is trying to screw him even though he did this big favor. Here is a hint: THE PARENTS, KIDS AND BOSS DO NOT APPRECIATE ANYTHING YOU DO, SO DON"T EXPECT IT. |
Since I work in public education it's quite a bit different. I really do feel appreciated by my school, and they've done a great deal for me. Where I know I'm not the least bit appreciated is at the school district level, but they are and hopefully will continue to be almost irrelevant to my work. Last month when my school district was being really assoholic over my contract renewal my school bent over backwards to try to accomodate me and take my concerns into consideration.
Were I doing this sort of thing for a hogwan I would have expected and demanded big bucks. For my high school, however, given a choice between working my ass off for one week in Canada or doing two weeks of fairly pointless summer 'camp' lessons in hot and humid Korea, I much prefered the former. This way was much more rewarding, and by undertaking such an endeavour I was able to demonstrate what an enthusiastic FT can do - something that my school would never otherwise be able to pull off. It was also a wonderful reversal of the usual order to have an FT in charge of everything with the focus on the students doing things on their own and taking some initiative, lol.
While I see your point about Koreans often showing little genuine appreciation for our attempts to enrich education here, I'd argue that there are many times when this is not the case, and Koreans are not as a whole ingrates, even if very many of them have no idea what to do to attract and retain dedicated and competant teachers. |
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steroidmaximus
Joined: 27 Jan 2003
Location: GangWon-Do
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 4:43 pm Post subject: |
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| 'don't flood the bathroom, put the shower curtain inside the tub, and flush toilet paper down the toilet' were things I had stressed repeatedly in my briefing, lol |
yes, yes so did I. We still had a couple of incidents. This had more to do with the age of the kids, I think.
As for liability, if something had happened to those kids, I'm sure it would have come down on your head, regardless of the fact that they were over 16. You were still the chaperone / guide /teacher / leader. I'd avoid the possibility of all that by getting the required signature on the required forms.
Well, I'm glad you feel that you weren't taken advantage of, and that you could demonstrate to the Koreans "what a FT can do" to enrich their education, but the fact remains: you sold yourself short. Asking for a lump sum per student on top of expenses would have been fine. I think a million per student plus their expenses is too high for only 8 days, but somewhere around half that for your efforts would have been manageable for the kids' parents. This is a business, and if you look at what schools in Vancouver are charging for that kind of thing you'd understand the sick money some people are making. You slaved your butt off for over a week, you involved your family and used their resources and property, all for your regular Epik salary which you would have gotten anyway. If you had done the crappy camp, you would have received extra pay. How much did you get for this intensive program? |
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kimchi_pizza
Joined: 24 Jul 2006
Location: "Get back on the bus! Here it comes!"
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 5:09 pm Post subject: |
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That was the best post I've yet to read. Very nice! This is a great example of how an overseas field trip should be planned and executed. A must read if anyone else plans such an endeavor.
The Old Spagetti Factory...man, I miss that place. Good Call! |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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| steroidmaximus wrote: |
| Quote: |
| 'don't flood the bathroom, put the shower curtain inside the tub, and flush toilet paper down the toilet' were things I had stressed repeatedly in my briefing, lol |
yes, yes so did I. We still had a couple of incidents. This had more to do with the age of the kids, I think.
As for liability, if something had happened to those kids, I'm sure it would have come down on your head, regardless of the fact that they were over 16. You were still the chaperone / guide /teacher / leader. I'd avoid the possibility of all that by getting the required signature on the required forms.
Well, I'm glad you feel that you weren't taken advantage of, and that you could demonstrate to the Koreans "what a FT can do" to enrich their education, but the fact remains: you sold yourself short. Asking for a lump sum per student on top of expenses would have been fine. I think a million per student plus their expenses is too high for only 8 days, but somewhere around half that for your efforts would have been manageable for the kids' parents. This is a business, and if you look at what schools in Vancouver are charging for that kind of thing you'd understand the sick money some people are making. You slaved your butt off for over a week, you involved your family and used their resources and property, all for your regular Epik salary which you would have gotten anyway. If you had done the crappy camp, you would have received extra pay. How much did you get for this intensive program? |
My main reward for leading the trip was getting spend the entire summer break in Canada. I probably could have done a two-week crappy camp, got my friend who's an agent to get me some customers to lead on an expensive trip during my two weeks off, etc., and made a tonne of money. However, what I did suited me just fine. It was a real pleasure to take a bunch of kids I usually only see once a week in a class of 30 and show them around where I come from. Most of the students I already knew quite well but there were a couple I didn't beforehand but really got to know well on this trip.
I'm also not sure the trip would have been so viable had I turned it into a commercial enterprise. While a few of the students come from families that are very well off, for a few others the price offered them a once-in-a-life chance to go to a western country, and as a bonus see it on a level few Korean tourists ever would. Koreans sometimes waste enormous amounts of money on overseas trips that invlove getting herded about in big groups and never really connecting with the locals. It was great to be able to buck that trend. One of the students' families had paid W2,500,000 per person for a week in Thailand last year, and to be able to offer a week in Canada for less than that just goes to show how far a a bit of knowledge and resourcefulness and a few connections can go. |
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