Korean Job Discussion Forums

[nicam]

Dave's, please help me to not have a nervous breakdown, as there are a shortage of qualified English speaking shrinks here in the sticks of K-land.

Public school. People on this forum rave about it being the best gig. Security, reliability, vacation, no education to money connection, blah blah blah. I got a measley 14 days, which I could have gotten at a hagwon, and my local ed. dep't has not only screwed me into a cockroach infested box without hotwater for 3 1/2 months, but they've lied to us about our camps about 3 times and tried to trick us into giving up our 7 contractual holidays.

Well, I would take a GOOD hagwon over this gig ANY day. I envy my hagwon friends, save for about 2-3 of them who are really getting royally screwed.

Lesson planning for 3 different grades, 40 teenagers in a class who don't speak a lick of English or listen to a word I say. Poor school means NO resources , like working computers, televisions, books, etc. Teaching is futile, I just hope to reach a couple or as many kids as possible, but it's all just mandated by the system and friggin' useless.

Damn Hick towns!I actually live down in the "city" which you could memorize in a day and is backwards and Christian, and you are still a freak everywhere you go.

I am tired of playing "watch and laugh at the waygookin (sp?)". How do you guys deal with this? I just want to blend in sometimes, or be told what everyone is saying or laughing about when I hear my name. It's like being on stage ALL of the time. Am I gonna get some freaky Hollywood OCD type thing? I am tired of being on display. It really is like being a clown or monkey.

And this could just be me, but I do detect that a lot of people at my school
just don't see me as being worthy of respect even though I do everything in my power to be pleasant, resourceful, helpful, etc. Most of them just dont' want to bother with me as it is exhausting to speak English for them. Fair enough.

What else? 7 a.m. wake up call means K-paparazzi at stupid o'clock in the morning. Not home until 5. 35 minute commute. Crap money, although I still think I am making as much as my academy peeps. Looooong hours. Shit commute. Total circus freak. Lies from school and dep't. Exploitation. Unacceptable living conditions. Degradation on the regular. Job a joke. Office politics. No sick days and very little holidays.

Am I in the twilight zone of public schools? What is everybody raving about?I can't think of ONE of my 30 or so local hagwon friends that would trade places with me. So they don't get to seat warm? Seat warming sucks. I'd rather be here for 2 less hours and walk home for 5 minutes,
and have the day pass quickly because i am actually doing something, and not something useless.

Whoa, I am losing it. This is LONG. LOL. Thoughts? Is this the beginning of a trend in public schools?

[ajgeddes]

Public School jobs are definitely NOT the best jobs around. I had one of the better ones and I would never go back to it.

[Mirabilis85]

Amen to this post! I worked at a public middle school last year, and although the faculty and staff were very welcoming and I lived a comfortable 5 min walk from school, the learning environment was a nightmare. 40+ boys per class, little motivation to speak English, loud/wild, just very stressful............I enjoy my hagwon alot more.

[Ramen]

Look at the bright side.

Most PS "assistant" teachers do nothing but follow the useless Korean english curriculum to entertain 40+ students and spend most of the day surfing the Internet.

[gazz]

Sorry for your situation!

As for stopping you from having a nervous breakdown there is nothing I can do i'm afraid, other than tell you I went skiing with my PS school yesterday for free!

[Gamecock]

[Chamchiman]

[egrog1717]

From everything I've seen and heard, its really hit or miss with PS jobs...

Case in point, I love my school... Co-teachers, while not the best 100% of the time, are far far far from the worst... My apartment is small, but nice... I have support from the school for anything I need, didn't have a problem setting up my winter camps, had no problem setting up my two weeks of vacation over the winter break, etc etc etc...

So to simply blame the PS system is to forget that there are a lot more crap-wons around then their are bad public jobs... At least here I know they're not going to fire me after 11 months to save on the severance bonus

[xCustomx]

Reasons why I like my PS:

I can teach anything I want in class

About 70-80% of the students pay attention (not the best, but better than some schools where maybe 3-5 pay attention)

At least 10 weeks of vacation per year.

During midterms and finals, I don't teach the week before the exams and the week of the exams. That equates to two months a year where I'm just sitting at my desk. I use this time to plan lessons, study Korean, or work on any other projects that I have.

Random days off because of field trips, sports days, school festivals, school birthday, etc.

Paid on time every month. There has never been a problem about getting pension, severence, insurance or my return airfare paid for.

Free dinners every couple of months. This year we went out for samgyupsal twice, sushi, and a seafood buffet.



Public schools are really luck of the draw. My first year wasn't that great, but after I put my time in and negotiated a better contract, I don't see why I would leave this job.

[nicam]

I'm in Geoje, and apparently there was some sort of turn-over in administration, so they are completely unorganized. Plus, whenever we have meetings at the dep't with all of the foreign teachers there is this obvious sense of mass confusion among the ed officers over what to do with us, or rather how much work they can stretch out of our contracts, and a general lack of humanity and consideration. It's like we are pets.

And when I saw 3 gigantic roaches on my first night in my apartment and had no hot water I promply brought it to there attention to no avail. I have been here since late August and JUST got hot water last week.

As far as having camps for the ENTIRE recess, I knew that could be the worst case scenario when I signed, and that anything extra would just be a bonus, so I am not whining about that. It's the fact that the office TOLD all of us specifically that we would have 2 weeks of camps and the rest of the time off in the same meeting where they made our teacher training camp schedule for 2 hours a day for 2 weeks. Then, one week later they hold a "sudden meeting" and tell us that we must actually work EVERY day other than out 7 awarded vacation days at our respected schools and they were tripling the camp class load in order to max out our 22 hours.

Dehumanizing. You just don't do that to people, maybe if they had modified to meet somewhere in the middle, but I am not buying the culture card. That's just them refusing to regard us as human beings.

Could be worse I guess... I do like most of my co-teachers and students very much, and I know I will be paid on time at least.

[nomad-ish]

[branchsnapper]

They don't treat "human" Korean underlings any better. If some faceless boss suddenly cracks the whip over the application of some rule, all the little insects jump to it. Maybe even those roaches. On the other hand, sometimes Koreans go out and rant on the street in masks for a bit, not that it seems to change much.

I think mainly you just hate hick towns and the isolation of public school. I would never go back to my first hagwon in Incheon, but I did have weird and wonderful people to talk to all the time. That is important, and I'm glad I had that.

[BS.Dos.]

Sounds crappy. You have my sympathy.

As has been mentioned, it really is the luck of the draw. You've definitely drawn the short-straw with that number. I've only met one other FT within the PS system who didn't enjoy it and that was largely because she didn't have the foggiest idea what she was supposed to be doing. Her CTs could obviously see that as well and I think they just lost their patience with her in the end and generally made things pretty difficult for her. They didn't extend her contract, nor would she have signed one if they had, which tells a story in itself. All the other PS FTs I've met, both the local crowd and those I've bumped into out and about etc, have all been pretty content with their lot. The usual gripes seem to come up, but it would seem that the negative experiences being aired here are the exception rather than the rule.

For what it's worth, I'd take classroom/discipline/bureaucracy/CT/winter camp problems any day of the week over the pay/pension/getting ripped-off problems that seem to prevail in hagwon culture.

[Ukon]

Yeah, the people in the thread who are complaining have gotten the bottom of the barrel jobs...it's a bit of a crap shoot....see if you can switch schools...

Mine is golden....I'll be making 2.7k come this march and my co-teacher has inferred I'll be getting even more money since my higher ups like me.

The only problem is my apartment is kinda small...but the location is awesome(5 minutes either way to subway or school)....plus I can always ask for a new place at the end of the year.

[LostinKSpace]

I am sorry that you are having such a hard time, but generally speaking P.S. is a safer bet than Hogwons for the following reasons.

1) Vacation, at PS you get 21 days minimum at many (not all) Hogwons you will be lucky to get 10 days and they may not be always together (adult Hogwons do this)

2) You will be paid on time

3) No spilt shifts ( I did splits my first year here and it almost killed me)

4) Pension and medical is paid

5) Random vacation for no reason (exam wk etc)

6) Light work load


Teaching at a PS is a lot harder than at a Hogwon, you will not have as much impact on your students as you would at a Hogwon but you do give an opportunity for students who cannot afford to attend an English Hogwon the chance to interact with a native speaker.

PS is not perfect but they are a better bet than the majority of Hogwons out there.