Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Goku]

I came here thinking I would be all peaches and cream and treating all these kids sweetly and being buddy buddy.

I imagine going to PC bangs with them after school and being like "Whooaaa Chad's like the greatest teacher ever!"

BUT NOW I'M A PYSCHO TEACHER THAT EATS CHILDREN FOR BREAKFAST.

I swear, I've become incredibly harsh and cynical towards these kids. I used to see them as adorable bunnies. But now I see them as a large giant blocks of clay that need to be beaten into shape.

Has anyone else taken this radical sadistic point of view with their kids?

[I_Am_The_Kiwi]

bloody hell yes....the ones who need it anyways.

being nice at the start usually gets you know where and instead gets them walking all over you. So i quickly sorted that out....but i also do remember having to take mandatory language classes at school and how much i hated it so I kidna let some stuff slid cos i get why they dont care etc....

[Yu_Bum_suk]

At both my first and current job my tolerance for certain kinds of bullshit really dropped. Oddly enough, though, at my first job I grew to not be able to stand at least 50% of the kids whereas at this one I still love more than 90% of them. In fact I think that some of the brattier ones I'll really miss. And a lot of the really pleasant things I hoped I might be doing - extra work with students who really want to learn, taking groups of students out for dinner, organising special events, etc. - I've actually done.

However I can imagine the long-haired, lefty liberal, anti-war-rally-attending YBS of five years ago being utterly appalled to observe the straight-cut, suited YBS of today standing over a class with a ruler making them all hold their hands up in the air because the couldn't STFU long enough to pay attention to a few basic instructions (actually that's only happened five or six times in the past couple of years, and most of my classes are pretty good).

[Fishead soup]

Don't take the job that seriously. If you're just starting it's going to be really hard. You are going to have days that will be really disasterous.
Just think of the money you are making and that these students will still be studying and you'll be on vacation soon. The worse case scenario is you can be fired in Korea there will always be another job right around the corner so getting fired is no big deal.

That teacher you always wanted to be is just a big myth. How many of us wanted to be that guy from" The Dead Poets society" or" Welcome Back Kotter" It's a myth to sell movies or TV programs. In the real world teachers like that don't exist. Most of them are old bitter broken down people who really wanted to be an actor, an artist, or a writer. In the
end their dream didn't work out so they became a teacher.

Just go through the motions grab the cash and enjoy your holidays.
It's not your fault Min Su's father is too proud to get him checked for ADHD. There are some students who just don't want to learn. No amounts of candy, Bingo, online games with flashing PPT, or Pizza parties is going to change that.

Don't try to be that teacher you always wanted to be. That teacher simply doesn't exist. It's a myth dreamed up by Holywood to sell tickets.
Just be the teacher you already are.

[sojourner1]

They don't listen very well, do they? LOL If only they would be good little angels and listen without runnin their jaws constantly.

[Milwaukiedave]

I actually wondered if I would have the level of patients to deal with students. Most of the time I do. When I don't have patients, I find leaving the room and going some place to scream very effective (even with the university students).

[Hanson]

[ReeseDog]

[DC in Suwon]

[Faunaki]

OP, great question. When I taught in Canada I was really great. I had total control, I was popular and I would go to the bar or have chicken wings with my students. Then again I was teaching adults.

I came to Korea all starry-eyed about teaching middle school. I thought my classes would have great discussions on popular topics and that class would be a pleasure like it had been before.

Wrong! I'm a total hard ass now. I've come up with all forms of punishment and next year I'm making new plans for absolute control of the classroom. I "dislike" just about all of my level 2 classes and my lovely level threes are all leaving.

I stay for the vacation time and pay raise, also I like my co-teachers.

[yawarakaijin]

[Easter Clark]

With adults, absolutely. Some learning / practice actually takes place in those classes because there is a mutual respect.

With technical high school kids, I'm much stricter than I'd planned to be. In the beginning I tried to be nice and approachable, but that didn't accomplish anything. We are products of our environment, after all. If these kids had a half-way decent attitude then maybe I could cut them some slack. Unlike Yu Bum Suk, I only really like 5 or 6 students out of the nearly 500 that I have. It wasn't always like that, since you really have to work at it to get on my bad side. The rest are just dumb kids that have no business being in my classroom. I used to try to get through to them but they sucked all of the motivation out of me.

And that is why I'm getting out of here.

[bundangbabo]

I was told by one of of my co-teachers that the students hate them. In Korea there isn't respect for teachers by the student population - just fear and hate. So GEPIK/EPIK/SMOE teacher turns up wanted to be liked and moreso to be respected.

I have heard now at two GEPIK conferences from teachers about their relationships with students 'being their mate' and 'giving them sweets' and what happens - the students think you are a soft prat - dump the fact that you are waygookin and its just a recipe for distaster.

I think about my NCOs during army basic training when I was a teenager - if you are fair you can still punish or shout at the students - but fairness and a sense of humour is required - I still remember my NCOs with fondness and they made me run up hills with a rifle above my head but they were also very fair. My teaching style is like that and I think it is working too. Not with every class of course - there are some right little hardasses who will not buckle to the system whatever you do but 75% of them? They still cheer or clap when they come in so I think I am doing something right.

[Fishead soup]

We all dream of being the teacher played by Robin Williams in "The Dead Poet Society". I saw the movie again and it struck me as dreadfully naive and stuck in the Eighties.

In retrospect I don't think he was a good teacher. His best student commited suicide. He failed that student. He could have intervened. He could have contacted his parents and told him how talented his son was.
But he simply couldn't be bothered. So his best student died and he got fired.

A good teacher would encorage his students to tear up a textbook a good teacher would teach students how to challenge it intellectually.

Don't base your idea of a good teacher on a crappy Holywood movie.
By the way Robin Williams svcks.

[sojusucks]

I am the teacher that I thought that I would be.

I care about educating students and I care about my students.

I have been greatly dissapointed in the Korean education system.

Most schools aren't serious about English education but they are serious about the money the receive for hiring a foreign teacher. Many schools don't seem to care that much about students. I told one teacher about a male student hitting a female student (that happened to be her boyfriend), pulling her hair, and yelling at her. These are high school students. The Korean teacher I pointed this out to only said that's normal. Well, abuse is normal in Korean society apparently. It breaks my heart to see these things. It really does.