Korean Job Discussion Forums

[iggyb]

This question came to me while reading a similar thread:

I found one of the biggest headaches in teaching in a hakwon for kids was the parents - and the fact management was constantly changing what they wanted you to do in class - or what they found acceptable in class - based on the latest phone call from a mom.

One week, doing A would be the best thing since sliced bread - all instructors should start doing it.

The next week, a different mom would have called in to complain, and suddenly doing A was absolutely horrible and all instructors must stop doing it immediately.

---- What is it like in a public school?

[iggyb]

I guess I should have altered the cliche since we're talking about Korea:

"....it was the best thing since rice warmers..."

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

Korean parents are superficially well educated (ie a Korean BA means even less than it does in the west) and also have too much time on their hands.

Hagwon owners are scared their school will be denounced by sewing circle so they follow parents suggestions until they subside.

At private middle school I was given the suggestion via my KT to use an American accent. I told her they should have hired an American and that was about it. On test days 50 or so proctoring mothers would be set up in the English Zone poking each other to approach the unimpressed looking foreigner with some ddok. At public high school I never spoke to and rarely saw parents.They would have had more money so could go shopping, play golf etc.

[I'm no Picasso]

I have very little interaction with my students' parents, both directly and indirectly. I do teach a parents class, the members of which constantly bring in all kinds of little gifts (including a generous portion of perfectly prepared homemade bulgogi yesterday, to take home and cook) and want to take me out to dinner, or to see Such-and-Such Palace or So-and-So Mountain. The parents I encounter out and about in the neighborhood (I'm in very tight quarters with my 1500 students, some even living in the same building) are usually extremely shy but very kind. During my summer camp, the mamas heard we were making pancakes and walked all the way to the school to bring in juice and paper cups.

I like that my "parents" aren't customers. I really, really like that my students aren't customers. To me, this kind of relationship is worth far more than any increase in pay or decrease in general MOE hassle.

[kinerry]

[I'm no Picasso]

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

[iggyb]

I student-taught at a middle school here in the US in a small town in Georgia.

The city is heavy in the carpet industry, and in order to promote factories staying or coming in, they wired the whole area.

And I noticed that the teachers had to regularly exchange emails with parents. It was a daily thing.

I can understand PTA and periodic checking up, but having the voice of the parents in the day-to-day operation of the classroom is a bad idea.

Also, one of the comments above reminded me of my favorite classes last time I was teaching in Korea: the housewives classes.

I learned more about Korean society in those classes my first year in Korea than from anything else. They talked much more freely than the men...