Korean Job Discussion Forums

[PatrickGHBusan]

Reading these boards, having been a teacher for over 15 years (in Canada and then Korea) and now being out of teaching I wonder about something related to what it means to be a Teacher.

I read the boards here and see what I believe to be a great deal of missconception as to what it means to be a Teacher when it comes to duties, responsibilities and most of all work conditions.

I wonder how some of you define being a Teacher.

What do you think are the defining characteristics of teaching?

Hopefully this thread can help come people better understand the nature of their job and perhaps put to rest some of the missplaced complaints about teaching duties. Also, hopefully this could help everyone better understand the challenges that come with being a Teacher.

Here is hoping this becomes a constructive exchange of ideas....

I will provide my own opinion of what constitutes a Teacher and what the teaching profession is after a few posts.

Edit: Ying, you are right, I made spelling mistakes. I corrected some of them and if there are more I hope they will be pointed out. However I hope you will have more constructive input to provide and that you can leave your personal opinion of me at the door. This is not about you or me, it is, hopefully about gaining a better understanding of what it is to be a Teacher.

[yingwenlaoshi]

I think that if you are an English teacher, you should at least be able to spell. That's a big one. We do, however, make mistakes sometimes and it's best to just admit them and/or move on. Nobody's perfect.

[hockeyguy109]

"How someone is a good English teacher" is relative in the same way as "How is someone a good humper". Certain tricks in America won't work in Korea, and the same way around.

Jokes aside, I am more respected in Korea when I show movies and make the kids do as little as possible. I would probably be fired from a teaching job in America for doing that. So what makes a good teacher?

My Honest Answer: A teacher who inspires kids to be better people and live out their dreams.

Look back on your favorite teachers from school. Who do you remember most? For me, it was my High School English teacher. He was a great teacher and knowledgeable, but it was the side conversations and things he inspired within me that I remember best.

Education is 50 percent of a teachers job. The other 50 percent is full of "being a good role model, showing kids how to be passionate, and open up their dreams into reality".

I think this is especially true while teaching in places like Korea where kids are brought up to accept being miserable and working 15 hour days in meaningless jobs they hate.

[PatrickGHBusan]

Hockeyguy,

[hockeyguy109]

[PatrickGHBusan]

Well what you see is them in your class. You do not see them in their out of school lives or family lives (Not your fault either as how could you?).

Are you talking about elementary level kids, middle schoolers or high schoolers because that makes a huge difference due to University entrance exams.

As far as their happiness...I would hesitate to conclude that all of them are miserable when you really do not know much about their out of school lives.

Just saying.

Anyway, the thread is meant to discuss what it means to be a Teacher...I hope it stays on topic.

[KoreanAmbition]

Patrick,

tisk tisk... hockeyguy gave a very honest answer about what it means to be a teacher, and then you derailed your own thread.


Back on topic now...

Are university and unigwon teachers all considered part of the "teacher" category you are referring to?

If they are, then I'm a unigwon teacher, and I feel that a lot of hockeyguy is very true. A lot of my students are constantly worried about life and have misconceptions about what will make them happy in their futures. I spent an excessive amount of time outside of my teaching hours talking to students and encouraging them that they have done a good job so far in life and that there are many different ways they can find success and happiness in their future lives. I am positive they appreciate my words because it's rare that they hear it from their Korean teachers. I think it's rare that their Korean teachers actually voluntarily take a lot of time out of their day to motivate and talk to students.

[PatrickGHBusan]

[The Bobster]

While thinking this over, I don�t so much ponder what I myself do in the classroom so much as try to recall those teachers I�ve had that have had some positive effect on me.

ㅁ There�s a point of view that says that caring is �unprofessional� but I don�t think so, at least not within certain limits. I think one of the things of value a teacher can give is to communicate that there is at least one person in the world who gives a damn how well they master a particular thing.

ㅁ Part of a teacher�s job is to provide students with difficult problems to solve � but not too difficult, and hopefully interesting ones � and then to let them know that, yes, you can do this. Ideally, the student will see the task and initially feel it is impossible, and discovering later that it is within their scope is sometimes more valuable than the actual content of the lesson. And it�s a joyful thing to discover that you can do something that you thought you couldn�t.

ㅁ Learning is fun, and kids know this, at least until it�s been beaten out of them. (In Korean schools, sometimes literally beaten, of course.) Adults remember it very quickly when the opportunity is provided. My favorite teachers made me look forward to being in their class. �What�s going to happen today?�

ㅁ Again, some will say it�s outside the realm of professionalism, but a teacher has to like people, and especially his or her students. You are not a parent, so you don�t have to love them, but if you like them they will like you, and themselves also. After that, the student will want to please the teacher and earn the positive regard that has been granted. In order to gain and keep that approval, the student will do things he or she wouldn�t otherwise be doing, and thus education will (probably) occur.

ㅁ I think good teachers don�t simply make students learn a particular content area, but also teach them HOW to learn it, and this �how� can carry over into other learning tasks at other times in their lives. It�s very enjoyable to find out new things, and there�s a nice bit of confidence that comes with the interior knowledge that � I don�t know how to do this, but I can figure it out.�

I probably have more, but maybe this is enough for now.

[some waygug-in]

[quote="PatrickGHBusan"]

[edwardcatflap]

[xingyiman]

Op - in any job your performance is usually defined as doing what your employer wants you to do.

My first job entailed going into the classes for 20 minutes over the course of 4 hours a day with breaks and chatting with the students. My director told me that in my spare time he didn't care what I did surfing the web whatever..... Was I technically a teacher? No, but I wasn't being asked to be either.

[Mr. Pink]

Homer,

You might be wasting your time with this one.

The attitude of so called "teachers" is one reason I had to leave the Korean system. After 9 years teaching in Korea, I only knew 2-3 foreign teachers who cared about more than their hours of work per day, paychecks and vacations.

In retrospect, I can see how those types of attitudes become prevalent; people go through crappy jobs, or they come to Korea with attitudes of superiority and not of servant hood. Teachers are in many respects like servants. We serve our students subject area knowledge, as well as morals and foundations on how to be decent human beings and how to integrate within society.

[Moldy Rutabaga]

The problem with such a question is that it encompasses such a variety of roles. My job as a teacher is to fulfill my contract and work x hours a week if I only look at it from an administrator's viewpoint.

I call myself a professor. That immediately gets people's shorts in a knot because it sounds elitist. I don't think my job is more or less valuable than a middle or high school teacher. I guess I use the term because there are connotations of research or publishing in the word, as well as teaching -- that is not the only role, but I think it's the most important.

I like to think my job as a teacher is to teach them the syllabus, but ultimately I want to teach them to think. If they can take the material I give them, as well as what they've learned in the past, and think and reason and speculate on these things, I think I'm empowering them to make their lives better.

I can only hope so. Often I fail because of my own fault, and sometimes I fail because the system frustrates me. But sometimes I think I succeed.

[Easter Clark]

I think a teacher's responsibility is to teach students how to learn. The best teachers will make themselves obsolete.