Korean Job Discussion Forums

Caffeinated · Joined: 11 Feb 2010

I teach in, AFAIK, a public elementary school in Seoul. I noticed today that my 4th grade elementary students had handouts of an English religious song about Abraham and his many sons with a Korean translation. A couple of weeks ago the handout was about Jesus teaching people how to fish. So are Korean public schools supposed to be truly public schools with no religious affiliations, or are they public by name only but unofficially Catholic?

andrewchon · Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 3:51 am Post subject:

Some Korean PS are built by church ( I went to a Presbyterian one, Est. 1905). Those that aren't built by church don't have religion as part of curriculum. However, family members of students are free to evangelize at schools, just as sales-people are free to come to school and make sales pitches.

jinju necklace · Joined: 15 Jun 2009

Unless the school is officially designated as a catholic or buddhist school (in which case it would be a private school) it is illegal to promote any religion in a public school in Korea.

salgichawa · Joined: 18 Mar 2010

jvalmer · Joined: 06 Jun 2003

Is it one of those private-public schools?

Caffeinated · Joined: 11 Feb 2010

eljuero · Joined: 11 Aug 2009

I work in a SMOE "public/private" school. I was quite surprised to find out that I worked in a "mission" school. In short, this means that the school was founded by Catholics some time ago. Twice a week they pull out a church organ in the morning meeting and sing a song. Bizarre, but then again, it bothers me less than religious thinking in my home country. At least it's all in Korean which I don't understand. I usually leave an online news article on the monitor to glance at while they're doing their thing. I turn the bible to a similar looking page to act like I care. I've explained my family background is Irish Catholic and then say I'm pretty "Korean" about discussing religion at work as it is illegal to ask about it in the workplace in my country. That usually is enough to muddy the waters and move on.
According to at least a few co-workers who are honest, the school does have a higher rate of conservative or religiously oriented folks working there. I wouldn't resign at the school due to their conservative and rigid thinking about things which, I'm afraid, goes hand in hand with a lot of religious institutions. Again, I'm quite surprised this happened at a public school. If I resigned with SMOE I'd request a clearly secular place next time. Just my two cents.
El Juero

jvalmer · Joined: 06 Jun 2003

Even if your school is a public-school funded by a religious organization, the students are pretty much a standard cross-section of society. Also, not all the teachers will be religious at your school.

If other teachers pressure you to go to church or something, just politely turn them down.

eljuero · Joined: 11 Aug 2009

oldfatfarang · Joined: 19 May 2005 Location: On the road to somewhere.

Just roll with it. I taught in a catholic private/public last year. No problems. My boss was a nun, and a real sweetie. We had a couple of catholic ceremonies during the year, and the kids could have mass once a week if they wanted it. I went to the ceremonies for 'manners' - it was quite interesting as I'm a buddhist. There were also a few statues outside, and each classroom had a Jesus on cross sculpture.

I was surprised to find that most teachers weren't catholic, and that only about 30 kids in the whole school were catholics. However, as it was a private school - the VP's and admin people had to be catholic to advance their careers.

No worries.

balzor · Joined: 14 Feb 2009