Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Boodleheimer]

My fiance has been offered a position at an all boys high school in the countryside. we're both a bit hesitant because --- well, boys will be boys. UK and US boys are nightmares. are the korean ones any better?

[TheUrbanMyth]

There's no comparision. Yes, boys will be boys...but Korean high schoolers tend to be more firmly disciplined and overworked (thus too tired to cause much trouble) than Western boys. I doubt you will have problems as long as you present a fair, but tough attitude.

[crazylemongirl]

I taught all boys for two years and co-ed this year. It's middle school though, but I imagine same rules apply.

I prefer the boys they are so easy to deal with, you just gotta be meaner than they are. After that it's a cake walk.

Boys here love talking about wrestling, computer games, soccer, insulting eachother, oh and food.

Boys can act up in class and you give them hell for it. But 10 minutes later all is forgiven. Some of my worst students in class are always pleasant to me. They just don't like english. That's fine.

Girls on the otherhand. If you get on their bad side, that's it. They'll make it their mission in life to make things suck. They also tend to be harder to drag english out of, where as most boys here will just anything here for a piece of candy.

In short you gotta be mean, but fair. You also have to establish yourself as top dog, which takes a while esp. with the upper grades as they figure they got seniority as they've been at the school longer.

[cruisemonkey]

I teach grades five & six elementary (mixed boys & girls) and all three grades of middle school (all boys or all girls).

While I have no real discipline problems, in general, I've found elementary boys to be more of a challenge than the girls. However, the opposite is true in middle school. I think this is because in middle school, the boys start to be beaten by their K teachers. Grade two middle school girls are probably the worst behaved.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

It all depends on whether it's an academic or industrial / vocational school. The former would probably be a great place to work; the latter could be a really lost cause, though the amount of paid vacation might help make up for it, as they usually don't have summer / winter break classes to teach.

[ilovebdt]

I work at a high school and I am teaching single sex classes for the first time this semester.

With the boys you have to be firm, but fair and don't let them get away with anything. I found they need more encouragement than the girls.
They are definately better behaved than the boys at a UK comprehensive school.

Try it, you might like it

Ilovebdt

[Paji eh Wong]

I find mixed classes much worse than single gender classes for middle school. I don't know what it is, but being around the opposite sex when youre that age seems to turn you into a donkey.

[Wrench]

Their have been lots of studies done on Single and CoED classrooms. One that comes into mind was done about 6 years ago. They found that the rate of improvement amongst students in a single gender class were quite positive. They found that all girl class imrpoved by 20-30% (marks, quality of work and behavior. Aggregate) But boys had a huge improvement of 60-80%.

[crazylemongirl]

[flotsam]

Before I go into the body of my post, let me say that I do not allow my following comments to filter into my behavior in the classroom and the school--I encourage all of my students and treat them equally.

But, I don't know about other people's experiences; I find Korean boys of any age to be about the dullest dullards that ever there were. I mean, they are simply adjusshis in the making. Every now and then, I run across a good guy at my middle school but in general, they are like animals. My foreign language high school preparation class, which is focused on essay writing and interviewing, is attended by 24 students at the school that want to go to elite high schools: 23:1 girls:boy(no s). And I think the lad is there for reasons other than his future...

My first two years in Korea were not in "the schools" but at hakwons focusing on high school students, and good ones too, and there also I found Yu-Suck, Beom-Suck and We-Suck, Yonsei, Koryo-dae and SNU wannabe attendees all, very uninterested in learning but quite interested in making observations like "Teacher! Ddong is *beep*! Uh-huh-huh-huh."

Working at a girls high school was a dream. The students were motivated, fun and mature. They constantly strove to improve themselves and constantly challenged me to keep up with their pace with detailed and progressive lesson planning. They volunteered for extra assignments and eagerly offered intelligent and respectful input on what was going on in class and what additional material they thought would also be of benefit.

The girls at my middle school now seem to me to be the future girls from the high school I taught at. The boys are the future boilermaker chugging wife-beaters we all know they will be.

Caveat lector:

First, I took hyperbolic poetic license. I don't think all the boys will be wife-beaters. If you have been here for more than a week, you know what I mean about the bulk of Korean men.

Second, more seriously...it has been my experience that male teachers often get along better with female students and female teachers with male students. All the Korean teachers I have worked with have concurred on this. The female staff regard all the boys as little brothers whose antics exemplify boys being boys and are able to diffuse situations employing shame and sincerity that would lead to a standoff between a male teacher and his teenage student. I really think that the female teachers find the behavior of the boys fascinating because it would never occur to them to attempt some of the wildly inane *beep* the boys get caught doing.

On the other hand, and I am going to attempt to avoid rabble rousing language here, when a female teacher scolds a female student, there is a coldness that descends that can last semesters or years. I have seen my partner teachers simply curl with anger at some of the girls when they pass to confess once they have walked on, "I can't stand that Min-Ji, the way she looks at me when she thinks I can't see her." Taken me aback a few times, the intensity of the animosity has. But, I think that kind of tension just isn't present between male teachers and female students most of the time. Of course, sometimes the girls try to use a flirtatious-princessy coyness to just skim by, but if the male teacher scoffs at it good-naturedly and tells them to get to work, they do it.

End of song.

[OCOKA Dude]

[Dan The Chainsawman]

Boys no matter where you go are morons. They brains are firmly lodged by their *beep*.

[flotsam]

[quote="OCOKA Dude"]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[crazylemongirl]

Floatsam what a load of garbage. I've taught boys for two years and my students are not the