I came here to see a foreign country not as a tourist, but as something closer to a citizen. As a means to do that, I am teaching English to children. I'm not the kind of person to lie to myself (or others for that matter) so I can honestly say that this job was purely a means to a end. I don't have any great love for the English language, or teaching, or even kids. These are not revelations, I knew all this before leaving.
I like kids quite a bit more then I expected I would. Being the youngest of my family and living far away from my cousins, I haven't really ever spent much time around anyone younger than myself. Kids are fun. They are honest in a way that no adult ever is, which is something I really enjoy.
I like English quite a bit less then I used to, although I didn't exactly have a strong opinion before. Language is one area Korea has got the world beat in. Their alphabet was designed to be simple and easy to learn, and much of the language follows pretty strict rules. There are still hundreds of irregularities, but compared to English, it's very organized.
As for teaching, I don't really know what to say. There's a sort of stereotype here that all the western English teachers here aren't really teachers, that they can't teach and don't care about the kids, and are just here for vacation or partying or whatever. After experiencing the environment, it's nearly impossible to imagine anyone who considered teaching to be their profession to even survive over here. The way things happen is just so random and haphazard, there's no way the concept of teaching as a career could be connected to it. If they want serious teachers they are definitely not creating an inviting environment for them.
I read before coming here that that Koreans don't plan ahead and everything is done last minute. This is certainly no exaggeration. It's hard to even explain how last minute things are. The odd thing is that most things do seem to be planned fairly far ahead of time, it's just that no one ever tells anyone. Nearly everything that happens is "here, these 20 progress reports need to be finished by tomorrow," or "We're having a staff meeting.... Oh Ok, what day, what time, what should I have prepared?..... It's right now!" I don't feel like bitching and moaning too much on here, so I'll just say this: If you are an actual, real English teacher, or are considering becoming one, do not take this job.
I'll bitch and moan just a little...
A huge problem with the way things work here is that I work in a private school. I never really appreciated the concept of public schools before, but they are really a great idea. When schools are paid for directly by the parents, the parents wield ALL the power. A private school is a business. It has to do what is best for business. That (apparently) means that when a parent complains that their child's homework is too hard, a meeting is called the next day to tell all teachers to assign easier homework. When THE SAME PARENT complains during THE SAME WEEK that the homework is now too easy, we have another meeting and the previous decision is reversed. Parents have complained about teachers eating food that smells good and distracts their children, about their children eating too much food at lunch and not being hungry for dinner, about their kids not eating enough at lunch and being too hungry when they get home, and about the plays and songs chosen for the graduation ceremony. One parent pulled out her child and switched her to another school because she decided that she should skip a grade for absolutely no reason and our school refused. Her child had been learning English for less than 2 months and she wanted to have the child switched to a class that had been there over a year.
Ok ok ok.... So the only way to get through all this is to pretty much just ignore it all. As I said before, I didn't come here because I love teaching. I didn't expect the work part to be good. What I wanted was for all the other parts to be interesting. I think I've got quite a bit of that. I came here to see a foreign country. Here are some interesting little foreign things:
-The stereotypes about bad Asian drivers aren't exactly true. The thing is the a "good driver" over here means something very different from what it does in America. Good driving in America involves a certain amount of obeying the law, like staying on the right side of the double yellow lines and not running red lights. Being a good driver in Korea means being INCREDIBLY alert and aware of all your surroundings. They have the same laws as us, but no one really follows them. Green means: You've got the right of way, speed up! Yellow means: It's turning red soon, better speed up! Red means: You'll get hit if you are in this intersection very long, so you better speed up! And blare your horn the whole way through!
-Your car horn is not something to be used to notify someone else that they are doing something wrong. It is used to allow others to always hear you coming, much like lights allow others to always see you coming. I've been in several taxis that beeped EVERY time they passed another car.
-Parking is INSANE. Korea is a small country. Something like half the population lives in what I'd call the greater Seoul Metropolitan area, ie. everywhere that the Seoul subways reach. This means that parking is at a huge premium. Inside parking garages, there is a system in place where people routinely park in front and perpendicular to rows of cars and leave their car in neutral, and a man (this is his job) pushes the cars around so that people can get in and out.
Koreans are all about kimchi (their signature native side dish, made from fermented radish or cabbage.) I recently went to Thailand with a Korean tour group, and even though EVERY SINGLE MEAL was eaten at a Korean restaurant (something I'll bitch about some other time), a women in the group still felt the need to bring her own kimchi. They Korean Aerospace agency even developed space kimchi before sending their first astronaut to Soyuz. Some Koreans claim that kimchi can prevent cancer and AIDS, and even cure them. It is served as a side dish with every meal, breakfast lunch and dinner. The "deli" section of the market contains no sliced meat or cheese, only about 40 different kinds of kimchi. I could go on...
Public drunkenness (at least among middle aged men) is very socially acceptable. You don't drink with dinner, you eat with drinking. Let me clarify: Alcohol is the main course, food is the accompaniment. People don't just try to drink as much they can before passing out, they try to drink as much as they can once they come to.
I feel I should point out how beneficial it is to be an American. The entire world is learning English just to make things easy for us. There are many places you can visit as an American and not even bother learning a word of their languages. The phrase "learn enough to get by" is common among travelers, but to be honest, you don't need a single word. You can "get by" pretty easily just by speaking English and the occasional gesture. I'm still learning Korean, but not out of any necessity. It's just a curiosity at this point.
Next post should be about Thailand. There's lot's of elephants there, and some of them play soccer:
But not on an empty stomach:
5 comments:
You know, I've always wanted to go visit an asian country one of these days. I have heard rumors that there may be some racism if you are from african decent. I guess my question is if there are other americans there with you that dont look white and are they treated the same?
Do you think that teaching English in the USA makes any sense? Now there's a day that would really make you crazy. We are made to do so much prep, grading and paperwork that there aren't even hours in the day to complete it. It will mostly come out of your own time, and often that means you don't have time for 8 hours of sleep at night because there is work to be done after you have left work.
Ok, you can bitch a little. Now I'd really like to know more about the apartment and how that's working out, the trip to Thailand, and also snowboarding there in the mountains. How is the music at the bars?
I think Manny's question is a valid one, and are any of the "Western" teachers or "Americans" that they have hired black, brown, or not exactly white looking?
I have seen a very small number of people here of African descent. The few I have seen were in Itaewon and Hongdae (popular GI hangouts), and the few of those I talked to were all in the Armed Forces.
Image is very important in Korea. There is a very strong preference for whiter/paler skin. Many Koreans go to great lengths to avoid tanning. As far as the hiring procedures for teachers, they do ask for a photo along with your resume, and I think they have a preference for what they see as stereotypical Americans. These stereotypes are formed largely based on Hollywood.
I'd say it would probably be harder to get a teaching job as someone with darker skin. However, if you were over here, I don't think you would encounter much racism. Koreans don't seem to be very confrontational and would probably be more curious and interested then anything else. There are things that might be misconstrued as racism, (staring, pointing, laughing from kids) but these will happen to any sufficiently different looking foreigner, myself included.
The main thing that I think is different between working in a school here and working in a school in America comes down to the image thing I just mentioned. You may have to put up with strange things and do extra work, but at least the POINT of it all is to teach kids. That isn't always the case here. What's most important is that it LOOKS like the kids are learning a lot.
Parents are all in fierce competition with each other about their students education. Parents will demand a certain textbook for their children just because they know they know someone else who's child is using it. They will demand work to be completed at a pace that is so fast that it is impossible for students to remember anything being covered.
This isn't official policy or anything, but there is a sort of understanding that no student should ever fail anything or get any bad feedback. If we were to send home a test to be signed with an F on it, the parents would simply call and complain. I know there are parents like this in America too, but here, at a private school, they are in charge. If we don't cater to whatever they want, they pull their kids out and send them somewhere else.
It's a real shame because there are other parents who don't waste time complaining about the smells of foods and instead spend time practicing lessons with their children. Their kids are orders of magnitude better at speaking and understanding and it shows.
Actually, having read what you have said, still not really all that different than here. Here we have politicians. Does making a change in curriculum really make anything better?
LT
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