Friday, April 17, 2009
Two screwed hagwon teachers take their case to Facebook.
Two hagwon teachers were cheated out of millions of won, and have taken their case to Facebook, and one was fired without cause. It sounds like the Labor Board is dragging its feet until the two women are forced to leave the country. Found via Chris's blog. This might be a time for the Association for Teachers of English in Korea to step up.
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11 comments:
If ATEK doesn't step up then they are the farce that I suspect them being.
I agree with The Clam that this is the kind of thing ATEK should be focusing on. Not getting paid is a much more serious form of "human rights abuse" than being forced to pee into a cup.
In fact, I think ATEK should be working with the Labor Board to find a way to more smoothly deal with these cases.
It's too bad that the Labor Board angle isn't working, though. In a lot of cases the Labor Board just threatens to take them to court or something and the hagwons pay up.
(I remember when there was no labor board, and I remember some English teachers saying Koreans would never set up something that forced Koreans to pay money to foreigners. Never.)
One other thing... are these two teachers unaware with all the ways that many Koreans get screwed by their Korean bosses?
I'm not saying they shouldn't be fighting for that 5 million won (they should!) but it's a bit of chutzpah on their part that the media would get on this for what is, in the scheme of things, a pittance.
What they need is a documentary. I had been toying with having my people in Seoul put together a documentary on the problems in the English-teaching industry, and maybe these two would be good folks to interview since it sounds like their particular problem is a common one that is illegal (the 11-month or 11.5-month contract in order to avoid paying severance).
Why anyone would take a job with a hagwon is beyond me.
I can tell you why but it will sound condescending and a little disparaging.
The highly sanitized version: They don't know any better but for a lot of them, even if they did, it wouldn't make any difference.
It is time to return English teaching to a profession, with all the responsibility and respect that entails.
Well, people don't know any better. You go on the internet, you send out your resume, and you're hit with dozens if not hundreds of jobs. For the teachers reading this, I don't know if you remember how confusing and nerve-wracking it was trying to find your first job in Korea, but I had no idea what I was doing. I just trusted whatever the recruiter said about "good school," "good location," whatever.
It's not like hagwon ALL bad, I just don't think people realize that it's not that hard to work in a public school.
I got a hagwon job out of college because I was intimidated by the large class sizes of public schools.
There are some good hagwon out there, and I can see working for one part time if you have a day job. But no way I'd go back to one, with the low pay, stupid fuck coworkers, snotty students, and 6 vacation days a year. Oooooh, you get 10 days off? Wow, I get 3 months.
I think there's also an assumption that hagwon teachers do the real work, since public schools are so ineffective. Well, maybe, but you're still a foreign teacher in Korea, little more than window decoration, so you might as well go after all the fringe benefits you can get. I don't think it's crass to value things like vacation and pay in addition to job satisfaction.
Thus concludes disconnected thoughts.
Massive overhaul of the system is necessary, from the hiring and recruiting process to the sponsorship process to the contract enforcement process, with all sides — recruiters, teachers, managers and institute owners, Immigration, parents, and students — being held accountable.
There is too little accountability in the system and each group, when constructively criticized, has members that throw tantrums and point their finger at the other side.
Accountability and responsibility is how things will change. Peeing into a fucking cup is accountability and responsibility. Crying and pointing out that Korean teachers don't have to pee into a cup (some do, actually, and all have been subject to the Korean equivalent of a "permanent record" most or all their lives, which sort of evens things out), runs counter to accountability and responsibility.
And frankly, if you look at all these stupid discussions about "pot isn't as bad as soju," it's more of the same. It's the f-ing Korean law that you don't smoke pot. Period.
I also worked at a hagwon during my first year in Korea. It got me in the country and for that I'm grateful, but it was generally fairly miserable. Public school isn't without its challenges, but its a much better working situation. Most of my coworkers treat me like a pariah, but those that don't are wonderful. The students are better behaved. The hours are more agreeable. I actually get a vacation. Try asking my old hagwon owner to take a day off and see what kind of response you get. Even the living conditions are better. I actually do more work now than I ever did at a hagwon. I don't know why anyone would think hagwon teachers do more work. More classes, yes, but I do more prep now than I ever did at my hagwon.
I've always felt that if I'm hired to do a job, I should do the best that I can. Let's just say that I wasn't allowed to do the best that I could because of situations that existed in the hagwon.
My most effective weapon against unruly students was to kick kids out of class. This drove my boss nuts. I loved it. This was a school that didn't have a manager. It was just me, so I made the decisions. If disciplining a student took more time than the actual lesson, I would just ask him/her to leave. If they wanted shithead students to stay in the room, they should have supported me.
The argument was that the student wouldn't learn anything. My response was that they weren't learning anything anyway and were actually disrupting the learning of other students. I felt that seperating the dickbag kids from the group was actually fairly effective and usually resulted in better behavior in the long run. I still think its better than beatin's.
Kushibo, the peeing in the cup and background checks aren't the issue. It's the hypocrisy. I think you're smart enough to know that. I know I'm in favor of both. I just think it should be applied fairly. It's not being applied fairly right now.
This ends my disjointed thought section. Have a great weekend.
Matt wrote:
Kushibo, the peeing in the cup and background checks aren't the issue. It's the hypocrisy. I think you're smart enough to know that. I know I'm in favor of both. I just think it should be applied fairly. It's not being applied fairly right now.I don't feel it's particularly hypocritical. Korean nationals who become full-fledged teachers for the public school system go through a considerable background check. Through Korea's health checkups and through military service, most also get STD checks.
If Immigration or the National Assembly started putting foreign nationals on teaching visas through the same type of scrutiny, visa processing would grind to a halt.
The authorities are trying to extend checks to as many people who teach kids as possible, and they have started with people whose entry into the country is already easily controlled: those applying for teaching visas.
ATEK is right that all teachers, including Korean nationals and F visa holders should also get background checks, but according to a few people, ATEK is actually trying to get the checks dropped (there was a discussion in Hub of Sparkle about that).
If you compare E2s with non-regular teachers and especially F visa holders, there is probably more scrutiny of the E2, but if you compare the E2 with a "regular" teacher, the regular teacher gets considerably more.
The calls in the public for greater scrutiny of teachers is not aimed just at "foreign" teachers. They're also going after problems with Korean teachers as well. To call this hypocrisy is to look at just one small aspect of a much larger picture.
I wasn't aware that ATEK was designed to be some sort of pro bono hitman for English teachers. From what I gather, ATEK is trying to build a community by providing a framework, and from the collected, I don't know... something from the community, a targeted response that these hagwon owners or the labor board can come forward. I'm pretty sure ATEK isn't some dog you kick around and then kick some more because it didn't come to your defense when you got mugged.
No, but ATEK ought to step in to advise these teachers what to do when the authorities supposed to help won't help.
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