As it became obvious there was a lot of interest from F series visa holders about the report, he decided to make the report public so people could see it for themselves, and explained this to the NHRCK. The reason for the delay was the fact that he had to combine three different reports into one 'final' report, and organize the 236 footnotes. This report has also been sent to the NHRCK and the Ministry of Justice. It should be pointed out that there continue to be documents sent back and forth, and that there is no definitive 'original text', and thus no 'final report.' This text will be updated as new research is added.
It accomplishes a couple of things for readers. First, it documents the most grievous and notable cases of the media and prominent individuals showering ignorance and hate on the heads of native speaker English teachers in Korea, whether it's a representative of the Foreign Affairs Division of the Seoul Police Department saying
American and Canadian English teachers think Korea is a land of opportunity [and a] perverted paradise [because] the majority of them find it easy to seduce Korean women and do drugs with them.
or a Ministry of Justice official saying
Drug use and other criminal activities carried out by foreign English teachers have been a social issue for some time, and have built up to dangerous levels in recent years.
or a proposed amendment to the Immigration Control Act that says
Nowadays, the number of foreigners working in Korea is increasing, but a good many have previous convictions for drug and sexual crimes or carry infectious diseases.
It lays out quite plainly and through statistics how these news reports, public statements by politicians and other figureheads, and rumors among the public are not only false, but outlandishly so. It debunks the widely-circulated beliefs that we are prone to criminal activity, drug use, sexual predation, or HIV transmission. It shows that the regulations did nothing to protect those they were ostensibly designed to protect. It says, on page 7, that
The E-2 visa policy requirements were designed to "protect children and young students," yet these protective measures are not applied to the majority of teachers who teach children (under-inclusive) and instead are often applied to teachers who do not teach children at all (over-inclusive)
and on the next page
The E-2 visa policy was never implemented to achieve any of its stated goals; rather, it was deigned as a "show" to pacify the Korean public by proving an illusion of protection through a discriminatory and extra-legal crackdown severely violating the human rights of non-citizen residents.
It not only documents these cases of ignorance and how they feuled public panic and led to new legislation, but it also, on a second front, demonstrates how the E-2 visa policy and the proposed additional changes---built as they are upon falsehoods, distortions, and statistics that do not exist---violate Korea's own laws and the human rights accords to which South Korea is proudly a party. It says, on the final page, as one of its six key recommendations to the NHRCK
Issue an immediate opinion stating the E-2 visa policy and proposed legislation constitutes discrimination and violates the fundamental human rights of non-citizens residing in the Republic of Korea.
Please read the initial post on Gusts of Popular Feeling for the background to this particular version. Now without further ado:
Nhrck Report 2
Comments will be closely moderated here, and this space will not be used to debate or revisit any conversations already repeated on other sites. Anything off-topic or inflammatory will be removed.
15 comments:
Excellent stuff.
(I await Kushibo's informed response.)
The E-2 visa policy requirements were designed to "protect children and young students," yet these protective measures are not applied to the majority of teachers who teach children (under-inclusive)...
This is true only if you don't consider the invasive ways in which Korean teachers (that's who he's talking about in the report when he says this) are subject to medical exams as well as criminal background checks. In other words, this is a false and misleading statement.
Furthermore, when he says things like this:
... the severe abuse that Korean students suffer from Korean teachers and the impunity these teachers continue to enjoy demonstrates the serious need for measures designed to "protect children and young students" and provides strong evidence of the extreme under-inclusiveness of the government's policy.
... then he is doing the very thing he condemns the police and others of doing, which is making policy by media-created innuendo, basically tarring all of some group with what he reads in the papers.
This is hypocritical smoke-and-mirrors that relies on questionable legal interpretations that are themselves based on faulty evidence, which does not go to the heart of the problem, which is that a slacker culture has grabbed a hold of your industry and is bringing it down. Standards need to be set and followed, but Wagner is sniping, not cooperating to make a fair-across-the-board policy, and little good, if any, will come of it.
If he wants equal treatment, maybe the government will decide that native English speakers in the classroom should go through the same series of hoops that ROK nationals have to in order to get into the classroom. Maybe the compulsory military conscription for males might be a little harsh, but at least all the exams and licensing crap. Good luck!
But if he really does
Something told me that the resident apologist would be here to speak of the error of the author's ways.
"...the heart of the problem, which is that a slacker culture has grabbed a hold of your industry and is bringing it down."
Chuckle.
You're becoming increasingly unhinged in your disdain of foreign language instructors.
First of all, you can go after kushibo's points, but quit going after his character, or calling him an apologist, or whatever. Keep it on topic.
As far as the slacker culture, I think that's getting to another point unrelated to media bias against teachers. It's true teachers need to pick up their game---and ATEK or even KOTESOL (which seems to specialize in the university setting) should speak more to this---and even I am pissed off by slacker teachers. But that's another issue, one you can't separate from the high demand for native speakers. And again I go back to saying that if all the government is requiring a BA, CBC, and valid passport, it really shouldn't expect much more than that.
I have no disdain for foreign language instructors. Quite the opposite.
I see very hard-working people who are innovative, dedicated, and want to do a good job, yet they are thrown into a group full of people who are quite different in their outlook and attitude toward the work, and it is extremely difficult, when hiring, to distinguish who is who.
There was once a time when English teachers in Korea made twice the average national income of Korean workers, now it's about the same, possibly even less. Wages have been stagnant for a decade.
Why do you think that is? What do you think can be done? Why are there so many hagwons with horrible, dishonest, disgusting managers (how's that for apologism?) yet there is an ever-steady stream of people to replace the folks who get fed up and quit that job or quit the country altogether?
Simply put, there are virtually no standards, and there is little to aspire to. And that is detrimental to the hard-working teachers who want to make a difference.
I've never met Brian, but I get the feeling he is dedicated to his job and he seems like a smart, hard-working person. I know lots of teachers like that, and they are all facing the same frustrating situation: they in a profession that has utterly lost its professionalism. That is NOT just the fault of (some of) the teachers, but the teachers can really only change what the teachers do. Adopting stricter standards would be the best thing for most everybody in that profession. Wagner is a charlatan for employing bogus methods to torpedo any efforts at change.
And I'll weigh in on these issues later (I'm tired, I've been working on this stuff for a while, I want something else to write about), but I want to say to put a rest to this "apologist" crap. kushibo isn't one, and the insult doesn't make sense anyway. His blog is good, and his comments are good. They're a lot better when they don't get sidetracked and fixated on one person, but whatever.
Keep it on topic, final warning.
I wrote my second comment before yours was put up, Brian, but I think you and I see eye to eye on at least some of these points, so I'll just address this one thing.
Brian wrote:
and ATEK or even KOTESOL (which seems to specialize in the university setting) should speak more to thisThey should, but in a world of finite resources, limited time, and short attention spans, it basically becomes an either/or situation.
They can go after the bogus "human rights violation" angle, or they can attempt to work out a policy with the powers-that-be that will cover everyone it should cover in a way that will reasonably address the concerns of the general public in a way that is fair across the board. What they are doing now is not that.
"They can go after the bogus "human rights violation" angle, or they can attempt to work out a policy with the powers-that-be that will cover everyone it should cover in a way that will reasonably address the concerns of the general public in a way that is fair across the board. What they are doing now is not that."
Who? ATEK?
I think that the 'human rights violation' IS an attempt to create a level playing field, and is a perfectly valid and commendable approach. The 'concerns of the general public' should not actually be a prime motivation for any change in the law, as the concerns of the general public are largely engineered by a press that is only too happy to feed their xenophobic fear. As the figures provided in the report show, arrests within the foreign community are significantly lower than they are for native Koreans. The fear has little basis in reality.
As for the 'slacker culture' that you speak of - I've not really seen too much evidence of it. Yes, I'm sure there are teachers that are just here to earn their pay and go back home, all with a minimal of effort. But that's surely going to be the case in any industry. People have different standards. And it may well be the case that these 'slackers' were once enthusiastic and passionate individuals who had such drive sucked out of them by pointless hagwon just-keep-them-busy classes, exhausted students, and underhanded and duplicitous management. A lack of professionalism in teachers is simply a reflection of the lack of professionalism in the whole industry structure.
I do think it should be a multi-pronged attack (ugh, I hate that word), in at least three areas:
1) Human rights. Yes, I know people groan when they hear "human rights" and "teachers who get paid 2.1 to be native English speakers" in the same line, but clearly the E-2 regulations are discriminatory and violate the treaties Korea is party to. Whether or not people think that angle should be prominent, it gives the issue traction.
2) The derogatory (sp?) comments and coverage in the media needs to stop, because it's based on falsehoods and distortions. The easy coverage is always "SOME foreigners" do this, or some other qualifier. The paper demonstrates how this media attention led to the E-2 regs in the first place following Christopher Paul Neil's arrest. Most if not all of us would agree that background checks are essential for teachers and anyone else working with children, though I can think of no explanation to focus on E-2 teachers exclusively other than they're an easy target, and because it's easy to point to us for any number of sins real or imagined, not the least of which being highly-paid, unqualified hagwon teachers who need to be taken down a notch. These distortions have real consequences, because they perpetuate ignorant rhetoric and policies from politicians and public figures, all of which leads to mistrust among parents and students.
3) Shoring up teacher quality. If they can't hit us on the sex, drugs, AIDS, or criminal activity, an easy way to discredit us as teachers is to say we're "unqualified," and that takes a variety of meanings. It's true that a lot of us didn't come here because we're passionate about teaching, and Koreans would certainly expect that from us. Again, we have to look into why that is. There's a high demand for native speakers, and recruiters and schools appeal to our desire for adventure, travel, and international experience. I'm not sure how this would be done, but I think schools and districts need to be encouraged to provide adequate training for incoming teachers (seems like more and more places are having orientations, which is nice.) If we're going to get rid of this "unqualified" business, we do have to lead by example (and do our best to raise discussion about what "qualified" means). Leading by example will mean not only training opportunities, but also veteran teachers doing their part to keep rookies in line. I mean, I remember when I got to Korea, the first stuff I heard was office gossip, how much this and that is a pain in the ass, blah blah blah. Nothing about how to be a pro, how to fit in, how to do a good job. I think we need to do a better job on this front.
Well put Brian.
No one is entirely uncovered by muck in this case, but at least the statistical realities apparently in this study should be useful to rebut some of the more obvious falsehoods that get into the papers and then bleed out into the community.
The other issues, of course, still remain to be completely addressed
Shoring up teacher quality is primarily the responsibility of recruiters and school presidents. It is not really fair for you to claim that it is the job of teachers to improve teacher quality. We may express the desire for teachers to be more professional and more focused, but until there is an appropriately professional framework in which they may behave more professionally and be adequately acknowledged and rewarded for doing so, it is unlikely to happen.
Increasing community responsibility amongst teachers first of all requires increasing the sense of community. As this sense of community is constantly under attack from the media (reading stories of drug-taking teachers is hardly likely to encourage feelings of fraternality and mutual respect), as well as from reactionary elements within that community, this sense of community responsibility seems to be some way off, with current attempts to raise the stock of teachers being restricted to torch-bearing solo efforts.
Wait, wait, wait.
... then he is doing the very thing he condemns the police and others of doing, which is making policy by media-created innuendo, basically tarring all of some group with what he reads in the papers.
So, are you saying that Korean teachers practising corporal punishment is a "smoke and mirrors" "media-created innuendo"?
Please, please, please tell me that you're saying the media is creating ALL THESE STORIES of Korean corporal punishment.
'Cause that's the only thing you're saying here and its hilarious.
This is hypocritical smoke-and-mirrors that relies on questionable legal interpretations that are themselves based on faulty evidence, which does not go to the heart of the problem, which is that a slacker culture has grabbed a hold of your industry and is bringing it down.
Did you read section 1(F)? At all?
Which part of being convicted for repeatedly sexually molesting a student is "faulty evidence" and representative of a "slacker culture"? Which part of stripping a 5 year-old and throwing her out in the winter is "questionably legal"?
I'm sorry, Brian, but kushibo's points are worse than an apologists. They're horrible, horrible points he's making to the point that they shouldn't even be made.
Later on, he slams the idea of "human rights violations." Apparently, kushibo doesn't even understand the meaning of those words.
kushibo, the fact that you are defending these positions and practises is sick and twisted. If you're going to come back with "That's not what I meant..." you better check yourself. Because that's what you're saying.
"This is true only if you don't consider the invasive ways in which Korean teachers (that's who he's talking about in the report when he says this) are subject to medical exams as well as criminal background checks."
I am not aware of any such requirement for Korean teachers in the hagwon system, or the universities, which are the settings most non-Korean teachers work in. If there is such a requirement, it is widely ignored.
This is me posting:
So, are you saying that Korean teachers practising corporal punishment is a "smoke and mirrors" "media-created innuendo"?
Please, please, please tell me that you're saying the media is creating ALL THESE STORIES of Korean corporal punishment.
Ask yourself why (i.e., toward what end) the media is publishing as national news stories of teachers hitting or otherwise physically punishing students.
Some elements of the media go after Korean teachers, who are lately perceived as abusing their social position and professional standing, just as some elements of the media (often the same elements) go after foreign teachers, who are lately perceived as being guilty of similar abuse of position.
If it's foolish to cite Korean news stories to make legislation or regulations about foreign teachers, why is it so much wiser to cite Korean news stories about Korean teachers in order to make (ATEK) policy?
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