Last Friday there were meetings in Seoul with the national office discussing winter vacation and for once in Korea they have planned to do the same thing across the entire country. At least that's what the national office directed each provincial office to do.
For you this is not good as our province has always been the best in terms of vacation. You are still entitled to your 26 days vacation so don't worry about that. Where the change is, is when you are not on the 26 days vacation. They will ask you to attend your school to do English camps, extra classes or possibly even sit in your office for lesson prep, professional development (reading a book and sleeping). Thier goal is for you to do camps or high level classes but I'm sure there will be many cases where no students will be available and you may be stuck sitting around.
This is the really bad part. These camps or extra classes you work will not be extra pay as in the past. They feel this is within the contract 22 hours a week you are required to work when not on your 26 days vacation. If you work more than 22 hours you will be paid for the extra time.
Remarkable that when schools finally agree on something, it's this.
Public schools are closed for roughly two months in January and February, save for a few days for graduation. Teachers have often had this time to themselves, but were required to be in Korea when they weren't using the international travel time alloted to them by the contract. Some schools---and EPIK and GEPIK were notorious for this---made their teachers "deskwarm" (that is, come in to an empty school and sit at their desk for eight hours), though as the coordinator points out, Jeollanam-do and other provinces have generally been better about this.
In the past, too, you were generally paid extra for camps. My school in Gangjin never paid me for my three-week camp in 2007, but in Suncheon I was surprised to receive a nice bit of money for a week-long camp.
Teachers used to be able to get out of deskwarming by filling out a form that said professional development would be done at home. As I mentioned in the October thread on contract funny business in public schools---in which we learned schools were deducting pay from previous years---Korean teachers are expected to get work done over the breaks, so it's not unreasonable to expect foreign teachers to do the same: the difference is, of course, Korean teachers can get their work done from the comfort of their own homes. As a native speaker English teacher, though, it's difficult to get too much work done for the next semester, because teachers often don't know who their co-teachers will be and what classes they'll be teaching. Last March I was surprised to find a few new co-teachers on my first day, and the textbook wasn't chosen until a week after the start of the semester.
This latest decision is due in part, as far as I can tell, from schools having inconsistent policies on vacations. Some principals used to insist on deskwarming while others let their teachers have six weeks off. By mandating deskwarming and busy work, in cases where there often isn't anything to be done and where nothing has even been planned yet, places like Jeollanam-do are going to make it harder to attract applicants to rural areas, since that's been one advantage they've had over urban districts. They're also going to upset the teachers they already have by deciding they ought to come into work just in case somebody throws together a last-minute thing. This isn't done to get the most out of teachers, or to put them to work on well-developed programs, it's a knee-jerk reaction by schools who have no idea what to do with their NSETs, a problem that spawned the inconsistencies in the first place. It's hard to believe consistency and efficiency are important when it's decided only three weeks in advance.
Of course lengthy vacations oughtn't be the main selling-point of a teaching job, but this is just further evidence---along with the earlier contract funny business, the SMOE hiring/firing debacle, and salaries that haven't changed much in six years---that's it's no longer a native speaker English teacher's market.
32 comments:
I've found that the bureaucracy in the education system here has made implementing any large scale directives quite difficult. This has irritated me to no end in the past (i.e. not receiving province-wide pay raises because my school wasn't told about them, or the city office of education forgetting to buy my plane ticket home) but maybe this will finally work in my favor and my school will remain happily oblivious to this new mandate. I've got my fingers crossed.
Otherwise - as has been mentioned in the post - this takes away the one big perk of living and teaching in Jeollanamdo.
And considering my classroom's terrible insulation and two non-working gas heaters, there's no way I'm going to sit at my desk all winter long freezing to death - I'm going to buy the cheapest (and likely least efficient) electric space heater I can find, and the electric bills won't look pretty.
i think youre going to end up with two different camps on this one. As one of the new people who came here this year i really dont mind. I was expected to desk warm in japan. I mean, i would have loved having two months off instead of 1, and a month off in summer instead of one week, but everyone seems to be taken by surprise on this one. The reaction i got from my co-teacher was almost... apologetic. Shes quite close friends with our supervisor, and the gist was that theyre trying to hammer out a way around it to still give us as much extra time as we can get.
In that regard i did decide to edit out one part of the post because it may get him in trouble if the programme heads saw it. Theyre sending out a mail shot to all the schools encouraging them to physically have us stick to 22 hours per week of deskwarming. His suggesting was that maybe 9-1 monday to friday may be enough to fulfil our contractural duties whilst also keeping everyone from quitting or not re-signing contracts :)
As i say though, 2 camps really. Those that never had to expereince the good times like me, wont really mind and will just think it a part of our duties anyway. Those who have done it for a few years are going to feel a bit cheated by it all :)
My co-teacher just told me about this. I'm not upset about it, though, because my school has always made me deskwarm. My first summer in Korea I found out that since I didn't book off my vacation, I had to sit at the office for three weeks while my wife got to stay at home. I made a website at that time.
It's my co-teacher who's happy about this. Since the nastiness is now mandated, I don't have to scowl at them anymore when they tell me that they get to go home and I have to stay. That's a plus. Fortunately for me, I have enough vacation days spilled over from summer, so I don't have to spend a single day warming my desk.
Sorry to post twice, but there's one thing you forgot (or perhaps it's not in your papers as it is in mine)
Before you start deskwarming, you have to write out a plan of what you are going to do while deskwarming, a set plan for every day, and at the end of it you have to write a report about what you actually accomplished.
This will be the third year at my school, and I have always had to work 22 hours per week during the winter and summer vacations. It wasn't desk warming, it was always 88 hours of camping, unpaid. Since I got wise to the 88 hour business (22 hour per week), I have been creatively schedualing my camps. Last summer I did a 64 hour middle school camp a 32 hour elementary school camp (That my middle school organizes) And then I did another 20 hours for the local board of education (luckily that was paid). I did all that by working 2-4 day weeks. But really if you want to take a lot of vacations or have time during vacations to work at other schools, people should really consider getting a University job. They don't pay as much, in salary, but if you use the vacation time to pick up other part time jobs you can make more money. (By part time job, I mean a camp, it's legal to do on an E2 visa if you get permission from imigration.)
Teaching in Jeollanam-do was a great choice for me. I'm a twenty-something woman, certified in Elementary Education from the USA.
Working in Korea gave me a great chance to see more of the world before settling down.
I was considering staying a little longer, but after these decisions, it's insulting that they're requiring me to stay during vacation.
If we are hired as teachers, then why aren't we treated as teachers.
In my teaching experience, there aren't any schools in the world that require teachers to sit in desks during vacations.
This is a very bizarre and prejudiced policy, I am not staying here.
Jeju is doing the same thing. It seems to be a directive handed down from the top. On the one hand, it makes sense that they don't want to be paying the teachers to do nothing, but on the other, that's exactly what they're doing anyway. And in response to Star above, remember, if you're in a public school, chances are good you're not a teacher, but an "assistant teacher", hence all the co-teacher nonsense. I don't say this excuses the desk warming policy, but for the admin, it may be a solid reason.
I had to desk-warm at my last Elementary school job. What frustrated me the most about it, was that I was repeatedly warned by co-teachers that I would have to make sure and look busy if anyone happened to come by. It seemed beyond ridiculous that I should be expected to actually feel GUILTY about sitting around the office with no work to do, as if I were getting away with something, when I was in fact doing exactly what was required of me, and personally had no desire to be sitting around doing nothing anyway.
And maybe I'm just being petty here, but, if the Korean government actually cares about hiring "qualified" teachers from abroad, then shouldn't it be trying to attract people who want more out of their job than to be a person-shaped paperweight for weeks at a time?
I have done my fair share of desk warming, even during the regular school session. My tip would be this: As long as people see you sitting in your desk for the first and last hour of the day you will be fine. Remember that this is the land of appearances. As long as it appeared that you were at your desk for the day, that is all that matters. If that fails, multiple trips to the bank or post office can't hurt either.
My English Village did that to the teachers when I was there. For three months, the eight GETs and three Korean Teachers sat trapped in the teacher's office, the only room in the building that was (barely) heated. In the end the GET married couple got divorced (not that this was the only problem they had, but it certainly didn't help), they quit, three more GETs quit, and the Korean teachers regularly ended up in tears after encounters with the director. This particular EV had already been considered a crap assignment for the the Korean teachers in the province, but this really cemented it.
But at least I caught up on my America's Next Top Model reruns.
An interesting collection of experiences and opinions...
As for mine, I was told today that I'd be expected to teach a 'camp' (actually more of a winter intensive English course) and spend the rest of the time preparing. But, I also negotiated my time off - 4 weeks from before Xmas to mid-January (I'll be heading off to more tropical climes).
I was encouraged to take time off when the school really would be empty. All students and staff will take just a week off - between Christmas and New Year.
For me, it's great. I have four weeks off, two weeks for 'camp', and a few weeks of prep time. I like having lots of time to prepare. When I'm not preparing I find plenty to do - such as reading fine blogs like this one.
I'm not sure that my school will be as deserted as the schools of some other posters here. Mine has a fairly high percentage of borading students that stay all year round.
I've never worked at a public school here, so forgive me if this sounds like a silly question, but is there any word on if/ how the local board(s) of education will check on if this measure is implemented?
The reason I ask is that I wonder if any schools will nod their head at the decision but then let teachers stay at home during the winter break anyway. Maybe it would work as an extra perk for working hard/ being a good teacher during the fall (or at least not being a jerk), or be extended to teachers who renew their contract with the same school. As I said though, I'm unfamiliar with the work environment ...
I've yet to have a 'desk-warming' day. Then again, my first hagwon job I worked my arse off - no time to just sit around desk-warming. The school I work at now? Don't know - and doubt they're that organized to let us know. The winter camp plans have already changed at least once that I know about (due to low enrollment).
So it's a different policy than it was before. Sorry for your luck and tough - bemoan the fact that you STILL GET a fairly large amount of PAID vacation as the real world goes. Ask your friends back home who aren't teachers - what would they give to have a couple / few weeks of paid vacation?
i think the lack of planning within the education system here is completely ridiculous. elementary school teachers don't even find out what they'll be teaching for the new school year until about a week before school starts. so it's not surprising they don't have their stuff together when it comes to the native english speaker teachers.
they also have no respect for contracts. the contract clearly states we will get 26 days in february. but the first time an net tried to do that they freaked out and said- no you have to go to graduation week!
i say- if you don't want a teacher to take vacation in feb. then don't put that in the contract!
i also think it's really petty to make an net sit at a desk and do nothing when school is out (either because they don't know what to do with us, or they think we'll get into trouble because, you know, we're hethens, OR because they think we have it too good and they want to make our lives a little less peachy). we don't need an entire month to make lesson plans. we're quite efficient and can make the ones we need for the first couple weeks during the first couple days of school when everyone is scrambling around trying to figure out who is teaching what and what the schedule is.
i also think it's ridiculous to tell teachers (korean and foreign alike) that well you technically have this time off (1-2 months) but we might want you to randomly come in at some point with no notice whatsoever so you can only go out of the country for this many days during this specific week/month. if they tried to do that in the u.s. it would not fly at all. people would be like- f that! lol
each year i've gotten more and more fed up with the way koreans have been dealing with our contracts and in how they deal with us in general so this will be my last contract in korea. it's just gotten less and less appealing to work here.
I agree with what Adam said about appearances. I am mostly positive that most of the days I will be desk warming my coteachers will be here too though.
Last summer I taught camp in the morning, then taught AP Psych at a high school, and then was forced to COME BACK to my school at 3:30 for my final hour of "required" work. My coteachers were both still in the office. What kept them there for 4 hours after camp ended is a mystery.
But on the day before Christmas I've been told I have to go in and sit around. I bet no one will be here (if the school is even unlocked). And on that day I will thank God I live 2 blocks from school. I can always pull the "Oh, I had to run home and take my medicine..."
@An Acorn in the Dog's Food
In my experience, decisions on whether or not NSETs have to deskwarm have been left up to the discretion of the principal of that particular school. Of course I was often told that these decisions came down form the board of education and couldn't be argued -- something my co-teachers pretty much always said when they had news they knew I wouldn't like -- but which I believe was officially true in this case. But unofficially, the principal could choose to ignore this policy if he/she wanted to.
I worked under 4 different principals at 2 different schools, and found that a couple of them were willing to ignore the rule about deskwarming (as kind of a "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours" gesture, I'm assuming). But a couple of them were adamant that I MUST be at school for the full 8-hour day.
As I understand it, what's going on now is an attempt to standardize how the policy is practiced. Of course, if there was actually a coherent vision of what NSETs are supposed to be accomplishing, everything wouldn't need to come down to such arbitrary rules made up by people who know nothing whatsoever about English education.
Come on! Where are you balls?
I have been teaching 4 years at a public elementary school. I've never desk warmed. I am renewed.
I show up for my camps. When I was told about desk warming I said "Sorry, I don't do that." And I never have.
If you are a good teacher, and they like you, ignore their request to desk warm. Just don't show up.
I'm not joking! Just don't show up.
Think, would your father show up? No, because he's an adult. You're an adult too! Don't let them treat you like a kid!
I'd rather be fired thank desk warm. So I took the chance, and it's worked out fine. What's so bad about being fired anyway?
But a couple of them were adamant that I MUST be at school for the full 8-hour day.
Then you worked for 3 days and had a 4-day weekend? 22-hours per week, right?
What's so bad about being fired anyway?
Nothing, as long as you have the money for a ticket home. Unless you've been working for 9 months on your current visa (before getting fired) there is no way to keep your visa with a new school. Start all over back in your home country.
As a teacher who has had a really great school when it comes to holiday time, this does irk me. Not gonna lie. Especially since these broad-sweeping changes seem to be a reactionary attempt to placate whiny teachers who do have to "desk-warm" or (god forbid) actually do work in January, and complain about the fact that others don't have to do the same. But I know that I did sign a contract for 22 hours a week and if they enforce it, I really can't complain too much. It's their right. They are paying me after all. If the school boards want to enforce these items in the contracts unitlaterally, that's fine. My big complaint is that they are doing this 3 weeks before schools let out for the winter. Most people have already made their winter vacation plans and bought plane tickets. Surely the school boards can begin implenting province-wide and country-wide policies at the BEGINNING of the new school year in March, so that everyone knows what to expect for summer and winter vacation periods and new teachers who are arriving are also in the loop. It's a communication thing, but its also just showing professional courtesy to your employees.
annalisa- exactly! it all comes down to professional courtesy! i signed my current contract thinking it would hold and that i could trust my school to honor it. if we can't do that then what's the point of having the contract at all?
they should definitely just implement the changes in the next set of contracts instead of going back and changing current contracts.
@Andrew
After spending mearly two months doing battle with my school, I'm with you Andrew. I have to protect myself and my interests and let the chips fall where they may. It's hard to be attached and dedicated to a job where so little respect and regard are given.
While I agree that the timing of this announcement was very inconsiderate to the English teachers and their holiday plans, we still have a great deal in these jobs. Yes, I'll be deskwarming for an extra couple of weeks, but seeing as they are still paying me for that month and it is not my contracted 26 vacation days, I should do what they ask me to do - even if it means sitting in my office by myself. We have to remember that we signed these contracts knowing that we were only promised 26 days of winter vacation. I say "only" when really that this vacation is twice as much as what I would have were I working in the States. The Korean teachers have other contracts. They must be here in February while I'm out sunning myself in some tropical location. I shouldn't be complaining that the school makes me come in January. It is what it is, and so long as they are not breaking contract, I don't have a leg to stand on to contest this new policy.
I've been working at the same school for the last 4 years now and I've always been given the time off if I'm not teaching.
Yesterday my co-teacher called me and told me that she had just got a message from the board of education informing the school that I have to follow the contract word for word and she implied that I will have to spend January and February desk warming.
My contract states 10 days in winter and 10 days in summer, so I will be spending the rest of the winter in the office.
I told her that my contract also states that I have to give 60 days notice if I want to quit and I hope that we both understand that.
For me, this is the straw that broke the donkeys back. I could stomach the new principal refusing to sign my sponsorship papers this year because she thinks all foreign teacher are drug addicts and my co-teachers sleeping in my classroom etc as long as I got the time off in summer and winter vacation if I wasn't teaching.
As I said , I've been working at the school for 4 years now and I fail to see how this will help me to do my job better. I'm also offended at the board of education interfering with my work life in such a manner as whenever I've actually needed them to do something over the last 4 years they've been blatantly rude and useless.
man stuart, that really sucks!
i feel like it's not a "you scratch my back, i'll scratch yours" situation - it's a "you scratch my back...and i'll still screw you over" situation lol
every year i've always felt like i've gone above and beyond what is required of me at my schools and they've never once rewarded me.
i know it's part of their culture to work hard all their life and then get rewards when they're older but we're not here long enough to benefit from that set-up. they need to speed up the process for us lol
Foreign teachers are expendable, they are not considered long term investments by the board of education.
This point of view is actually written in the manual that the board of education gives to your supervising co-teacher at your school.
Because of this the board of education will refuse to invest in any kind of career development no matter how many years you work for them and it usually ends in you ultimately getting screwed over.
I know for a fact from looking at a memo from my board of education, that they want to phase out foreign English teachers by 2012 to replace as many of them as possible with Korean teachers with TEE certification.
This change in the board of education policy, whose original goal was to get a foreign teacher in every school by 2012 has most likely been influenced by the constant hit pieces on foreign teachers in the Korean media. This constant mantra going on year after year has even got so called academics forming their opinions about foreign teachers from these articles.
Best advice is to use your free time in the office to study for an MA.
I'm intending to get a job working in a private middle school, a college or a university and if I do have to desk warm I will be using it to study for my MA, so that when I do graduate I won't have to stand for this crap any more.
yes they've already hired a korean english conversation teacher at my school...funny thing is he barely speaks english! just shows how retarded the korean education system is.
glad i'm getting out of this country in a few months! the contracts are definitely going downhill...
I know about the TEE program and I also now one of the people who is working for the private organization that have been contracted to teach the TEE certification course to the Korean government teachers.
He's been put under a lot of pressure to pass everybody.
Nobody fails the certification course.
oh, they haven't mentioned if they are going to stop paying me for my extra camps yet. If that is the case, I guess they are holding onto that one when I come into work tomorrow.
Just a quick tip. If the school is refusing to pay you for winter and summer camps (like every other teacher in the school). Just bring up the point that it's technically illegal for you, as a non Korean without a Korean teaching license to teach in a Korean public school by yourself without a co-teacher and therefore you will have to nominate your favorite co-teacher to also come into the school and sit in the classroom with you for the whole summer camp.
They are going to have to pay some body and I don't think your co-teacher's not going to be that happy about having to come into the class all winter.
Last year I sat alone in my own office for 40 days. I pretty much did nothing since the computer I was given had a virus and it was really slow. Also when you have all that free time your motivation to work goes out the window. Kind of like my vacant stare. All that I had to look forward to was an awkward lunch with my secretaries and accountant. But I did appreciate them bringing in the food for me everyday.
I did use the time constructively, in that I would study Korean for most of the afternoon. But the large majority was spent on the web.
Since I was in the countryside I didn't have any long camps, they took about a day or two at most. Sure, it sucked going into work everyday. But, we are being paid to go to work and if you want to complain about being paid to do nothing then that's fine. I did too.
I'm already warming up for the winter vacation. Most of my classes have been canceled for the last week and then the 2 weeks before that because of the final exams.
Sitting around all day in an office by yourself is actually much more difficult than having to do work and is tantamount to psychological torture.
You'd be surprised how slowly that clock ticks when you're stuck there all day by yourself with no damn work.
However I'm doing most of my complaining with my feet. I'm not working here at the end of my contract.
Deskwarming in Gwangju as well:
http://roksojourn.blogspot.com/2009/12/desk-warming-arrives-in-gwangju.html
From what I've read in the comments on this thread and on other forums, this and other public school funny business is going to keep veteran teachers from coming back, thus insuring a fresh supply of 23-year-olds each year. You get what you pay for.
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