Exploitation

It’s modern day slavery. Feel like you’re being mistreated? Too bad, all roads lead to “shut the fuck up and take it.”

As an example of this, I’ll show you some emails I received regarding my problems.

Me:

…I do 100% of the lesson
planning/teaching all of the time. The 4 co-teachers that I teach
with separately don't plan anything nor do much of anything during the
classes (other than the ever-rare translation).

My question is this... Am I forced to make all of the lesson plans,
all of the time, to fulfill every minute of every class?

Or am I, as per contract, supposed to "do lesson planning and develop
teaching materials with a Korean co-teacher."…

Mark Merzweiler – Gepik Representative

You really need to do these by yourself...not fair...but better than the hassle of involving your co-teacher...

Me:

Mark Merzweiler said this when I asked the same question, Apr 20 (a month ago):
"You really need to do these by yourself...not fair...but better than
the hassle of involving your co-teacher... "

Thinking about his answer kind of made me think that it goes against
what they were trying to teach us about co-teaching at orientation.
Isn't the co-teacher(s) supposed to help us make lesson plans and
teach? ...

Simon Stawski – Gepik Representative (www.eatyourkimchi.com)

Join the club. … Our co-teachers don't even come to class, for that matter, so we're purely on our own. The only time we don't make lessons on our own is for the open/demo classes, but those are a sham.

I think the implicit understanding of the co-working with co-workers is that they won't step on any toes. That's their contribution. Ideally, I think Gepik would like to work towards incorporating the co-teachers into the lessons and planning of lessons, but that's probably not going to happen anytime soon. …

Martina Stawski – Gepik Representative (www.eatyourkimchi.com)

…The problem is there is no training manual created to help new teachers create lessons, so we feel frustrated and confused. …

… If you really want your teacher's involved, you should make a meeting with them and give them your lesson plans and prepare them for the upcoming classes. …

* * * * * * * *

I did try to take Martina’s advice, by the way. My 4+ Korean co-teachers were dead-set against giving me any of their time. Their excuse, which is fairly common and you’ll hear a lot, “we’re very busy.” Even trying to get Korean teachers to show up on time to your class (they usually walk in 3-5 min after the bell rings) is nearly impossible. Not to mention the fact that my classroom is only a 10-15 second walk down the hall.

I find the ‘busy’ excuse extremely impossible to believe. Given that if you ask native teachers we can verify that the Korean co-teachers are seen goofing off at their desks from time to time, everything from sleeping, eating snacks, talking/joking about non-school topics with other teachers, to internet shopping and browsing. So, for them to say that they can’t spare the time to even go over the material that we created without them is a lie of epic proportions.

After expending a large amount of energy to get them to finally try to meet me to talk about my lesson, only one (of 6) co-teacher came for 5 minutes, exactly before class started, to look at my material. She did this for about one month and stopped. During this time after some pseudo-meetings/confrontations, I realized that in their minds, they think it’s not their duty whatsoever. Strangely enough, Korean teachers have a totally different understanding of what co-teaching means; it’s not logical, that’s for sure.

Keep in mind Simon and Martina Stawski have a skewed view of teaching in Korea. They were teachers in Canada before coming, they have training and certificates, they like their schools (or should I say their schools like them). They are an example of an uncommon scenario in Korea where most people that come here have no training, and are fresh off the boat. Mark Merzweiler has taught here for many years, he must either like Korea or not have any other options of work.

Their advice is common here, “shut up, do everything, take the exploitation, don’t complain.” It is the modern form of slavery.