We're two days into the five day winter camp, which, in contrast to our normal routine, we actually get to plan and execute, with two Korean teachers to back us up. And it's great! The kids are having fun, they're getting exposed to real, situational English, they're getting conversational practice, and Melanie and I are happy and engaged. And of course we're working hard, because that's what people do when they're empowered and given responsibility.
If I could make one suggestion to EPIK, the program that spends hundreds of millions of Korean tax dollars every year to put a native English speaker in every public school in the country, it would be to give up a little control, and let the foreigners teach. We're almost worthless as the system is set up now. But if the students were exposed to our teaching style, cultural conventions, and language use day in and day out from first to twelfth grade, it would make a huge difference. But they've got to let us teach. And that would mean giving up control to foreigners, and younger ones at that, which is highly unlikely to happen, given Korean Confusionism and attitudes toward foreigners. Too bad.
Showing posts with label EPIK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EPIK. Show all posts
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
EPIK Apartment Tour (Dogye)
A little while ago I made a video tour of our neighborhood and the apartment EPIK Gangwon-do provided for us in Samcheok. Today, I thought I'd post a video tour of our new EPIK apartment in Dogye.
Before we moved, we were commuting about two hours a day to our school in Dogye. We told our co-teacher, then the adminstration at our school, the Samcheok Education Office, our recruiter at ESL Job Network and finally the Supervisor of Education for Gangwon Province that we needed to be closer to our school, and finally, after almost two months of our harassment, they found an apartment for us in Dogye. The problem it seems is that EPIK tells recruiters to tell prospective teachers that they will be provided an apartment within 10 or 15 minutes of their school, while a manual that EPIK gives to the schools says to get your English Teachers an apartment within an hour of the school.
In any case, it turned out fine for all the hassle. We lost a lot of apartment space, and our apartment here is quite a bit older. Dogye is much smaller, and feels it. It also feels like the coal mining town that it is. But to leave home at 8:45 and get home at 5:15 is, as the commercials say, priceless.
Here's a look at our apartment, from behind, with town beyond it:
And here's the video (6:02):
Before we moved, we were commuting about two hours a day to our school in Dogye. We told our co-teacher, then the adminstration at our school, the Samcheok Education Office, our recruiter at ESL Job Network and finally the Supervisor of Education for Gangwon Province that we needed to be closer to our school, and finally, after almost two months of our harassment, they found an apartment for us in Dogye. The problem it seems is that EPIK tells recruiters to tell prospective teachers that they will be provided an apartment within 10 or 15 minutes of their school, while a manual that EPIK gives to the schools says to get your English Teachers an apartment within an hour of the school.
In any case, it turned out fine for all the hassle. We lost a lot of apartment space, and our apartment here is quite a bit older. Dogye is much smaller, and feels it. It also feels like the coal mining town that it is. But to leave home at 8:45 and get home at 5:15 is, as the commercials say, priceless.
Here's a look at our apartment, from behind, with town beyond it:
And here's the video (6:02):
Friday, October 24, 2008
Apartment Sutation Update
When we got to Gangwon-do, we were placed in an apartment in Samcheok, about 40km from our school in Dogye. Samcheok has a population of over 50k (whereas I would guess Dogye is between 5k - 10k) and feels much more cosmopolitan, and less poor, than Dogye. It's a nice apartment, and I'm sure the administration had our best interests in mind when they chose it, but leaving at 7:40 every morning for a 4,000won bus ride to get to school at 9 just isn't what we had in mind.
So we asked the school what they could do. They said nothing. There are no apartments in Dogye, and besides it's: cold in the winter, no locks on the doors, heating is with oil and is expensive, there's too much poverty, and no cultural activities like Homeplus (the k-mart of Korea). We insisted it was where we wanted to be and after they came back to us and said that it was impossible, we started going up the chain of command asking what could be done. When we had gotten to the Director of Education for the province, we were told, at 4:55 on a Friday afternoon, that there were two places in Dogye that we could see next week. That was last Friday.
On Monday, we were taken to see one apartment that was about half the size of the one we're currently living in, and older, but fine. But it was the apartment of a mother of a student who had no plans to move. So what was available? We asked, through Kim Sun (a 24 year old female teacher who is supposed to be our translator and advocate in dealing with the bureaucracy that is numbers 1, 2, 3 & 4 at the school, all 50+ men in suits) and were repeatedly brushed off with answers like, if you say you like it, we'll contract an apartment.
We were also taken to see a "house" for which the front door entered into the bathroom. Walking strait from the front door, you entered an 8' by 10' room with a light bulb dangling from the ceiling, continuing strait you walk into the third room, 8' by 8' with crooked floors and mold growing through the wallpaper. No kitchen to be seen. So we said no to the house.
Then yesterday, on my way out of a class I was told by four different teachers to go to the teachers' room. When I got there a group of six people were talking about us (this happens a lot, we hear our names, but aren't looked at our attempted to communicate with), and eventually we got a "let's go." So we drove (up a hill that couldn't have been less than 10% and might have been pushing 15%) to an apartment that was also small, but fine. Nicer than the one we had seen the other day, with amazing views. Dogye is high up in the Taebaek Mountain Range, and we're going to be living high up in Dogye.
The apartment is surrounded by wild mountains, has massive windows and sunflowers painted on the wall by the entrance. It's small, but it's clean and feels good. And it's heated by gas, which will avert $400/month heating costs in the winter. And there's a lock on the door. ;)
So we left the apartment feeling great and were dropped off at school, at which point two admin went with the realtor, we could only assume to sign papers. Then in my next class, with Kim Sun, I was told that we could move anytime we wanted next week, and we will have to pay the moving costs. How much? About 600,000 won (~$450). At this I became visibly upset, the first time that's happened so far. I think I probably spoke too fast and hurt Kim Sun's head, but by that afternoon we were told that it had been taken care of and we wouldn't have to pay. You can't blame them for trying. Wait, yes, you can, and I do.
So we're almost done with this drama. The next task will be explaining that we can't possibly take all this furniture to that little apartment. The huge TV that's currently in a closet here can't come with us... I hope they have somewhere to take it. I had thought of asking for a travel reimbursement for the two months we did this crazy commute, but at this point I think I'll just settle for it being done.
Today is pay day #2. Both of our paychecks had errors last month... we'll see if that's been taken care of now, or if we'll have to beat our heads against the bureaucracy for that too. Either way, the won is trading at 1,400 to the dollar, fully a third less than when we decided to come here, and it's time for me to make a transfer to dollars. Yikes.
So we asked the school what they could do. They said nothing. There are no apartments in Dogye, and besides it's: cold in the winter, no locks on the doors, heating is with oil and is expensive, there's too much poverty, and no cultural activities like Homeplus (the k-mart of Korea). We insisted it was where we wanted to be and after they came back to us and said that it was impossible, we started going up the chain of command asking what could be done. When we had gotten to the Director of Education for the province, we were told, at 4:55 on a Friday afternoon, that there were two places in Dogye that we could see next week. That was last Friday.
On Monday, we were taken to see one apartment that was about half the size of the one we're currently living in, and older, but fine. But it was the apartment of a mother of a student who had no plans to move. So what was available? We asked, through Kim Sun (a 24 year old female teacher who is supposed to be our translator and advocate in dealing with the bureaucracy that is numbers 1, 2, 3 & 4 at the school, all 50+ men in suits) and were repeatedly brushed off with answers like, if you say you like it, we'll contract an apartment.
We were also taken to see a "house" for which the front door entered into the bathroom. Walking strait from the front door, you entered an 8' by 10' room with a light bulb dangling from the ceiling, continuing strait you walk into the third room, 8' by 8' with crooked floors and mold growing through the wallpaper. No kitchen to be seen. So we said no to the house.
Then yesterday, on my way out of a class I was told by four different teachers to go to the teachers' room. When I got there a group of six people were talking about us (this happens a lot, we hear our names, but aren't looked at our attempted to communicate with), and eventually we got a "let's go." So we drove (up a hill that couldn't have been less than 10% and might have been pushing 15%) to an apartment that was also small, but fine. Nicer than the one we had seen the other day, with amazing views. Dogye is high up in the Taebaek Mountain Range, and we're going to be living high up in Dogye.
The apartment is surrounded by wild mountains, has massive windows and sunflowers painted on the wall by the entrance. It's small, but it's clean and feels good. And it's heated by gas, which will avert $400/month heating costs in the winter. And there's a lock on the door. ;)
So we left the apartment feeling great and were dropped off at school, at which point two admin went with the realtor, we could only assume to sign papers. Then in my next class, with Kim Sun, I was told that we could move anytime we wanted next week, and we will have to pay the moving costs. How much? About 600,000 won (~$450). At this I became visibly upset, the first time that's happened so far. I think I probably spoke too fast and hurt Kim Sun's head, but by that afternoon we were told that it had been taken care of and we wouldn't have to pay. You can't blame them for trying. Wait, yes, you can, and I do.
So we're almost done with this drama. The next task will be explaining that we can't possibly take all this furniture to that little apartment. The huge TV that's currently in a closet here can't come with us... I hope they have somewhere to take it. I had thought of asking for a travel reimbursement for the two months we did this crazy commute, but at this point I think I'll just settle for it being done.
Today is pay day #2. Both of our paychecks had errors last month... we'll see if that's been taken care of now, or if we'll have to beat our heads against the bureaucracy for that too. Either way, the won is trading at 1,400 to the dollar, fully a third less than when we decided to come here, and it's time for me to make a transfer to dollars. Yikes.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Video Tour - Korean Gardens, Neighborhood & Apartment
Since a picture is worth a thousand words and my camera shoots video at 30 frames per second, I thought I'd go ahead and take care of a couple months worth of blogging by shooting some video. Actually, I was walking home yesterday and thought the gardens were particularly beautiful this time of year, and thought it would be interesting to show how pretty and ubiquitous they are to everyone back home.
That got me to thinking about the power of video, and what people pondering a move to Korea, especially to Gangwon-do, and especially especially people considering coming to Gangwon-do to teach with EPIK, might want to see. So I put together three little video tours that might be of interest.
The first is a walk through of a few of the gardens in our neighborhood, in Samcheok City, Gangwon Province, South Korea.
The second is a more of the neighborhood - apartments and shops and quick tours of neighborhood kimbap place (a quick, cheap restaurant with stuff like mixed rice and vegetables, noodle soups, sushi-like rolls, etc.) and the grocery store.
And the last one is a quick glance at the apartment EPIK Gangwon-do provided for us, which, from what I've seen, is typical for a native-English-speaking couple teaching in public schools in Gangwon-do, and a look around from the roof. I hope you'll forgive me for not zooming out for the sign-off... it does provide a nice view of my kkeun kko (big nose), which by Korean standards is a major asset. ;)
That got me to thinking about the power of video, and what people pondering a move to Korea, especially to Gangwon-do, and especially especially people considering coming to Gangwon-do to teach with EPIK, might want to see. So I put together three little video tours that might be of interest.
The first is a walk through of a few of the gardens in our neighborhood, in Samcheok City, Gangwon Province, South Korea.
The second is a more of the neighborhood - apartments and shops and quick tours of neighborhood kimbap place (a quick, cheap restaurant with stuff like mixed rice and vegetables, noodle soups, sushi-like rolls, etc.) and the grocery store.
And the last one is a quick glance at the apartment EPIK Gangwon-do provided for us, which, from what I've seen, is typical for a native-English-speaking couple teaching in public schools in Gangwon-do, and a look around from the roof. I hope you'll forgive me for not zooming out for the sign-off... it does provide a nice view of my kkeun kko (big nose), which by Korean standards is a major asset. ;)
Monday, September 22, 2008
Teaching in Gangwondo (EPIK) vs. Hagwon
I noticed that this blog is coming up in the first page of results for a google search for [gangwon EPIK], so if people are interested in my experience teaching in public schools, I thought I'd run through some thoughts from my first month participating in EPIK in Gangwondo and compare that experience to the one I had in a hagwon in Busan a couple of years ago.
With regard to the actual work, teaching in a public school is easier, by a long shot. There are a number of reasons for this, but the biggest is that I'm teaching four, forty-minute classes a day now (in an elementary school... middle and high school classes are a few minutes longer). In the hagwon, I taught six, fifty minute classes a day. So that's 160 classroom minutes a day for EPIK as opposed to 300 classroom minutes a day for the hagwon. And I rarely even teach the full 160 minutes in a day here, as classes frequently let out early.
Just as important, there's always a Korean teacher in the classroom with me. I see two big positives from this, and one negative. The positives are having a Korean teacher in the room means Korean etiquette and standards for respect and behavior are still in play. My biggest complaint in the hagwon was getting no respect from and being unable to control students in the classroom. The other positive is being able to give complex instructions to low-level students. For games and more involved activities, that's huge. On the downside, I don't have the freedom to plan lessons as I like. I am, as my contract states, an Assistant Teacher. The reality of this is determined by the co-teacher one works with. But all classes follow a (less than great) textbook. Some teachers say “teach” and sit down behind the class; others run the class almost as if I weren't there and just ask me to do the repeat-after-me's and walk around the class having brief conversations with each student. In my hagwon, I was provided a great textbook called Interchange, and told to teach. My classroom activities were never interfered with, but I also got no support or advice on how to teach EFL and couldn't do much with the lower half of my classes because they couldn't understand my instructions. I spent between 10 minutes and an hour planning each day's activities in the hagwon (and could have taught better if I had committed more time to planning). For the public school, for the entire week, I spent about ten minutes planning activities to supplement the textbook's. That could change with number of different classes one teaches and the approach of the co-teacher to co-teaching, but I think the pressure to plan is probably always less in public schools. There's also just less pressure as no one is as fervent about educating children as hagwon bosses are about making money.
At my hagwon there was no community, and it was tough to find help with things like getting a cell phone. Here there are plenty of people that are willing, if not happy, to help us with the business stuff that is hard without speaking Korean, and there is plenty of community (weekly after school sports, monthly outings, opportunities for friendships). One of the bigger challenges here is that there is very little English competency. We're in a rural town in a rural province, so EPIK participants in different provinces may have different experiences in this regard, but it's hard for us to know what's going on. We are often told of meetings and appointments and trips minutes before they begin, which can be quite challenging. At my hagwon, the director spoke English nearly fluently, so at least I always knew what was expected of me, what would be happening the next day, etc.
Of course the biggest benefit to teaching in Gangwondo's EPIK program, as opposed to other provinces and private schools, is the five week vacation allowance. I got ten days at my hagwon and managed to take seven of them, and taking even that many was tough. We also get some bonus holiday-days, like Monday two weeks ago was a national holiday and we got Tuesday off, some friends got Wednesday, and one got Friday too for a six-day weekend! In a hagwon there's no way you get more than Monday. Sick days should be much easier to take in the public school (and we have 15 of them), since there won't be any substitutions needed to cover my classes; in a hagwon calling in sick means a Korean teacher that already works many hours more than you everyday, plus Saturdays, will have to cover your classes, which breeds resentment fast. Also, in addition to the five weeks paid vacation, if we renew our contract, we get an extra two weeks vacation at the end of the first year, along with an airfare paid ticket to home or anywhere closer.
The pay for Gangwon-do EPIK is decent. I'll say that pay for EPIK elsewhere is sub-par. We get our first paychecks in a couple days, and I think mine will be about 2.3M won. I'll save about 60k won on income taxes (two year exemption from income tax for everyone but Canadians, though it's only ~3.3% at foreign teachers' salaries - super-progressive tax structure in Korea). My base salary (as a level 2 EPIK teacher, since I have one year experience) is 2.0M, then I get .1M for being in a province (as opposed to one of the seven major Korean cities or Gyeonggi Province surrounding Seoul), then an additional .1M for being in a rural location (ie., not in Chuncheon, Gangneung, Wonju, Taebaek or Seorak... which means you could get that bonus and still live and teach in some places that definitely feel like small cities, like Samcheok and Donghae, for example), and an additional something, maybe .1M for teaching at multiple schools. I don't understand why I'm paid more for that, as I simply go to a different school (that's closer to my apartment than my normal school) on Tuesdays, but I won't complain. At my hagwon, I was paid 2M. That was three years ago though, I suspect that would be 2.2-ish now.
Of course, here, I know my paycheck is coming – there's no motivation for anyone to withhold it. At my hagwon I was always nervous, especially coming up on the end of my contract. The director of my hagwon was clearly money hungry (and with relaxed morals, I suspected), and I had serious doubts about whether I would receive the 4.7 million won I was owed as of my last day (2M for salary, 2M for severance, 700k for airfare). That's a lot of money (over $5,000 at the time) to be worried about losing. I was lucky -- I did always get paid, but plenty of people don't. I had to fight to get on the national health care plan, and I was always scared about not getting paid. I suspect if I hadn't shown such fortitude in standing up to my boss on other matters, he may have tried to jerk me around toward the end of my contract.
The housing has been similar for me in EPIK and in the hagwon. I think I got extremely lucky with the hagwon – they provided my girlfriend (who was working at another hagwon) and I a large three-bedroom apartment, albeit far from the subway or city centers. Here, every couple I've talked to has been given a nice three-bedroom place (probably a Gangwon-do benefit, since property values here must be considerably less than in the more populated parts of the country). However, our apartment is a 40 minute drive from our school. And without a car it's nearly an hour and a half each way (25 minute walk to the bus station, 40 minutes on the bus, 15 minute walk to school). We're fighting to get that fixed. It is an anomaly, it is something we asked about before we came and were told we wouldn't have to worry about, and both our recruiter (Jen at ESL Job Network) and assistant coordinator (a foreign teacher that acts as a liaison between the county's teachers and administration) think it should be remedied. I'll update this to let you know how that battle turns out.
The length of the workday is my biggest complaint so far about EPIK. We leave our house at 7:40 and get home around 5:45 (we've been given rides almost every day on the way home, otherwise, that would be 6:30 or 7:00), and have to be at school from 9-5. In contrast, at my hagwon, I lived a three minute walk from the school. So I left my apartment at 3:20 and got home at 10:30. A weird schedule, but it left me tons of free time, and free time during the day to get out in the sun and hike or beach, or do business with banks and other offices that work the same hours as public school teachers. All that free time was a huge plus. If we can manage to get our apartment moved from Samcheok, where we are now, to Dogye, where we're teaching, that we be only a minor plus for the hagwon; as it stands now, we got unlucky and it's a big bummer.
As for the facilities.... Regarding office space, at the hagwon I had a desk in an office with the three other teachers, and I spent very little time in there since I wasn't required to be at the school beyond my teaching hours. At the public school, my “office” is a place in the huge horseshoe ring of tables in the teacher's room, which is headed by two big desks occupied by the Vice Principal and #3. So for the many hours each day I'm not teaching, I'm basically being watched by two Korean administrators, which is extremely uncomfortable. I should add, though, that it hasn't stopped me from doing my thing in my off time, as I'm writing this on my laptop, sitting in that room now. The classroom facilities are far superior in the public school, despite Dogye being on the poor end of the country and my neighborhood in Busan on the rich end – there are internet-connected computers hooked up to big screen TV's in each classroom, along with scissors, markers, paper and just about anything else you'd want. In the hagwon, I was lucky if I had a dry erase marker that worked consistently... Again, profit motivation at the hagwons makes for lots of trouble. There's none of that in EPIK.
Finally, there's a five-day orientation at the beginning of the Gangwondo EPIK program. Consider the 300k won settlement allowance payment for this. I thought it was boring and restrictive, but mostly because I've lived and taught in Korea before. If this were my first time, I imagine it would make for a much softer landing than being thrown into an apartment and classes strait away.
All and all, there's no way I'd trade this job for the hagwon. I'm not sure I'd even trade it for a uni gig. I feel secure here, well paid, involved in a community, and the teaching itself is really very easy. If I could get two more things – an apartment in the town I teach in and a private-ish office – it would be nearly perfect.
With regard to the actual work, teaching in a public school is easier, by a long shot. There are a number of reasons for this, but the biggest is that I'm teaching four, forty-minute classes a day now (in an elementary school... middle and high school classes are a few minutes longer). In the hagwon, I taught six, fifty minute classes a day. So that's 160 classroom minutes a day for EPIK as opposed to 300 classroom minutes a day for the hagwon. And I rarely even teach the full 160 minutes in a day here, as classes frequently let out early.
Just as important, there's always a Korean teacher in the classroom with me. I see two big positives from this, and one negative. The positives are having a Korean teacher in the room means Korean etiquette and standards for respect and behavior are still in play. My biggest complaint in the hagwon was getting no respect from and being unable to control students in the classroom. The other positive is being able to give complex instructions to low-level students. For games and more involved activities, that's huge. On the downside, I don't have the freedom to plan lessons as I like. I am, as my contract states, an Assistant Teacher. The reality of this is determined by the co-teacher one works with. But all classes follow a (less than great) textbook. Some teachers say “teach” and sit down behind the class; others run the class almost as if I weren't there and just ask me to do the repeat-after-me's and walk around the class having brief conversations with each student. In my hagwon, I was provided a great textbook called Interchange, and told to teach. My classroom activities were never interfered with, but I also got no support or advice on how to teach EFL and couldn't do much with the lower half of my classes because they couldn't understand my instructions. I spent between 10 minutes and an hour planning each day's activities in the hagwon (and could have taught better if I had committed more time to planning). For the public school, for the entire week, I spent about ten minutes planning activities to supplement the textbook's. That could change with number of different classes one teaches and the approach of the co-teacher to co-teaching, but I think the pressure to plan is probably always less in public schools. There's also just less pressure as no one is as fervent about educating children as hagwon bosses are about making money.
At my hagwon there was no community, and it was tough to find help with things like getting a cell phone. Here there are plenty of people that are willing, if not happy, to help us with the business stuff that is hard without speaking Korean, and there is plenty of community (weekly after school sports, monthly outings, opportunities for friendships). One of the bigger challenges here is that there is very little English competency. We're in a rural town in a rural province, so EPIK participants in different provinces may have different experiences in this regard, but it's hard for us to know what's going on. We are often told of meetings and appointments and trips minutes before they begin, which can be quite challenging. At my hagwon, the director spoke English nearly fluently, so at least I always knew what was expected of me, what would be happening the next day, etc.
Of course the biggest benefit to teaching in Gangwondo's EPIK program, as opposed to other provinces and private schools, is the five week vacation allowance. I got ten days at my hagwon and managed to take seven of them, and taking even that many was tough. We also get some bonus holiday-days, like Monday two weeks ago was a national holiday and we got Tuesday off, some friends got Wednesday, and one got Friday too for a six-day weekend! In a hagwon there's no way you get more than Monday. Sick days should be much easier to take in the public school (and we have 15 of them), since there won't be any substitutions needed to cover my classes; in a hagwon calling in sick means a Korean teacher that already works many hours more than you everyday, plus Saturdays, will have to cover your classes, which breeds resentment fast. Also, in addition to the five weeks paid vacation, if we renew our contract, we get an extra two weeks vacation at the end of the first year, along with an airfare paid ticket to home or anywhere closer.
The pay for Gangwon-do EPIK is decent. I'll say that pay for EPIK elsewhere is sub-par. We get our first paychecks in a couple days, and I think mine will be about 2.3M won. I'll save about 60k won on income taxes (two year exemption from income tax for everyone but Canadians, though it's only ~3.3% at foreign teachers' salaries - super-progressive tax structure in Korea). My base salary (as a level 2 EPIK teacher, since I have one year experience) is 2.0M, then I get .1M for being in a province (as opposed to one of the seven major Korean cities or Gyeonggi Province surrounding Seoul), then an additional .1M for being in a rural location (ie., not in Chuncheon, Gangneung, Wonju, Taebaek or Seorak... which means you could get that bonus and still live and teach in some places that definitely feel like small cities, like Samcheok and Donghae, for example), and an additional something, maybe .1M for teaching at multiple schools. I don't understand why I'm paid more for that, as I simply go to a different school (that's closer to my apartment than my normal school) on Tuesdays, but I won't complain. At my hagwon, I was paid 2M. That was three years ago though, I suspect that would be 2.2-ish now.
Of course, here, I know my paycheck is coming – there's no motivation for anyone to withhold it. At my hagwon I was always nervous, especially coming up on the end of my contract. The director of my hagwon was clearly money hungry (and with relaxed morals, I suspected), and I had serious doubts about whether I would receive the 4.7 million won I was owed as of my last day (2M for salary, 2M for severance, 700k for airfare). That's a lot of money (over $5,000 at the time) to be worried about losing. I was lucky -- I did always get paid, but plenty of people don't. I had to fight to get on the national health care plan, and I was always scared about not getting paid. I suspect if I hadn't shown such fortitude in standing up to my boss on other matters, he may have tried to jerk me around toward the end of my contract.
The housing has been similar for me in EPIK and in the hagwon. I think I got extremely lucky with the hagwon – they provided my girlfriend (who was working at another hagwon) and I a large three-bedroom apartment, albeit far from the subway or city centers. Here, every couple I've talked to has been given a nice three-bedroom place (probably a Gangwon-do benefit, since property values here must be considerably less than in the more populated parts of the country). However, our apartment is a 40 minute drive from our school. And without a car it's nearly an hour and a half each way (25 minute walk to the bus station, 40 minutes on the bus, 15 minute walk to school). We're fighting to get that fixed. It is an anomaly, it is something we asked about before we came and were told we wouldn't have to worry about, and both our recruiter (Jen at ESL Job Network) and assistant coordinator (a foreign teacher that acts as a liaison between the county's teachers and administration) think it should be remedied. I'll update this to let you know how that battle turns out.
The length of the workday is my biggest complaint so far about EPIK. We leave our house at 7:40 and get home around 5:45 (we've been given rides almost every day on the way home, otherwise, that would be 6:30 or 7:00), and have to be at school from 9-5. In contrast, at my hagwon, I lived a three minute walk from the school. So I left my apartment at 3:20 and got home at 10:30. A weird schedule, but it left me tons of free time, and free time during the day to get out in the sun and hike or beach, or do business with banks and other offices that work the same hours as public school teachers. All that free time was a huge plus. If we can manage to get our apartment moved from Samcheok, where we are now, to Dogye, where we're teaching, that we be only a minor plus for the hagwon; as it stands now, we got unlucky and it's a big bummer.
As for the facilities.... Regarding office space, at the hagwon I had a desk in an office with the three other teachers, and I spent very little time in there since I wasn't required to be at the school beyond my teaching hours. At the public school, my “office” is a place in the huge horseshoe ring of tables in the teacher's room, which is headed by two big desks occupied by the Vice Principal and #3. So for the many hours each day I'm not teaching, I'm basically being watched by two Korean administrators, which is extremely uncomfortable. I should add, though, that it hasn't stopped me from doing my thing in my off time, as I'm writing this on my laptop, sitting in that room now. The classroom facilities are far superior in the public school, despite Dogye being on the poor end of the country and my neighborhood in Busan on the rich end – there are internet-connected computers hooked up to big screen TV's in each classroom, along with scissors, markers, paper and just about anything else you'd want. In the hagwon, I was lucky if I had a dry erase marker that worked consistently... Again, profit motivation at the hagwons makes for lots of trouble. There's none of that in EPIK.
Finally, there's a five-day orientation at the beginning of the Gangwondo EPIK program. Consider the 300k won settlement allowance payment for this. I thought it was boring and restrictive, but mostly because I've lived and taught in Korea before. If this were my first time, I imagine it would make for a much softer landing than being thrown into an apartment and classes strait away.
All and all, there's no way I'd trade this job for the hagwon. I'm not sure I'd even trade it for a uni gig. I feel secure here, well paid, involved in a community, and the teaching itself is really very easy. If I could get two more things – an apartment in the town I teach in and a private-ish office – it would be nearly perfect.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
More Meetings, More (Meaty) Meals
Last night we had a "meeting" at the Samcheok County Office of Education. We went with a teacher and two administrators from our school, and when we got there discovered banners reading "EPIK Conference 2008 - September 17, 2008 (Wed) 16:00". I've never before been to a conference that was identified by its time!
After being brought on stage and given roses (our second presentation of flowers from government), we sat in a big hall for ninety minutes with all the other foreign teachers in the county (and multiple handlers for each) while our contracts were read in Korean. I suppose it's good that the administration was forced to get familiar with the contracts, but wow was that a long ninety minutes.
I suppose as a reward for sitting quietly, we were then all (100+ people) taken to a restaurant for bulgogi - the famous Korean beef dish. Melanie and I are vegetarian, or almost so, and this was the second time we've sat at a table with the administrators while they eat meat and we eat rice. It feels like they're starting to resent us for it, but I suppose it's more likely just alienation. After dinner I was thinking about my pre-vegetarian days and the few occasions when I ate with vegetarians. I remember not making any effort to understand where they were coming from. I remember feeling like they were "soft". And I definitely remember feeling like they were different - out-group, if you will. And so it is here, by refusing the school lunches and the group dinners, we've alienated ourselves and excluded ourselves from the group, to whatever additional extent is possible from the starting point of being, literally, an alien.
On the upside, a Korean teacher overheard our boss talking, in Korean, about us not eating meat, and recommended to us a vegetarian restaurant here in Samcheok. It's called Cheongralae, and they serve Ssambap - rice and vegetables and fish wrapped in lettuce. I guess it's a locally famous restaurant. He even left the dinner table to get us business cards for the place. Seven days till payday, and then we'll definitely check it out.
Coming soon: book reviews. I've been meaning to review (and compare and contrast) Jarod Diamond's Collapse, Derrick Jensen'sThe Culture of Make Believe and Kalle Lasn's Culture Jam - three books about what's wrong with our society and what we need to heal - for some time now. And I've just finished Jonathan Safran Foer's excellent novel Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, which definitely deserves a review. I had a dream last night that I was recommending books to my Aunt Ann - Derrick Jensen and Arundhati Roy. Perhaps I'm looking to push a certain perspective. See yesterday's post for a fleshing out of one aspect of what that perspective is.
After being brought on stage and given roses (our second presentation of flowers from government), we sat in a big hall for ninety minutes with all the other foreign teachers in the county (and multiple handlers for each) while our contracts were read in Korean. I suppose it's good that the administration was forced to get familiar with the contracts, but wow was that a long ninety minutes.
I suppose as a reward for sitting quietly, we were then all (100+ people) taken to a restaurant for bulgogi - the famous Korean beef dish. Melanie and I are vegetarian, or almost so, and this was the second time we've sat at a table with the administrators while they eat meat and we eat rice. It feels like they're starting to resent us for it, but I suppose it's more likely just alienation. After dinner I was thinking about my pre-vegetarian days and the few occasions when I ate with vegetarians. I remember not making any effort to understand where they were coming from. I remember feeling like they were "soft". And I definitely remember feeling like they were different - out-group, if you will. And so it is here, by refusing the school lunches and the group dinners, we've alienated ourselves and excluded ourselves from the group, to whatever additional extent is possible from the starting point of being, literally, an alien.
On the upside, a Korean teacher overheard our boss talking, in Korean, about us not eating meat, and recommended to us a vegetarian restaurant here in Samcheok. It's called Cheongralae, and they serve Ssambap - rice and vegetables and fish wrapped in lettuce. I guess it's a locally famous restaurant. He even left the dinner table to get us business cards for the place. Seven days till payday, and then we'll definitely check it out.
Coming soon: book reviews. I've been meaning to review (and compare and contrast) Jarod Diamond's Collapse, Derrick Jensen'sThe Culture of Make Believe and Kalle Lasn's Culture Jam - three books about what's wrong with our society and what we need to heal - for some time now. And I've just finished Jonathan Safran Foer's excellent novel Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, which definitely deserves a review. I had a dream last night that I was recommending books to my Aunt Ann - Derrick Jensen and Arundhati Roy. Perhaps I'm looking to push a certain perspective. See yesterday's post for a fleshing out of one aspect of what that perspective is.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Naksan Temple
During our orientation in Yang Yang, Gangwon-do a couple of weeks ago, we had the chance to visit Naksansa (sa = temple). Much of the temple burned several years ago, but the hillsides are reforesting nicely, and we saw restoration of what looked like the last building or two to be repaired while we were there. It's a beautiful temple on a hill over the ocean, and it has what may be the largest statue of Gwaneum (Guan Yin, the Goddess of Compassion) in East Asia.
Temples are typically built on hills here, so they collect the spring water into beautiful sinks from which the visitors can drink.
The coast of Gangwondo at Naksan, Korea.
Late blooming wildflowers (this was the last days of August).
An algae covered pond and temple structure. Notice the hollowed log behind the small statue, flowing spring water into the pond.
Kyle got into the spring water drinking, following the little girl's lead.
After much ascending we came to the giant Guan Yin statue.
It must have been 50 feet tall, and appeared to be in the sky, somehow seperate from us on the ground.
On our way out: myself, Melanie, Kim and Kyle.
Temples are typically built on hills here, so they collect the spring water into beautiful sinks from which the visitors can drink.
The coast of Gangwondo at Naksan, Korea.
Late blooming wildflowers (this was the last days of August).
An algae covered pond and temple structure. Notice the hollowed log behind the small statue, flowing spring water into the pond.
Kyle got into the spring water drinking, following the little girl's lead.
After much ascending we came to the giant Guan Yin statue.
It must have been 50 feet tall, and appeared to be in the sky, somehow seperate from us on the ground.
On our way out: myself, Melanie, Kim and Kyle.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Settling into Gangwon-do
We're settling into our home and work in Korea nicely. We have a fine 3-bedroom apartment in Samcheok, and a great elementary school in Dogye with fantastic children. Our struggle is what's between the two -- 40 kilometers of mountain road. We're commuting about 2.5 hours a day right now, at a personal expense of ~US$7 a day. We walk about 25 minutes to the bus station, take a 45 minute bus ride, then walk about ten minutes to school. That's not what we had in mind when we applied to the EPIK program, which places native English speakers in public schools in Korea. We applied specifically to work in Gangwon-do, the rural-most province in Korea, because we thought it would be quiet and quaint and we'd settle into some mountain village and learn the language and get to know the locals. Our recruiter, ESL Job Network, assured us our commute would be 20 minutes or less. And yet here we are, each paying ~US$150 a month to commute 2.5 hours a day. That adds up fast -- 12.5 hours a week, over 60 in a month. That's a full work week and a half every month we're giving up commuting.
So yesterday we went to the administration at our school, via our translator, who speaks very broken English, to let them know how we're feeling and see if there was a possibility of finding an apartment near the school. Today we had a meeting with the Principal, Vice Principal and #4 (it's so hierarchical!), in which they basically said suck it up. Actually, it would've felt better if they had just said we couldn't find anything. Instead we were told that the Principal used to take the bus (he started at the school in 1971, basically before Korea had personal cars), that many of the teachers at the school make a similar or longer commute (as a part of the culture, they have more motivation to live in a city and hence make the commute, and they also each made that choice freely, whereas we were simply thrown into an apartment in a town 40km away), that Dogye has hard winters and there aren't locks on the doors, and can we please do the Principal a favor and endure our struggle. Oh, and that it would become familiar, that we'd become experienced at the commute. Each of those sentences came through in stuttered, butchered English, and after a 3-5 minute discussion between the three administrators. Then our translator asked us, "so how will you get to school?" We stared at her for what felt like an awful long time before saying, "well, we don't have any options." Then it was volleyball time. I guess the entire staff plays volleyball each week. Last week it was fun; today we hadn't been told to bring our "sports clothes" and weren't much in the mood, so we sat on the side of the gym and moped.
This evening, we talked with our recruiter - Jen at ESL Job Network - and she assured us that we were right to feel wronged; that we really had been assured we wouldn't have a commute like this before we signed our contracts; that we were going through the proper channels in the proper order (we have a meeting with the assistant coordinator for Samcheok County in 10 minutes); and made us feel like the situation could and would be remedied.
I must say, I feel empowered to be blogging about this. There's not a whole lot of English about teaching in Gangwon-do on the internet, and I imagine by the time the next hiring season rolls around, this blog should rank fairly high for a search for, for example, "Gangwon EPIK" or the name of our recruiter - ESL Job Network. Gangwon-do has traditionally had trouble filling its need for foreign teachers, so they've started upping vacation time and providing other incentives and positioning the province and the administration as foreigner friendly. They certainly have an interest in keeping me and my loud mouth happy.
So yesterday we went to the administration at our school, via our translator, who speaks very broken English, to let them know how we're feeling and see if there was a possibility of finding an apartment near the school. Today we had a meeting with the Principal, Vice Principal and #4 (it's so hierarchical!), in which they basically said suck it up. Actually, it would've felt better if they had just said we couldn't find anything. Instead we were told that the Principal used to take the bus (he started at the school in 1971, basically before Korea had personal cars), that many of the teachers at the school make a similar or longer commute (as a part of the culture, they have more motivation to live in a city and hence make the commute, and they also each made that choice freely, whereas we were simply thrown into an apartment in a town 40km away), that Dogye has hard winters and there aren't locks on the doors, and can we please do the Principal a favor and endure our struggle. Oh, and that it would become familiar, that we'd become experienced at the commute. Each of those sentences came through in stuttered, butchered English, and after a 3-5 minute discussion between the three administrators. Then our translator asked us, "so how will you get to school?" We stared at her for what felt like an awful long time before saying, "well, we don't have any options." Then it was volleyball time. I guess the entire staff plays volleyball each week. Last week it was fun; today we hadn't been told to bring our "sports clothes" and weren't much in the mood, so we sat on the side of the gym and moped.
This evening, we talked with our recruiter - Jen at ESL Job Network - and she assured us that we were right to feel wronged; that we really had been assured we wouldn't have a commute like this before we signed our contracts; that we were going through the proper channels in the proper order (we have a meeting with the assistant coordinator for Samcheok County in 10 minutes); and made us feel like the situation could and would be remedied.
I must say, I feel empowered to be blogging about this. There's not a whole lot of English about teaching in Gangwon-do on the internet, and I imagine by the time the next hiring season rolls around, this blog should rank fairly high for a search for, for example, "Gangwon EPIK" or the name of our recruiter - ESL Job Network. Gangwon-do has traditionally had trouble filling its need for foreign teachers, so they've started upping vacation time and providing other incentives and positioning the province and the administration as foreigner friendly. They certainly have an interest in keeping me and my loud mouth happy.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Trip to Seoraksan
Seoraksan is the third highest mountain in South Korea, and the highest in the Taebaek Range, in which we find ourselves living. On the fourth day of our orientation to the Gangwon-do EPIK program, we were bussed up to Seorak National Park and let loose. Having been couped up in a hotel for five days, we were pretty excited to get out and do some hiking. So we took off from the group, hoping to get some exercise and a nice view, and were immediately impressed with the mountain.
We went in a ways and found this quite helpful, if slightly cartoonish, map of the park. It's amazing how they can turn just about anything into a cartoon here!
Just a bit further up the path, we came across a gigantic statue of Buddha. I'd estimate it at 40-50 feet high! I love this photograph. If ever one of my photos has captured the contrast of modern and traditional Korea, this must be it.
After that we started hustling, as we had about two hours and really wanted to make it up to a cave called Geumgangul and had heard it's a tough hike up there. It was indeed a tough hike up. This next picture is from a platform just below the cave. You can see how tough a hike it was by how proud I look to be there. In the interest of full disclosure, the man who took this picture was wearing loafers. I don't know how Koreans do it.
Here's a look at the hike that remained from there. Thankfully, in Korea, there tend to be stairs leading to just about anywhere you might want to go.
I had left Melanie a bit down the mountain because we thought we wouldn't have time to make it up together. But lo and behold, just as I was leaving the cave, up the stairs she came! Here's a look from within the very modest cave. It contained three small statues of Buddha, a woman selling Buddhist wares (and coffee, of course), and lots of these hanging lanterns, the significance I'm unsure of.
We made it back to the bus in just over two and a half hours. It was a great hike for such a short time... plenty of culture, beautiful scenery and athletic challenge.
We went in a ways and found this quite helpful, if slightly cartoonish, map of the park. It's amazing how they can turn just about anything into a cartoon here!
Just a bit further up the path, we came across a gigantic statue of Buddha. I'd estimate it at 40-50 feet high! I love this photograph. If ever one of my photos has captured the contrast of modern and traditional Korea, this must be it.
After that we started hustling, as we had about two hours and really wanted to make it up to a cave called Geumgangul and had heard it's a tough hike up there. It was indeed a tough hike up. This next picture is from a platform just below the cave. You can see how tough a hike it was by how proud I look to be there. In the interest of full disclosure, the man who took this picture was wearing loafers. I don't know how Koreans do it.
Here's a look at the hike that remained from there. Thankfully, in Korea, there tend to be stairs leading to just about anywhere you might want to go.
I had left Melanie a bit down the mountain because we thought we wouldn't have time to make it up together. But lo and behold, just as I was leaving the cave, up the stairs she came! Here's a look from within the very modest cave. It contained three small statues of Buddha, a woman selling Buddhist wares (and coffee, of course), and lots of these hanging lanterns, the significance I'm unsure of.
We made it back to the bus in just over two and a half hours. It was a great hike for such a short time... plenty of culture, beautiful scenery and athletic challenge.
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