Aug 25 2010
Travel Light 2: Rural vs. Urban
This is the second of my posts about ESL teaching in Korea. ( The first is here.)
What sparked my desire to write these was a friend saying they were considering teaching abroad. What follows came out of that conversation and like most advice it comes from having made mistakes. This part will focus on the application process and the second part will focus on the first six months.
A few things to state up front: I’m a straight, American, Caucasian male, in my mid-30s, posted to a rural county, and without an education or teaching background. I’m married to a Korean woman who has herself lived abroad for close to twenty years. I enjoy taking long walks, Fritz Leiber novels, and . . . er, wait, what? OK, back to my point, all of the previous colors my perspective on teaching in Korea. I don’t know how my situation would be different if I were a woman or from another English-speaking country or of non-white ancestry or if I lived in a city.
I teach at three Elementary schools, and my largest class is about 30 students. My smallest class has two students. I also live in the town where my main school is. Every teacher’s experience here is different, but I’ve tried to take into account what other teachers have told me of their experiences.
The one decision that’s likely to make the most difference is whether you decide to take a Rural or Urban post (and by saying, “It doesn’t matter, I’ll teach anywhere”, you are pretty much saying, “Yes, please, I’d like that rural post.”)
Since I have a rural post, here’s what I’ve found that to mean:
- In the EPIK program you are paid more if you decide to take a rural post over an urban one. I’m not sure how EPIK determines rural/urban, but if there’s one thing that happens pretty quick is that you learn to tell the difference between a village of 300 and a village of 5,000 despite both being labeled rural (“But, wait, how can you call your town small? You have a Paris Baguette and everything”).
- In a rural post your classes will be smaller, but this can be a drawback since you might then be called upon to teach at more than one school (the most I’ve hear of is 10, which the guy oddly didn’t mind).
- As in most countries there’s a prejudice against the countryside with those who live in rural places being considered backwards and stupid. (The standard mentality of “If they were smarter they wouldn’t live there”.) A number of my students live with their grandparents because their parents work in one of the bigger cities. You might be the first foreigner to either teach at the school or live in the town. There are two big drawbacks to this. One, which I'll touch on in the next post, is the fact that the people will have nothing but stereotypes to base your character upon and, frankly, these can be pretty racist. The second is that your fellow teachers might not know what to do with you and would rather you weren’t there because they perceive your presence as somehow disturbing the “good thing” they have going on.
- If you wind up living in the small town where you teach, you’re likely to become something of a celebrity. This’ll mean students might follow you home, people will ask where you’re going, you will see your students and their parents everyday outside of school, and the mailman will track you down to hand you your mail personally instead of leaving it at your home. Parts of this can be uncomfortable (being asked to go to church), but there are some perks. Ask yourself how much being THE FOREIGNER bothers you. (If you don’t live in the town where you teach you need to ask yourself if you mind a 45-minute bus ride each way everyday. On the plus side you might then be in a city and be able to enjoy those benefits.) Ultimately being THE FOREIGNER means paying attention to what you say and do in town at all times. If you've never lived with this, can you?
Other things to consider:
- If you want to have a social life and hang out with other foreigners, you might want to select an urban post.
- Worship. I’m an atheist, and I find the particular brand of Charismatic Christianity that’s prevalent in Korea to be unnerving. I admit this might be a personal hang-up. But if being devout in your religious practice is important to you, you might look into where there are places of worship that offer an English language service (or simply where such places of worship exist).
- If you’re a vegetarian, every meal you eat at school or with your coworkers or neighbors will require that you explain yourself. Actually, maybe not so much at school after the first few weeks, if you’re cafeteria crew winds up being anything like mine, they’d make something special for you or at least insure that there’s enough for you to eat. (I’d say the same if you wanted to keep Kosher, but you might have more options.) Koreans pride themselves on their food. Unfortunately almost all of it has meat in it. An urban post is likely to have the same problem, however if the city is big enough you may be lucky to have a vegetarian restaurant (though it might be cult affiliated) or a daily market with a great selection of produce.
- Eat the kimchi. If you’re even considering teaching in Korea next year, start eating kimchi now. Learn to like it.
- Along with the above learn Hangul, the Korean alphabet. It’s fairly easy to learn as it was designed for ease of use and it has a cool history. In the decades after Sejong the Great implemented it, most of the Confucian scholars were upset because the populace was using it to write dirty limericks and pulp novels.
- Plan for the worst. I’ll go into this more in the next installment, but seriously: Plan for the worst. The glimpse of what to expect during the training courses can be very different from what your reality turns out to be. Think of worst-case scenarios and what to do if/when you encounter them.
That's it for now. Next installment is going to focus on the first six months.
What sparked my desire to write these was a friend saying they were considering teaching abroad. What follows came out of that conversation and like most advice it comes from having made mistakes. This part will focus on the application process and the second part will focus on the first six months.
A few things to state up front: I’m a straight, American, Caucasian male, in my mid-30s, posted to a rural county, and without an education or teaching background. I’m married to a Korean woman who has herself lived abroad for close to twenty years. I enjoy taking long walks, Fritz Leiber novels, and . . . er, wait, what? OK, back to my point, all of the previous colors my perspective on teaching in Korea. I don’t know how my situation would be different if I were a woman or from another English-speaking country or of non-white ancestry or if I lived in a city.
I teach at three Elementary schools, and my largest class is about 30 students. My smallest class has two students. I also live in the town where my main school is. Every teacher’s experience here is different, but I’ve tried to take into account what other teachers have told me of their experiences.
The one decision that’s likely to make the most difference is whether you decide to take a Rural or Urban post (and by saying, “It doesn’t matter, I’ll teach anywhere”, you are pretty much saying, “Yes, please, I’d like that rural post.”)
Since I have a rural post, here’s what I’ve found that to mean:
- In the EPIK program you are paid more if you decide to take a rural post over an urban one. I’m not sure how EPIK determines rural/urban, but if there’s one thing that happens pretty quick is that you learn to tell the difference between a village of 300 and a village of 5,000 despite both being labeled rural (“But, wait, how can you call your town small? You have a Paris Baguette and everything”).
- In a rural post your classes will be smaller, but this can be a drawback since you might then be called upon to teach at more than one school (the most I’ve hear of is 10, which the guy oddly didn’t mind).
- As in most countries there’s a prejudice against the countryside with those who live in rural places being considered backwards and stupid. (The standard mentality of “If they were smarter they wouldn’t live there”.) A number of my students live with their grandparents because their parents work in one of the bigger cities. You might be the first foreigner to either teach at the school or live in the town. There are two big drawbacks to this. One, which I'll touch on in the next post, is the fact that the people will have nothing but stereotypes to base your character upon and, frankly, these can be pretty racist. The second is that your fellow teachers might not know what to do with you and would rather you weren’t there because they perceive your presence as somehow disturbing the “good thing” they have going on.
- If you wind up living in the small town where you teach, you’re likely to become something of a celebrity. This’ll mean students might follow you home, people will ask where you’re going, you will see your students and their parents everyday outside of school, and the mailman will track you down to hand you your mail personally instead of leaving it at your home. Parts of this can be uncomfortable (being asked to go to church), but there are some perks. Ask yourself how much being THE FOREIGNER bothers you. (If you don’t live in the town where you teach you need to ask yourself if you mind a 45-minute bus ride each way everyday. On the plus side you might then be in a city and be able to enjoy those benefits.) Ultimately being THE FOREIGNER means paying attention to what you say and do in town at all times. If you've never lived with this, can you?
Other things to consider:
- If you want to have a social life and hang out with other foreigners, you might want to select an urban post.
- Worship. I’m an atheist, and I find the particular brand of Charismatic Christianity that’s prevalent in Korea to be unnerving. I admit this might be a personal hang-up. But if being devout in your religious practice is important to you, you might look into where there are places of worship that offer an English language service (or simply where such places of worship exist).
- If you’re a vegetarian, every meal you eat at school or with your coworkers or neighbors will require that you explain yourself. Actually, maybe not so much at school after the first few weeks, if you’re cafeteria crew winds up being anything like mine, they’d make something special for you or at least insure that there’s enough for you to eat. (I’d say the same if you wanted to keep Kosher, but you might have more options.) Koreans pride themselves on their food. Unfortunately almost all of it has meat in it. An urban post is likely to have the same problem, however if the city is big enough you may be lucky to have a vegetarian restaurant (though it might be cult affiliated) or a daily market with a great selection of produce.
- Eat the kimchi. If you’re even considering teaching in Korea next year, start eating kimchi now. Learn to like it.
- Along with the above learn Hangul, the Korean alphabet. It’s fairly easy to learn as it was designed for ease of use and it has a cool history. In the decades after Sejong the Great implemented it, most of the Confucian scholars were upset because the populace was using it to write dirty limericks and pulp novels.
- Plan for the worst. I’ll go into this more in the next installment, but seriously: Plan for the worst. The glimpse of what to expect during the training courses can be very different from what your reality turns out to be. Think of worst-case scenarios and what to do if/when you encounter them.
That's it for now. Next installment is going to focus on the first six months.