Do Korean teachers work that hard?

[leeam88]

Obviously, this is a school by school basis, but I think they work their fair share. My mentor teacher was responsible for the English department, P.E. activities (including sports day), organizing school events, all the while teaching 5th grade.

It also seems like smaller schools get have it worse considering they have a lot of work divided by the small number of staff and teachers. Apparently, bigger schools have a better division of labor. For that reason, many of my teachers want to leave my school, which has only about 220 students.

[orangeman]

Of course the Korean teachers are generally busier than us native teachers.  I guess I misunderstood the OP.  Our jobs are pretty easy and come with very little actually accountability or responsibility.  But in general, I don't believe Korean teachers work as hard as even they think. 

Another poster brought up the fact that Koreans think they work hard, but the stats just don't support it.  It's like how Koreans believe their food is the spiciest in the world.  It's just a 'fact' that's been forced into their brains from childhood.  Whenever I ask my students how they're doing all I get is "I'm tired!"  "Soooooooo hungry!" "I studied all day!"  This complaining behaviour is ingrained in them from a young age.  In addition to my 22 classes and 8 hours (hours, not 40 min classes) of afternoon classes, I used to also teach Korean teachers in the evening (legit gig).  My lord, they would come late and complain all night about how tired and busy they were.  These were teachers from the neighbourhood, mostly young and unmarried who lived at home with mommy and daddy taking care of their every need.  I had to take 2 buses from my school to get there and it was 1.5 hours to get home afterwards, yet I was always on time and never left early.  I think in our culture it's considered rude and a bummer for people to constantly walk around complaining and acting all sad and stressed.  Here, unless you're complaining about being busy people think you're being lazy.  In that class I taught, I would say I'm feeling good and I'm glad to see them and sometimes they would tell me how easy my life must be.  No, fact is I teach 2x as many classes as you yet I still found the energy to create and teach this lesson we're doing right now.  Oh, and I have to figure out dinner and everything else on my own tonight in a foreign country.  What do they call that...?  Oh yeah, LIFE. 

Another example is the fact that at least three times in the last couple of years I've had a Korean in the service industry sternly tell me that they have to work a couple of days a week in addition to going to school, and therefore it's not their fault that they're doing their job lousy.  I remember once at Geckos, we didn't get our food for almost an hour (while the guy was sitting and smoking at the bar).  When I nicely asked him what was taking so long, he yelled at me, "You know Koreans have to work so hard!  I go to school all week and then have to work here on Saturday!  I'm so tired, you so lazy!"  Uh, I worked 30 hours/week in high school dude.  In Uni it was 3 jobs, every morning, evening and weekend.  And my university required me to, you know, actually study and produce work.  Yet, I never thought it was that unusual because I hadn't been told my whole life that Canadians work so much harder than anyone else and I should complain to everyone with ears. 

It's good to understand the cultural translation from Korean--->English too. For example;

"I studied all weekend" = "I stayed home all weekend and mostly played video games and slept"
"I have so much work to do!" = "I had one task for the week but waited till the last possible moment to do it"
"I need this right now!" = "I just thought of this, and although it's pretty much unimportant and useless, unless it's done now I'll forget about it later"
"Korean children are so busy because they go to hogwans all night" = "Korean parents must send their children to expensive babysitters called 'hogwans' so they can work enough to pay for these expensive babysitters"

I know all this sound very negative, and I really do believe Korean teachers are busier than us.  But not nearly to the level that we're lead to believe.  That's all.

[flasyb]

^^ I'd agree with that because I've seen similar things. Looking busy is what's important.

"I have to stay after school and finish this work." - I saw you basically twiddle your thumbs all day when you weren't teaching and now you're getting round to doing it. If you'd managed your time better, you could be walking out the door at 4.30pm. The problem is, you don't want to walk out of the door at 4.30pm because you want everybody to see how busy you are and how diligent and hard-working you are. Plus, being seen to be leaving before the principal is a big no-no. As with the example in the conversation with my CT, not everybody is as busy as they appear. Of course, some really are as busy as hell because they're doing the work of two or three people. Then they have my sympathy because that sucks big time.

I can't argue that I work harder than the other teachers at my school because it wouldn't be true. There seem to be definitely lulls through the semester where I'm chugging away at my usual speed and they are relaxing and other times when people are running around like madmen/madwomen.

Before I and others derailed the thread slightly into an NET vs KT discussion, the question was, "Do Korean teachers work that hard?" My answer is, "Not as hard as they want you, their other colleagues and their bosses to believe."

[Frozencat99]

It's good to understand the cultural translation from Korean--->English too. For example;

"I studied all weekend" = "I stayed home all weekend and mostly played video games and slept"
"I have so much work to do!" = "I had one task for the week but waited till the last possible moment to do it"
"I need this right now!" = "I just thought of this, and although it's pretty much unimportant and useless, unless it's done now I'll forget about it later"
"Korean children are so busy because they go to hogwans all night" = "Korean parents must send their children to expensive babysitters called 'hogwans' so they can work enough to pay for these expensive babysitters"

I agreed with you up until these generalizations. There might be some kids who consider studying for an hour a day between Starcraft and dinner a huge commitment, but there are also kids who are so worried about their futures that they get about 6 hours of sleep because they're just studying all of the time.

Though, there are moments where "I need you to clean the classroom now, some Office of Education people are coming soon" actually means "we don't know if they'll even come today but, assuming they are, you're the only one free right now".

[KLM]

Here are OECD statistics about productivity levels:

http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=LEVEL

Arrange it to see GDP per hour worked, and you will find Korea at number 28, a few spots below supposedly inefficient Greece (and way below supposedly lazy France).

[Damien]

Yes, some Korean teachers work very hard. No, some Korean teachers can't manage time very well. Koreans are notorious for their time management. Most westerners see 1-2 hours as open time, Koreans tend to say they are busy. "I am too busy, I don't have time." This can translate into, "I have an hour of time but I  do consider myself fully booked for the day." I am not saying Koreans are lazy, they just perceive time differently. Take Korean University Students, they say they are always too busy. I know for a fact they have time to themselves now and then. They just see it differently. In College, I took two hours as time to kick back and relax. Korean University students, that time is seen as virtually nothing.

[sunshinefiasco]

It's good to understand the cultural translation from Korean--->English too. For example;

"I studied all weekend" = "I stayed home all weekend and mostly played video games and slept"
"I have so much work to do!" = "I had one task for the week but waited till the last possible moment to do it"
"I need this right now!" = "I just thought of this, and although it's pretty much unimportant and useless, unless it's done now I'll forget about it later"
"Korean children are so busy because they go to hogwans all night" = "Korean parents must send their children to expensive babysitters called 'hogwans' so they can work enough to pay for these expensive babysitters"

I agreed with you up until these generalizations. There might be some kids who consider studying for an hour a day between Starcraft and dinner a huge commitment, but there are also kids who are so worried about their futures that they get about 6 hours of sleep because they're just studying all of the time.

Though, there are moments where "I need you to clean the classroom now, some Office of Education people are coming soon" actually means "we don't know if they'll even come today but, assuming they are, you're the only one free right now".

Just wanted to point out, that while there are kids who are kicking their own behinds on the books, the kids who really, really aren't (the majority of my students) still talk this way. And in truly bizzarre fashion, so do my CTs. They'll tell me about how particular students never study, how they've literally said that all they do is go home after school and watch tv. Then after a rough class with the same kids (for me or for them), they say "Ohh these days the students are very tired from studying."

[wtoddm]

Here are OECD statistics about productivity levels:

http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=LEVEL

Arrange it to see GDP per hour worked, and you will find Korea at number 28, a few spots below supposedly inefficient Greece (and way below supposedly lazy France).

I was waiting for someone to quote this study!! 
Thanks for the link...

Otherwise, "been said" in regards to this post - they are busy, but it's all about saving face and impressions. It's the highly inefficient busy-work, poor time management as well as ubiquitous complaining makes them very busy.

[Frozencat99]

Here are OECD statistics about productivity levels:

http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=LEVEL

Arrange it to see GDP per hour worked, and you will find Korea at number 28, a few spots below supposedly inefficient Greece (and way below supposedly lazy France).

This seems to be for labour productivity in general. Is there a way to limit it to education?

[JahRhythm]

Damned statistics, eh Frozen? Always with the dreaded generalizations! :(

[Frozencat99]

Damned statistics, eh Frozen? Always with the dreaded generalizations! :(

I wonder because I find people working in education work harder than the general populace. Korean productivity is obviously low with 50 restaurants and shops per town serving two-five groups an hour and watching soap operas in between customers yet stay open for 16 hours a day.

I'm not questioning the statistics, generalizations made by stats are fine... I just want to see one for education specifically, since this thread is about Korean teachers and not the Korean labour field.

[Adeptrain]

Reading through all the posts, it surprises me that there are such varied responses.  While I haven't been here too long, I think a lot of the workload comes from being a homeroom teacher or not.  Non-homeroom teachers seem to have less to deal with while the homeroom adds ALOT of extra work for my co-teacher.  For example, she is contantly mitigating arguments between her students, calling parents and dealing with complaints from other teachers about her students. 

If a student acts up in class?? Bam!! Tell the HR teacher, it's their responsibility to straighten them out.  A kid not coming to school?  The homeroom teacher has to deal with it.  A kid cuts class and does something stupid?  Yup, homeroom teacher will receive part of the blame for "allowing" the student to run free. 

I read an article a while back about a student who got hit by a car jaywalking during classtime (he was cutting).  Amazingly enough, the homeroom teacher was taken to task for not knowing where her student was during the day and for not teaching the child what is right from wrong well enough -_-  Seriously, homeroom teachers get the shaft here.

[deanitsin]

^^ I'd agree with that because I've seen similar things. Looking busy is what's important.

"I have to stay after school and finish this work." - I saw you basically twiddle your thumbs all day when you weren't teaching and now you're getting round to doing it. If you'd managed your time better, you could be walking out the door at 4.30pm. The problem is, you don't want to walk out of the door at 4.30pm because you want everybody to see how busy you are and how diligent and hard-working you are. Plus, being seen to be leaving before the principal is a big no-no. As with the example in the conversation with my CT, not everybody is as busy as they appear. Of course, some really are as busy as hell because they're doing the work of two or three people. Then they have my sympathy because that sucks big time.

I can't argue that I work harder than the other teachers at my school because it wouldn't be true. There seem to be definitely lulls through the semester where I'm chugging away at my usual speed and they are relaxing and other times when people are running around like madmen/madwomen.

Before I and others derailed the thread slightly into an NET vs KT discussion, the question was, "Do Korean teachers work that hard?" My answer is, "Not as hard as they want you, their other colleagues and their bosses to believe."

The OP:

I am new to public schools, and I constantly hear "I'm so busy." or "They are so busy."

If the NT is doing under 21 hours a week (due to classes getting cancelled), then yeah, the KTs are busier.

If the NT is doing ~30 hours a week, then are the KTs still busier than the NT?

That was actually the original question, to be fair. The 'derailment' was this branch off into a discussion of whether or not Koreans work efficiently, which is fine, but is an entirely different subject. 

[deanitsin]

Of course the Korean teachers are generally busier than us native teachers.  I guess I misunderstood the OP.  Our jobs are pretty easy and come with very little actually accountability or responsibility.  But in general, I don't believe Korean teachers work as hard as even they think. 

Another poster brought up the fact that Koreans think they work hard, but the stats just don't support it.  It's like how Koreans believe their food is the spiciest in the world.  It's just a 'fact' that's been forced into their brains from childhood.  Whenever I ask my students how they're doing all I get is "I'm tired!"  "Soooooooo hungry!" "I studied all day!"  This complaining behaviour is ingrained in them from a young age.  In addition to my 22 classes and 8 hours (hours, not 40 min classes) of afternoon classes, I used to also teach Korean teachers in the evening (legit gig).  My lord, they would come late and complain all night about how tired and busy they were.  These were teachers from the neighbourhood, mostly young and unmarried who lived at home with mommy and daddy taking care of their every need.  I had to take 2 buses from my school to get there and it was 1.5 hours to get home afterwards, yet I was always on time and never left early.  I think in our culture it's considered rude and a bummer for people to constantly walk around complaining and acting all sad and stressed.  Here, unless you're complaining about being busy people think you're being lazy.  In that class I taught, I would say I'm feeling good and I'm glad to see them and sometimes they would tell me how easy my life must be.  No, fact is I teach 2x as many classes as you yet I still found the energy to create and teach this lesson we're doing right now.  Oh, and I have to figure out dinner and everything else on my own tonight in a foreign country.  What do they call that...?  Oh yeah, LIFE. 

Another example is the fact that at least three times in the last couple of years I've had a Korean in the service industry sternly tell me that they have to work a couple of days a week in addition to going to school, and therefore it's not their fault that they're doing their job lousy.  I remember once at Geckos, we didn't get our food for almost an hour (while the guy was sitting and smoking at the bar).  When I nicely asked him what was taking so long, he yelled at me, "You know Koreans have to work so hard!  I go to school all week and then have to work here on Saturday!  I'm so tired, you so lazy!"  Uh, I worked 30 hours/week in high school dude.  In Uni it was 3 jobs, every morning, evening and weekend.  And my university required me to, you know, actually study and produce work.  Yet, I never thought it was that unusual because I hadn't been told my whole life that Canadians work so much harder than anyone else and I should complain to everyone with ears. 

It's good to understand the cultural translation from Korean--->English too. For example;

"I studied all weekend" = "I stayed home all weekend and mostly played video games and slept"
"I have so much work to do!" = "I had one task for the week but waited till the last possible moment to do it"
"I need this right now!" = "I just thought of this, and although it's pretty much unimportant and useless, unless it's done now I'll forget about it later"
"Korean children are so busy because they go to hogwans all night" = "Korean parents must send their children to expensive babysitters called 'hogwans' so they can work enough to pay for these expensive babysitters"

I know all this sound very negative, and I really do believe Korean teachers are busier than us.  But not nearly to the level that we're lead to believe.  That's all.

See, that is a whole other thing. I regularly do teaching training courses with Korean English teachers, and I really do get tired of hearing about how "easy" life is for the foreign English teachers. Yes, we have a LOT fewer responsibilities at work. But. We teach in English. We work in a foreign culture. We live in a foreign country, far from our families and support systems. We have all of the responsibilities of an adult living alone, and most foreigners I know are doing some form of evening gig as well (studying Korean, helping the multitude of people who constantly ask us for help with whatever in English, volunteer work, masters degrees -- you name it). Assuming someone's life is 'easy' because they are a foreigner is beyond irritating.

[Jrong]

Koreans are famously inefficient and unproductive at work.
Long hours, maybe.
Hard work? Not really based on my experience.

Yeah I used to be very amused when I taught adults.  The students would brag about what hard workers Koreans are.  Not only that, but they'd insist that Americans are lazy workers which really irked me.  I used that as an excuse to show them an article about work efficiency.  Seeing the US at #2 and Korea at the bottom really shut them up.  Yes, they work hard.  They just don't work very smart.

Yeah, if you call working hard "being at work". I can only speak for teachers at my school, but "working hard" consists of "acting busy" when someone important is around or saying that you're busy when you're actually not.

At first I thought all of the teachers here were hard workers. Always running around, looking like they're doing something. My CoT would always talk about how "busy" she was. Then I began to learn minimal Korean and actually used basic observation skills. My CoT would spend HOURS a day talking on the phone with friends or going to other teacher's rooms to chat.

Before that, I thought she was just doing work with other teachers. I soon realized that all she was doing was chatting it up. She'd also spend hours a day working on her MA in Tesol.

The office workers looked busy to me until I actually spent a day in the office (b/c my room was too f@#in cold and of course, the VP's office is always nice). For the first 15 minutes or so they acted really busy, but then they realized I wasn't moving, I was in there for the whole day. I saw them chatting on the phone for a long time, surfing the web. They only bolt up and act "busy" when the phone rang.

My VP takes naps and smoke breaks all day long. Seriously. I've never seen someone take so many naps, let alone at work.

I think Koreans need to look busy or give off the image of busy-ness through their words (ie. "I worked all night long!") instead of actually being busy as some of you have already said.

[KLM]

I just want to see one for education specifically, since this thread is about Korean teachers and not the Korean labour field.

Obviously one can't directly correlate GDP with hours worked only by education professionals, so such statistics aren't available. I just provided that link as an insight into Korean work culture in general. Having worked in both corporate and education environments in America, I think one could argue that a country's work culture will be in general similar in all office situations. That's my experience, anyway.

[Wretchard]

Koreans are famously inefficient and unproductive at work.
Long hours, maybe.
Hard work? Not really based on my experience.

Yeah I used to be very amused when I taught adults.  The students would brag about what hard workers Koreans are.  Not only that, but they'd insist that Americans are lazy workers which really irked me.  I used that as an excuse to show them an article about work efficiency.  Seeing the US at #2 and Korea at the bottom really shut them up.  Yes, they work hard.  They just don't work very smart.

Outside of teaching jobs, this is even more true. Koreans work long hours, but a lot of time nothing is getting done... They are just there because it looks good to be there.

I often use this analogy with my Korean friends: You can spread 10000 seeds or 100 seeds a square meter of earth, but the same amount of flowers will grow. Input does not always equal output.

[제이]

See, that is a whole other thing. I regularly do teaching training courses with Korean English teachers, and I really do get tired of hearing about how "easy" life is for the foreign English teachers. Yes, we have a LOT fewer responsibilities at work. But. We teach in English. We work in a foreign culture. We live in a foreign country, far from our families and support systems. We have all of the responsibilities of an adult living alone, and most foreigners I know are doing some form of evening gig as well (studying Korean, helping the multitude of people who constantly ask us for help with whatever in English, volunteer work, masters degrees -- you name it). Assuming someone's life is 'easy' because they are a foreigner is beyond irritating.

That's how I see it too. It may bit of a weak argument, but I still feel very often like I'm always on the job, even when not in school. Living as a foreigner takes work, and it's trying. There are a lot of things that native people can do so easily that can be very difficult for a foreigner.

[kps1]

 I work in a Korean office and do not teach. I can tell you that sometimes we take hour to hour and a half coffee breaks in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon. Also, I have been told over and over that relationships with coworkers are more important than work in our office. This gets to me sometimes because I like work, but just like when I was teaching...I find myself on waygook.
Sometimes it seems like my bosses tell me something to do without ever expecting me to do it. Also, I get really vague tasks from time to time. But occasionally I have to crack down and work for an hour or two, depending on the deadline.
That being said, I worked part time in Japan at a company when I did a study abroad in Uni. They had a similar kind of office structure, except didn't enforce the whole, "I'm older than you so respect me no matter how I treat you" thing as much. Also, we drank tons of beers after work there and here we just drink tons of soju.
I'd say Korea and Japan are very group oriented in that way, unlike the US where people work hard to get promoted, people work hard to keep group unity here instead. Its has its good points, your coworkers don't try to take credit from you or outwork you and you're not overloaded with work. The weak point would be that you really have no one pointing you in the right direction, it's mostly, well this is your job so you should do it.

[deanitsin]

I work in a Korean office and do not teach. I can tell you that sometimes we take hour to hour and a half coffee breaks in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon. Also, I have been told over and over that relationships with coworkers are more important than work in our office. This gets to me sometimes because I like work, but just like when I was teaching...I find myself on waygook.
Sometimes it seems like my bosses tell me something to do without ever expecting me to do it. Also, I get really vague tasks from time to time. But occasionally I have to crack down and work for an hour or two, depending on the deadline.
That being said, I worked part time in Japan at a company when I did a study abroad in Uni. They had a similar kind of office structure, except didn't enforce the whole, "I'm older than you so respect me no matter how I treat you" thing as much. Also, we drank tons of beers after work there and here we just drink tons of soju.
I'd say Korea and Japan are very group oriented in that way, unlike the US where people work hard to get promoted, people work hard to keep group unity here instead. Its has its good points, your coworkers don't try to take credit from you or outwork you and you're not overloaded with work. The weak point would be that you really have no one pointing you in the right direction, it's mostly, well this is your job so you should do it.

Part of this is also due to the hierarchy, though. There are a lot of jobs that naturally require more work and longer hours out of the employees who are higher up (fields that require acquired skills, vs. busy work), but it's not the done thing for the younger/newer employees to take off before the bosses finish. In these cases, the higher-ups genuinely are working hard for long hours, but the newer employees only have the skill set or authority to handle a limited amount of tasks. So, it's goof off/look busy for most of the day, because you're going to be there for the next fourteen hours, whether you have work to be doing or not.