How We Got to Korea (you know, the background details)

Okay, so I've become aware that not everyone knows how we ended up in Korea. Yes smart aleck, a plane is technically the correct answer. However, I was referring to all that interesting background stuff, not just the means of transport.

Anyway... I think the first embers lit back around May or so. Melissa and I had previously talked about going to Japan to teach. It sounded cool, but I didn't think it would be a good idea. It's very expensive to live in Japan. Teachers there have to pay for their own apartment. In addition, the pay really isn't that great. Lots of people want to go to Japan so the demand for teachers is a little less.

I was surfing the job searching resources on my college's website and came across an item that mentioned teaching in Korea. I looked into it a bit and found myself quite intrigued. The wages seemed pretty good, housing was covered, air fare too, and it sounded like a lot of fun. I talked to Melissa and over the next couple months it was something we researched into in spare time and talked about here and there.

It was too early to do any kind of paperwork back then. We couldn't come until after September due to the wedding. We also wanted to wait until after Christmas. That meant we'd be starting in the spring semester. February or March. So we researched. Well, I should say Melissa researched. Melissa read up on everything relevant.

We decided to work with a recruiter. Basically a recruiter is a person who finds people to teach in schools. The schools pay the recruiter a fee and hopefully everyone is happy. A lot of recruiters are shady and will put people in any old school. A lot of the schools are um not good. In Korea, there are public and private schools (Hagwons). Public schools have a set contract that is the same everywhere. Hagwons dictate their own terms in nearly all matters. Typically Hagwons do pay more. It is possible for an uninformed person to sign on with a Hagwon under a horrible contract. If the recruiter isn't on the up and up, the person won't know until it's too late. Then they can stick it out for the year or leave.

At first, we were talking to a Hagwon. Thankfully Melissa is very well informed and we realized that they were being a bit deceitful with their contract. We also realized the recruiter we were working with was just trying to get us to take the job. So, we jumped ship to another recruiting company.

I'm a little hazy on the details because Mel handled 99.9% of the paperwork. The new recruiter introduced us to the schools we're working at now. There was a phone interview with the schools for each of us. There was lots of paperwork, but the recruiter mostly guided us through that. So a bunch of minor details later and we're here.

So, I am working for a public elementary school. It's in a rural area just outside of Osan. Melissa is working at a high school in Osan. Oh, and rural has a very different meaning here. It does not mean farming community or anything along those lines. It's more like less city. It's hard to describe exactly.

In my school, two other people speak English. One is my co-teacher English. He speaks English very well. The other is my principal. He struggles a lot, but he has a good grasp. Everyone else.... they know very very little. It varies from person to person, but mostly 'hi' and 'thank you' are about it.

In my school English is taught from the 2nd grade on. There are two types of classes. There's regular classes and after school classes. For some reason, over here school ends after lunch. Then there are after school classes. However, I believe that they're still manditory. The regular classes have a set curriculum (by the government). After school classes have curriculum set by the teachers.

I think that coveres most of the background. I'm sure Mel can fill in all the gaping holes I left. I'm sure there's tons of stuff I left out. I'm forgetful. Oh well, tell me in the comments. Comments validate my existence. :D

Aaron