refrain from contacting the new / potential teachers

Taken from Reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/teachinginkorea/comments/10v0iis/cooperation_request_for_spring_2023_intake/?sort=new

Email from the DMOE: Hi All-

We hope this email finds you well.

We are writing with a request to the current teachers, whether they are renewing or not this Spring 2023 semester, to refrain from contacting the new / potential teachers who are to start as the new intake in February, 2023. The official document was sent this morning to all 69 schools that will have a new NET starting on February 26, 2023. The Excel list has the names and personal information of the new teachers.

As you would remember from when you first started, EPIK policy requires all POEs to refrain from sharing school placement information until the new intake teachers arrive in Korea, attend the orientation, and meet the POE representatives at the contract signing meeting. Our office would like to respect and follow that policy.

In the past, however, we have had Daegu KETs and NETs contacting the new / potential teachers over Facebook, Instagram, etc. to share the school placement information. We are sure most have done so with a good heart, to start a conversation or relationship ahead of time, and to share some information about the school, school's English programs, housing, or other details.

A significant number of cases, however, ended unfortunately, with the new / potential teachers dropping their application altogether and not coming to Korea after they have spoken to the KET or the NET from the school. There could be a number of reasons why they dropped. Some of these reasons that we came to know were regarding matters they have already agreed to in the application stating that they should be willing to work at any school level, at any number of schools, and at any location within the city, etc. Our office makes plans to make sure all of our schools (elementary and middle) have a native English teacher available and it is quite disappointing when we find out that an applicant has to drop their application. There also were issues and complaints that some new teachers got to find out their school placement before or during the orientation while the majority did not.

There were a few serious cases where a current NET posted the whole Excel list on an open Facebook group, and a different NET shared the file on an Open Kakao chatroom. The placement list includes the personal information of all new / potential teachers and such actions can have unfavorable consequences.

In the official document, we specifically requested the schools to refrain from contacting the new / potential teacher before the start of the contract. We ask the NETs to do the same with this email. We refer to the new intake teachers as "new / potential" teachers as they are not even employed until the contract actually commences either.

In summary, please refrain from contacting or sharing school placement information with anyone even if you get access to the placement official document for the February 2023 new teachers. We ask for and appreciate your cooperation in this matter.

Kind regards, DMOE Coordinators

Are they admitting there are shitty placements they'd rather people didn't discover until they arrive? Or simply respecting the EPIK process?
I wasn't contacted by the person I took over from but I'm sure the teachers who reach out are providing useful information for new teachers. Was it necessary to send this email?

Precisely.

They want you (noobie) to be fully invested in the journey (well, I've just finished 3 weeks in the country doing orientation, might as well stick with it) before revealing you'll be teaching at 4 rural schools in bumfcuk Jeolla-do that happen to be 30km+ from each other in 4 different directions...oh and you might need to get your own car if you don't want to spend 3+hrs on buses every day...all on your underpaid salary.

They have to somehow fill these undesirable positions!

Precisely.

They want you (noobie) to be fully invested in the journey (well, I've just finished 3 weeks in the country doing orientation, might as well stick with it) before revealing you'll be teaching at 4 rural schools in bumfcuk Jeolla-do that happen to be 30km+ from each other in 4 different directions...oh and you might need to get your own car if you don't want to spend 3+hrs on buses every day...all on your underpaid salary.

They have to somehow fill these undesirable positions!

Within the budget allotted, what policy would you suggest? I have a few ideas, but it is tough.

I think maybe they should list some rural sites first and hope that people looking for that rural experience sign up first for them. Of course, with the rural bonus listed. Ideally, this would allow everyone to match with their experience. Or maybe you could try a rotation system, but a lot of people might complain. There may he some non-payment payment ways such as visa points or permission to work independently or remotely for supplemental pay (such as a Korean government adult English program) if you take rural positions.

However, this works only if that closely matches with what teachers seek. Absent that, you kind of have to do what they do, which is you sign-up and then find out where you're getting deployed.

And there is a fine line between openness and NDA. Ideally, those signing up would know who they might teach and agree to that and not back down, and disclosure of basic information (school size, location, housing, weather, etc. ) shouldn't be an issue because such things shouldn't affect one's decision to work there or not as they already agreed to it.

However, this stuff shouldn't be available to some teachers and not others with people privately sharing it, nor should people be disclosing others' private information in Kakao.

It's tough. You have to get the job done with unequal postings and a limited budget while being fair to new teachers and not infringing on people's right to discuss things. Perhaps you could pre-vet people's willingness, but I imagine that would just lead to some of Korea's most disadvantaged areas struggling to fill positions.

Taken from Reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/teachinginkorea/comments/10v0iis/cooperation_request_for_spring_2023_intake/?sort=new


Are they admitting there are shitty placements they'd rather people didn't discover until they arrive? Or simply respecting the EPIK process?
I wasn't contacted by the person I took over from but I'm sure the teachers who reach out are providing useful information for new teachers. Was it necessary to send this email?

I would totally share this info with everyone I could if I came
across it. I would consider it my duty. I would be absolutely
assured of sharing it if I knew anybody on the list personally.
Not doing so would be like stabbing them in the back.

Imagine thinking you are coming to Seoul, where you can
party and have a good time, and then realising you are being
deported down to someplace like South Jeolla-Do with
absolutely nothing except dog-eating farmers, cigarettes and
soju.

Ahhhhhhh!

Epik is just trying to hide the fact that new teachers will be places in multiple schools with vast travel distances between each.  Likely in a very rural location. If their sign up listed the likely hood that their travel would include 3 hours worth of busses each day, no one would sign up. 

What they should do, is list the salary for this rural locations at a massively larger scale than others.  Do you want to take a rural school at 2.6 mil.  or work in a city at 2.1?  Ideally, candidates would know where they would be teaching before spending loads of their own money to come over to a country. Epik is rawdogging these new recruits with the hope of living a big city life on the beach in Busan....  whereas its much more likely that they'll be place out in the bush in yecheon, working at 5 different schools, and buying rotten groceries from a corner market.  The rural life here sucks. 

Outgoing teachers should try to contact their replacements and give them an accurate representation of what to expect.   Would you rather go in blind and be upset that you just paid $1500 dollars to fly to a country so you can live next to a dog farm? Or just have someone tell you the real situation before any of that costs you an arm and a leg...  and a year of your life.

Epik is trash for asking this. Outgoing teachers, please contact your replacement if you can.  Good news or bad news.  We were all fresh here at one point. And i think we'd all have appreciated a little heads up about what to expect for the next year of our lives.

I would totally share this info with everyone I could if I came
across it. I would consider it my duty. I would be absolutely
assured of sharing it if I knew anybody on the list personally.
Not doing so would be like stabbing them in the back.

Imagine thinking you are coming to Seoul, where you can
party and have a good time, and then realising you are being
deported down to someplace like South Jeolla-Do with
absolutely nothing except dog-eating farmers, cigarettes and
soju.

Ahhhhhhh!

It has been a while since I went through the application process. But I remember knowing which province I was going to almost 2 months prior to the contract start date. The exact details of what school/level within that province remained unknown until the final days of the EPIK orientation. Maybe that has changed. But I was under the impression new NETs knew the POE/MOE they would be a part of prior to booking tickets to Korea.

Outgoing teachers should try to contact their replacements and give them an accurate representation of what to expect.

I agree with this for the most part. I think most teachers would give a fair portrayal of what life is like in their area and at their school. But there's also a small chance you get a message from a guy like hangook77.

I agree with this for the most part. I think most teachers would give a fair portrayal of what life is like in their area and at their school. But there's also a small chance you get a message from a guy like hangook77.

Or me. Or Van. Or SPQR.

hangook77: You'll do great. Just get yourself a used Grandeur and with my apartment, the ladies at the bank will be swooning over you in no time.
Me: Congratulations on your great patriotic service to Korean motherland. Enjoy your luxurious apartment that the workers of Korea have strived to provide you. I trust you to express great admiration for Korean English Wellness Glorification and Prosperity Charter.
Van: In apartments? Rural life abounds. Opportunity accelerates with granite.
SPQR: You're not in Seoul. Life will suck. The only way it could be good is if you're in Seoul getting drunk and chasing way hawt and skinny K-girls at Thursday Party/Seoul Pub.

I mean given all that, can you really blame them for telling NETs to just be quiet and let them make up their own minds without us poisoning the well?

Also, I think it's rich that the people who complain the most about Korean society's problems and inequality and wealth distribution and superficiality, when given the opportunity to teach Korea's most disadvantaged children- rural kids, many of whom are multiethnic, their reaction is "F*ck that, I want to party in Seoul." But hey, go on b*tching about society and how no one tries to make it better.....

I agree with this for the most part. I think most teachers would give a fair portrayal of what life is like in their area and at their school. But there's also a small chance you get a message from a guy like hangook77.

Without personally attacking other users on the site I agree with you.

Imagine trying to make this fly in a western country? If a job is so
bad that you have to keep the details secret lest applicants bail.

EPIK Magic 8 Ball

“Will I get a good location?”

“Don’t count on it”

It has been a while since I went through the application process. But I remember knowing which province I was going to almost 2 months prior to the contract start date. The exact details of what school/level within that province remained unknown until the final days of the EPIK orientation. Maybe that has changed. But I was under the impression new NETs knew the POE/MOE they would be a part of prior to booking tickets to Korea.

I think when i came in 2010 we knew the province before hand as well  but didnt find out about city until the final day when we were being put on a bus.  Which was unfortunate because we could have spent time making friends with people who would have been placed in the same city.  On the last day we were told ..."oooo yikes,  Pohang.  thats a really industrial city"   and it made us very nervous.  When I arrived, i was a 5 minute walk from the beach in a city that would be among the top 10 largest cities in canada...  so, I was very happy. Sure, theres a big ol glowing steel mill across the bay...  but i didnt live in the steel mill, or anywhere near it.  And since posco is such a massive company, they put so much money back into the city. Were constantly getting new infrastructure improvements, bike lanes, walking paths, dog parks, green areas, disk golf courses. I fared well better off than some who were placed inland in rice paddy villages. But i sure would have liked to know before getting on a plane. I would have brought more swim and surf gear.

Without personally attacking other users on the site I agree with you.

Imagine trying to make this fly in a western country? If a job is so
bad that you have to keep the details secret lest applicants bail.

I think it's hilarious that SPQR thinks this doesn't happen in the west. Like you do know that there are these things called NDAs, right? And there are procedures over what employees are and are not allowed to disclose about company procedure. You know that right? The fantasies some of people on this board have about how things are back home are pretty ridiculous. Like it's clearly a case of selective memory or in other cases a complete lack of experience.

That's before we get to the fact that every job has crappy aspects and no the company isn't going to announce those to prospective employees. Do you think Apple is advertising how hypercompetitive and cutthroat their work environment is? Do you think Waffle House is advertising how you might have to deal with brawls among your customers? Do you think the Post Office is advertising how the route schedule and who gets the mail worm and all that is a bunch of politics and kiss-ass? Do you think law firms or brokerages are all about how you'll be up till 2AM then back to work at 5AM to deal with whatever?

Also, give the way SPQR talks about minorities and women, he'd be in for a real treat if he ever tried to work in some sort of professional environment back home. Given his constant jonesing for drugs, I doubt he could keep things up before he either came into work effed up one too many times or let slip something that would get him canceled and fired.

Or me. Or Van. Or SPQR.

Most incoming NETs must do a little research. And general information about Korea can be found aplenty online. Facebook. Reddit. Even here. Nobody would need hangook sliding into their DMs with paragraph upon paragraph about how they should be going to China instead. Exchanging a few messages with the current NET can give them a sense of what the day to day is like. And the POEs/MOEs aren't sending these lists directly to NETs. The Korean teachers are receiving them with the same instructions about contacting teachers. It's unlikely the Korean teacher is going to ask the current teacher to do anything if the current teacher clearly has a few screws loose.

On the last day we were told ..."oooo yikes,  Pohang.  thats a really industrial city"   and it made us very nervous.

Pohang is amazing. It's a great place for hanging out at the beach and chilling with friends. It even has a pretty hoppin' night life. It's not Seoul or Busan by any means, but it's a fantastic placement for weekday life.

   As for contacting new/potential teachers, I feel that it would kinda be my duty to tell my potential replacement as much as possible about life at my school/town/social environment as possible, as early as possible. When I had to leave my job in rural Japan, I was able to talk to my replacement a week or so before they arrived, and left a 3 ring binder full of notes etc for the new teacher (this was back in '06 or '07 before smart phones, easy access to the 'net, online social networks, etc made life soooo much easier). EPIK telling us not to do this definitely smacks of them wanting to ambush nOobs with scottjish positions. I lucked out with my original placement here in Korea, but I imagine that rural as it was, it might've been pure hell for somebody looking for the k-pop experience. I mean,  if for no other reason, NETs who hate everything about their Korea experience don't make for good teachers.

    On the other hand, not wanting to spread around lists of incoming NETs with their schools, locations, and contact information sounds like a very reasonable thing.
Of course, that just begs the question of why they collate and distribute long lists of NETs like this in the first place.
Every year, I get emailed this list showing my POE's teacher placements, and I always wonder what kind of damage some random weirdo might do with all that neatly presented information.   

Most incoming NETs must do a little research.

90% of the things people b*tch about on this site would have been understood with a little research. Even back in the days of Netscape. I mean some of the people on this site apparently struggle to understand things that a basic google search would reveal or follow simple instructions.

From my experience a fair number of people think the discovery is part of the adventure and sort of want to go in blind. Sometimes this is good and sometimes it leads to problems.

Anyways, I've noticed that by far the people who have the most problems with Korea 1) Have unrealistic expectations of other cultures/countries. In fact their very view of other countries/people is little more than "You exist to fulfill my desires for whatever" You see this in people who think that ESL is the biggest thing on Korean's minds or that Koreans are obsessed with portraying foreigners negatively or that Korea will be "exposed" back home or that Korea's exchange rate should be oriented around what's best for NETs sending money home. 2) Didn't do any kind of research. Yes, Koreans eat a lot of seafood. A lot of it will be in pepper paste sauce. Yes, there will be certain kinds of formal etiquette you have to observe. Yes, traffic accidents and suicide are bigger worries than say, muggings and shootings here. No, the people aren't going to be obsessed with cricket. Yes, the people will eat different food and you won't be able to find everything you found back home in the grocery store. 3) Have a view of the world that there is "one right way to do things" (ironically a view shared by many Koreans). If something is different, it isn't just different, it is wrong.

Thankfully, much like the much-maligned older Korean generation, this kind of attitude and thinking appears to be far less prevalent amongst younger NETs. Dinosaurs are going to dinosaur.

All that being said, there are lots of teachers who have done a TON of research or already have connections and hit the ground running. They tend to have far better outcomes thanks to that experience and network.

Every year, I get emailed this list showing my POE's teacher placements, and I always wonder what kind of damage some random weirdo might do with all that neatly presented information. 

- Encourage them to teach in China
- Share rambling stories about rural life
- Ask them to like, share and subscribe to their alcohol-themed Youtube channel. Also, now you can support them on Patreon. But first, a word from today's sponsor.
- Share their skincare routine
- A list of "life hacks"
- "Your school is great. Also, check out this vid of some rock band from the 1970s, greatest thing ever. Better than whatever you listen to"
-  Something something crypto
...

90% of the things people b*tch about on this site would have been understood with a little research. Even back in the days of Netscape. I mean some of the people on this site apparently struggle to understand things that a basic google search would reveal or follow simple instructions.

I can only speak for myself but I think most people would be similar. I would offer to answer (or try to answer) any specific questions my replacement might have. But I certainly wouldn't use it as the time or place to rant against my grievances with Korea as a whole. Maybe I just (naively?) have more faith in people than you, Marty 

    On the other hand, not wanting to spread around lists of incoming NETs with their schools, locations, and contact information sounds like a very reasonable thing.
Of course, that just begs the question of why they collate and distribute long lists of NETs like this in the first place.
Every year, I get emailed this list showing my POE's teacher placements, and I always wonder what kind of damage some random weirdo might do with all that neatly presented information. 

Never received a hand written letter from a strange religious organization addressed to you but sent to the school's address? I'd guess those lists come in handy for purposes like that.    I have full faith in the POEs of Korea to keep our private information safe and secure 

- Encourage.
- Share.
- Ask.
- Care.
- List.
- Quote.
-  Advise.
...

Or stalk you for a few weeks, then murder you and bury your body in a bathtub up in your apartment like what happened not to far from where I was working . 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/mar/28/japan.justinmccurry1

I can only speak for myself but I think most people would be similar. I would offer to answer (or try to answer) any specific questions my replacement might have. But I certainly wouldn't use it as the time or place to rant against my grievances with Korea as a whole. Maybe I just (naively?) have more faith in people than you, Marty 

Yeah, I mean ideally EPIK would already have such information on a database that the new employee could simply look up.

Like the following things: (I love lists)
- School name, location (ALL SCHOOLS)
- Basic city facts
- Commute time
- School size
- Photo of the actual apartment
- Commute times to various large cities