I spent 17 months in Korea, and my experience with foreign teachers follows:

Teacher A: South African, certified to teach in his home country, of Tamil (Indian) ancestry, spoke virtually Queen's English with something close to Received Pronunciation. Could barely stand working at our hagwon, but hung on till the end of his contract, then left for Britain.

Teacher B: Also South African Tamil, also great English, law degree. I overheard her say, when we'd all been there about a week, "These kids are spoiled rotten and can do anything they please." She was gone about a week later.

Teacher C: Australian, EFL certified, had taught in some kind of language unit in Australia, where immigrant kids are immersed in English and then integrated into the regular school system. Not my favorite guy in the world, but a good teacher. One day, he blew up and cussed out one of the staff members because of all the schedule changes and split shifts (we taught children and adults). He left after two or three months at the school.

Teacher D: New Zealander, nursing degree, probably the best-liked of all our teachers (by students and by Korean and foreign teachers), hated the school but finished her contract. When she found out I was signing for another year, she asked me, "Why on earth . . . ?" When I told her that I was staying on simply because I didn't like bouncing around from one place to another, she said, "Well, you could pick a better place than this to settle down."

Teacher E: American, Master's in Radio & Television Communications, had lived in Hong Kong for three years. He was to be my replacement. He left after 10 days. The night before he left, I asked him, "Was it the kids?" He said yes. (I believed that then, but I now believe that it's almost never about kids; it's almost always about school owners, school administrators, and parents.)

Teacher F: American, B.A. in philosophy, occasionally abrasive toward adults but was generally good-natured and sympathetic toward the kids. Like the Australian, he had a blow-up about the constant scheduling changes. He wound up staying on for a few months, though, and his recruiter liked him and got him another job in Korea. The last I heard, he was in Japan.

Teacher G: Korean-Canadian, fluent in Korean and English, very comfortable with Korean culture, left after I had been at the school for less than six months.

None of these teachers was perfect, they were all quite human, but they were far from being "scum of the earth." However, if they had been scum of the earth, it would have been a sign that there is justice in the world. In other words, the school got a whole lot better than it deserved.

We also went through a pretty good number of Korean personnel, both teachers and staff. For example:

Teacher H: Korean TOEIC teacher, ex-military, extremely bright, remarkable degree of fluency for someone who had not lived in an English-speaking country, very good writing ability. My South African flatmate, Teacher A, told me that when he asked Teacher H why he was leaving, he simply said, "It's all bulls***."

Teacher I: Korean, educated in America, Master's in Speech. Left after about one year, because of disputes about scheduling (I'm not sure, but I think she refused split shifts).

Several other Korean teachers/staff left while I was there. I wasn't close enough to them to learn why they left. But I'm pretty sure they left for Teacher H's reason.

You said that the schools were interested only in money. In my opinion, that wouldn't be such a bad thing if they were willing to give value for the money. It's almost a proverb about hagwons that "they're businesses," but not many people seem to point out that a business that takes the customer's money and doesn't give the promised product or service shouldn't stay in business for very long. And yet many of these hagwon "businesses" thrive while defrauding their customers. My school went under after about three years, but not before making a great deal of money (it was a big school with big name, and it milked the name and the good will for all it was worth).

razoo