salary opinions

[slainte]

Yes, but what is your alternative? Do you have one?

I suppose the school kind of has me by the balls and know it!! Alternative to being arse raped is just leave, live on the bread line for a while and start afresh...

[hml]

I suppose the school kind of has me by the balls and know it!! Alternative to being arse raped is just leave, live on the bread line for a while and start afresh...

I dunno.... a nice arse rape is good every now and then!

[vallient]

Let's be honest you don't have a real viable alternative. Your just in an unhappy job, that compensates you barely enough not to outright quit. Unemployment isn't an alternative, it's a lack of options. Sign the contract, and look for a new (hopefully better job), maternity leave will become available to you again. It is not the end of the world.

[Effected After]

I suppose the school kind of has me by the balls and know it!! Alternative to being arse raped is just leave, live on the bread line for a while and start afresh...

While I like girls who are into a little 'alternative action', I'm not so much into the one with a set of sausage and eggs!

It sucks that you don't have any particular alternatives, but now that you've identified the reality of your situation, it should give you a good idea on what issues you want to press, and how far you want to press them. Good luck!

[Neil Young]

If you have a child......STAY HOME and look after your child. There are too many mothers, wives, grandmothers working and taking jobs from perfectly decent men who can always do the job better than a bad mother! You have had it too good for too long......it sounds like. winging women get out of the workforce.....all of you.

[Kionon]

If you have a child......STAY HOME and look after your child. There are too many mothers, wives, grandmothers working and taking jobs from perfectly decent men who can always do the job better than a bad mother! You have had it too good for too long......it sounds like. winging women get out of the workforce.....all of you.

Yeah! And what did you think you were doing even being educated in the first place? In fact, your husband shouldn't have let you out of the house! Get back in the kitchen and make all the men sandwiches. /s

MISOGYNY: HARD TO SPELL, EASY TO PRACTICE.

[Glenski]

If you don't like the contract in front of you, don't sign it. Try to negotiate. I mean, REALLY! You've been there that long and don't know people well enough to have them make some compensations for your experience? Pretty sad.

As for your earlier remark: "If I moved jobs I would need to renew a contract twice (or once, can't remember) I think to qualify for maternity leave. " Where did you hear that? It means that you are not allowed to get pregnant, which is a ludicrous statement! Read the labor laws.
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/laborin...j_law1-rev.pdf

[thefg]

The idea that women must choose between an equal salary and going through the necessary biological function of pregnancy for reproduction just because men do not have the option to make the same choice is one that is antiquated and deserving to be placed in the dustbin of history.

Ladies and gentlemen, you may fire when ready. *Puts on Acme Brand Flamesuit*

go out and use your own money and time to start a company -with enough funds to employ a few staff who you will need to rely on, who you will need to invest time in training up. Then come back and tell me if you will place equal reliance on a 30year old man or a 22 year old girl eager to marry and start a family.

In the real world a working mum cant be relied on as much as a working male from a time off perspective, an ability to work late/weekends/overtime/overseas or from a general long term commitment to the company.

In countries where people have maids (such as singapore) it can be a different story - but here, nope sorry.

[Kionon]

go out and use your own money and time to start a company -with enough funds to employ a few staff who you will need to rely on, who you will need to invest time in training up. Then come back and tell me if you will place equal reliance on a 30year old man or a 22 year old girl eager to marry and start a family.

In the real world a working mum cant be relied on as much as a working male from a time off perspective, an ability to work late/weekends/overtime/overseas or from a general long term commitment to the company.

In countries where people have maids (such as singapore) it can be a different story - but here, nope sorry.

I'm not going to debate your antiquated views of zero-sum gender roles. I'm simply going to laugh at your inability to conceptualise the possibility of a stay-at-home male parent, or an equitable child rearing arrangement between both parents.

[thefg]

I'm not going to debate your antiquated views of zero-sum gender roles. I'm simply going to laugh at your inability to conceptualise the possibility of a stay-at-home male parent, or an equitable child rearing arrangement between both parents.

There is no logic to your point/argument.



For the huge overwhelming majority of families the mother is the primary care giver.


Businesses and society accept that reality and this influences how they look at career mums. To argue otherwise (as you appear to be is nonsensical)



Is gender role changing? probably. Has it changed to a degree that would justify a rethink by businesses and society as to how we generalise over roles? Nope, nowhere near enough yet.

To accept that current generality is not to be ignorant of changing roles or the potential for equitable child rearing - its just accepting the current reality.

Thats the trouble with "people with agendas" they often sacrifice common sense to support their bias

[Effected After]

I have to agree with the fg. I personally have no problems whatsoever with stay at home dads - I'd even like to do so myself. But the reality is, my wife does not have the earning power that I do, and if we are going to be completely honest, I don't have the parenting and house cleaning skills that she does.

Expecting employers to treat women with equality when it comes to making decisions on who to hire is a great ideal, but it's still an ideal. The reality of the situation is that, if and when a woman gets pregnant, she is out of the workforce for a number of months, if she ever comes back. Maternal instincts are not a cultural device, it's a human instinct, and for most women if one parent is going to stay home, they want it to be themselves.

[hml]

If you have a child......STAY HOME and look after your child. There are too many mothers, wives, grandmothers working and taking jobs from perfectly decent men who can always do the job better than a bad mother! You have had it too good for too long......it sounds like. winging women get out of the workforce.....all of you.

Well said and worth repeating.

[Kionon]

I think you guys missed where I said I wasn't going to debate it. There's no point. You're free to accept or even promote the patriarchal paradigm, which I grant is still in force... largely due to your expressed acceptance and/or promotion of it. I do not accept it, but I recognise that arguing with you is useless. So, I'm going to laugh instead.

[Deathblob]

Here's another vote for the patriarchal paradigm. Go patriarchs, woo hoo!

[hml]

I think you guys missed where I said I wasn't going to debate it.

I think you missed the part where the OP was asking for opinions.

[timeflies]

Great first post ! Didn't want to use your real user-name because the JET-experience and not being able to rent your own place without a babysitter doesn't look good, ah ?

You are talking crap. The entry salary for a teacher lies between 20 and 23万　a month. With 教員免許. Some teachers come to 26-27 a month if you calculate overtime. Kindergarten-teachers usually never see 25万　for 220-250 hours/month. So why in hell should some woman with no 教員免許　and working part-time get more than 30万　?

And here goes what goes for most complaints: If you don't like it, don't do it. Shut up, open your own business and pay the high salaries you requested as an employee.

I`m afraid this guy is right.

Most teachers are on 20万 before they pass the teachers test. And, most teachers under 30 haven`t past the teachers test. Yes, they do receive a bonus, but it is much lower than it was 10 years ago. Over a year they now receive a bonus in summer and a bonus in winter.
The bonus is dependent on their wage.
An experienced teacher who past the teachers test 25 years ago will receive a much bigger wage and bonus than an inexperienced much younger teacher.
However, if you really speak to teachers your own age, most of them are financially in a bad way. I know many women Japanese teachers who put off having children because they have not yet past the teachers test. A teacher who has not past the test is in the same situation as an ALT every March.

If foreign English teachers want to receive the same treatment as Japanese teachers then they will have to go to University in Japan and get a teachers license and then apply every year and try to pass the teachers test in Japanese. After all this is what we would expect of foreigners who wanted to teach in our home countries, right?

[Kionon]

Most teachers are on 20万 before they pass the teachers test. And, most teachers under 30 haven`t past the teachers test. Yes, they do receive a bonus, but it is much lower than it was 10 years ago. Over a year they now receive a bonus in summer and a bonus in winter.
The bonus is dependent on their wage.

Do you know this from personal experience in the Japanese school system? It doesn't match up with conversations I've had, not exactly, but I grant that my BoE could be some kind of outlier. My Japanese coworkers made substantially more than I did... they also worked way way harder than I did. Not because I was unwilling, but because as an ALT I was not allowed to do more. I put in four or five hours of real work a day, sometimes I graded, sometimes I supervised clubs. Many times I had head JTEs who simply sent me home as soon as they could. I had a good thing going and I knew it, especially with the hiring freeze in districts in the US. I would expect Japanese teachers who easily work 10-12 hours a day in their schools to earn more than me, and I would be appalled to find out if they did not.

If foreign English teachers want to receive the same treatment as Japanese teachers then they will have to go to University in Japan and get a teachers license and then apply every year and try to pass the teachers test in Japanese. After all this is what we would expect of foreigners who wanted to teach in our home countries, right?

Absolutely. I had no idea what to expect when I started as an ALT. Having planned to be a teacher in the US, of course, I thought I was well qualified to teach English in Japan. After learning what the JTEs did, this was confirmed. I also had a few JTEs that bent the rules and let me solo teach because they knew I could, especially once my spoken Japanese caught up with my knowledge, even though they probably shouldn't have. This was most definitely NOT the case with my native English coworkers, who stayed for a year, and with rare exceptions could not teach themselves out of a paper bag...

I have no problem jumping through the requisite hoops and playing by the rules, but the system is not really designed to turn ALTs into JTEs. If it was, I think there would be an improvement in Japanese English Education... but it would also be seen as a threat to the status quo. And we know how well that goes in Japan...

This is all kind of irrelevant, because vallient wants to be something else, a 科学 or a 数学 or something teacher, and I just don't see how there's a viable path to that for a foreigner in Japan.

[vallient]

Did the last couple of posts cross threads/topics?

[Kionon]

Did the last couple of posts cross threads/topics?

Looks like they did, yes. At least the last two posts here are meant for you, not meant for slainte.

[timeflies]

Do you know this from personal experience in the Japanese school system? It doesn't match up with conversations I've had, not exactly, but I grant that my BoE could be some kind of outlier. My Japanese coworkers made substantially more than I did... they also worked way way harder than I did. Not because I was unwilling, but because as an ALT I was not allowed to do more. I put in four or five hours of real work a day, sometimes I graded, sometimes I supervised clubs. Many times I had head JTEs who simply sent me home as soon as they could. I had a good thing going and I knew it, especially with the hiring freeze in districts in the US. I would expect Japanese teachers who easily work 10-12 hours a day in their schools to earn more than me, and I would be appalled to find out if they did not.

Well, my wife is a JTE and she got paid less than me before she past the test.
Now, it is improving. Her salary goes up a little every year. However Japanese teachers have money taken off them for all manner of things. (Enkai fund etc.)
Also, they are expected to supervise club for a mere 1500yen a day, on weekends.

Absolutely. I had no idea what to expect when I started as an ALT. Having planned to be a teacher in the US, of course, I thought I was well qualified to teach English in Japan. After learning what the JTEs did, this was confirmed. I also had a few JTEs that bent the rules and let me solo teach because they knew I could, especially once my spoken Japanese caught up with my knowledge, even though they probably shouldn't have. This was most definitely NOT the case with my native English coworkers, who stayed for a year, and with rare exceptions could not teach themselves out of a paper bag...

I have no problem jumping through the requisite hoops and playing by the rules, but the system is not really designed to turn ALTs into JTEs. If it was, I think there would be an improvement in Japanese English Education... but it would also be seen as a threat to the status quo. And we know how well that goes in Japan...

This is all kind of irrelevant, because vallient wants to be something else, a 科学 or a 数学 or something teacher, and I just don't see how there's a viable path to that for a foreigner in Japan.

The system is set up exactly as you say it is " sonno mama"
And I agree I have a similar experience to you in regard to ALT work.