It is commonly known that as many as a thousand Newfoundlanders are now teaching English or pursuing other occupations in South Korea. If there are that many Newfoundlanders in South Korea, the number of those in Japan and China may also be considerable. The representation of teachers from Newfoundland in East Asia is remarkable, given that the total employed in Newfoundland schools is just 6,700.

    It is interesting to observe as well that many of these Newfoundlanders in East Asia are graduates of Memorial's Faculty of Education who were prepared essentially for teaching in Canada and who were trained to teach subjects other than English as a Second Language (ESL). The environment in which they find themselves, also, is in other ways very unlike that of the normal K-12 school; it is typically that of a small private school, on a busy street or in a residential area, teaching conversational English in return for fees. The terms and conditions of the teachers' employment also differ since the teachers are hired on the basis of annual contracts.

    The increasing presence of Newfoundlanders in East Asia raises an important question: should this trend be regretted, or should it be encouraged and nurtured? Certainly, there are points to be made in favour of the trend. The Newfoundland graduates are able to find employment, which might be very difficult to do in the highly competitive Canadian setting. They are therefore able to support themselves and perhaps even save some money, since their salaries are not too bad. In addition, they obtain some teaching experience, which will no doubt be of benefit to them as they attempt to advance their careers.

    One dimension of the Newfoundland teachers' experience in East Asia that worries me, however, is the requirement that they teach in an environment for which they are not prepared and deal with a people whose culture differs quite significantly from their own. While it is an advantage that they are native speakers of the language they teach, this condition alone may not guarantee them success in their work. They may need some knowledge about the people and their culture. They may also need knowledge about the country's school system and, especially, the way educational services are sold and purchased. On the basis of such knowledge, they may need to be able to form judgements regarding what to do and what not to do in order to be a successful teacher. Otherwise, cultural differences will lay before them insurmountable hurdles.

    An incident in which I was once involved may well illustrate how formidable the obstacles can be. It was, I think, two years ago that a local reporter approached me requesting a comment on his niece's experience. His niece had applied for a teaching position in one of the privately-owned English schools to which most Newfoundland teachers have gone. Unfortunately, her application proved unsuccessful. That in itself did not occasion her any grief. What bothered her, as well as her uncle, was the reason the Korean school had supplied, which was that her photograph had not shown up impressively. Some readers may also find such a reason difficult to comprehend. What does the impression made by a photograph have to do with being a teacher?

    Denying a job to a person on the basis of physical appearance seems totally undesirable. It would appear that the applicant in this case had a valid reason to be dismayed. From the point of view of the school concerned, however, the reason was perfectly valid. The school was a private business seeking profit by selling the service of teaching English in return for cash. The greater the profit, the better it is for the school. The school's hiring practice was governed by one single principle, namely, that any new teacher should contribute to attracting fee-paying clients. (If someone needed to be blamed at all it should be the South Korean clients, who apparently preferred nice-looking teachers.) The unsuccessful female applicant, regrettably, was judged not to meet the requirements imposed by this principle. The policy of the school is, in fact, not very different from that adopted by some business enterprises in Canada where certain restaurants, for example, might employ "attractive" waitresses as a means of drawing more customers. Cultural differences are critical and our indifference to them often leads us to chastising others for their not doing things in the way we do. For instance, we may criticize the Chinese for their not honouring human rights in the way we do, disregarding the fact that the concept of human rights is a modern one making more sense in one culture than in another. Respect for such cultural differences is important, however, because otherwise we will lose when we are to do business with those dissenting others.

    In terms of cultural difference, there is a point to be emphasized here, which is that we are perhaps less familiar than East Asia with the notion of primary, elementary and secondary schools operating for the purpose of profit-making. Schools at such levels in Canada are mostly publicly funded. Where the public is concerned with what is good for society at large and with respect for the rights of disadvantaged minorities, publicly-funded schools cannot betray the public's concerns. Even private schools cannot be exceptional. Private schools in Canada are institutions for meeting educational demands from those individuals and groups who do not want public education. They are an alternative means for addressing public concerns. Although occasionally we hear of the legendary private schools which produce lawyers, MPs and ministers in return for incredibly high tuition fees, their school brochures actually do not provide any single hint at their seeking something outside our public concerns - profit in particular. Simply put, they are non-profit organizations. The profit-seeking South Korean ESL schools consequently do not conform to normal Canadian expectations. Even less so do some of the profit-seeking teachers in those schools who vigorously advertise themselves in mass media. Many of our graduates are going into the world of profit-oriented teaching with no idea about what that world can be like.

    I think it is worthwhile here to reflect on the practice of profit-oriented teaching, which in fact has a much longer history than our non-profit-seeking teaching practice. I have two reasons for this. One is, as I have indicated above, that it is a good thing to see a large number of our graduates obtaining jobs in South Korea's field of profit-oriented teaching. The other is that the recent trends in the globalizing world suggest the possible emergence of profit-oriented teaching within Canada itself. Let me address these points in turn.

    Some may disagree that the flow of teachers to other countries is a good thing. Is there not a brain drain here? Have we not invested in these graduates large sums of hard currency? I think that there is not much to worry about in this regard. The brain drain in this instance is a temporary phenomenon, for most of the Newfoundland teachers will come back sooner or later. And, importantly, when they come back their savings will accompany them. Their movement to South Korea is different from the migration of teachers to the United States or even to other provinces in Canada, which usually ends in permanent settlement. The "brain drain" argument is not a strong one, at least not in the case of East Asia.

    The phenomenon of globalization, however, is of much greater import. As the globalization of the world economy advances, indeed, the notion of "brain drain" seems to become increasingly obsolete. Globalization refers here to the phenomenon of capital abandoning its nationality and moving freely to any country in which bigger profits await. The new rules for business operation in the age of globalization are two: flexibility and mobility, which, to paraphrase, means contracting and expanding as quickly as necessary and packing and leaving as swiftly as demanded. Profitable businesses observe these rules thoroughly and methodically. As a result, they move out of their country, leaving behind unemployed workers, diminishing state revenues, and increasing state burdens for welfare and education. What, then, can labour do if capital operates in that way? The worst thing to do is sit and wait for manna from heaven. It is important, on the one hand, to improve the business environment so as to lure capital from outside, and, on the other, to make the workforce as flexible and mobile as possible, so that the workforce can quickly adjust to the changing work environment and, if necessary, swiftly move to where there is a job. Seen in this light, then, the brain drain is not necessarily an evil thing. Should the brain remain home unemployed, it would only aggravate the state's burden. Should it move, on the other hand, there would be the kind of benefit which the Newfoundland teachers in South Korea seem to gain. Unlike the times when capital stayed at home, singing patriotism and mobilising nation states and nationals to international competition, it is now desirable that brains flow freely across national borders just as capital does.

    The above observation has a bearing on the teaching profession. Globalization will continue to wreak financial havoc upon the education system in which teachers work. It will do so because, while the current education system is heavily dependent on state funding, the free flow of transnational capital will continually destabilize state revenues. The recent trend of manufacturing capital's transformation to financial capital will make state revenues even more unstable. Unlike manufacturing capital, which require relatively prolonged operation in one place, financial capital requires swift and massive movement from one place to another, a requirement which now can be handily met through the Internet. The consequence is exemplified by the financial troubles of the Japanese state at a time when Japanese manufacturers continue to amass wealth from exporting Honda Civics and Sony Trinitrons. If this trend continues, and it will indeed do so, the ongoing educational system in most nations will have to undergo restructuring on an unprecedented scale. When state revenues continue to be unstable, policy makers cannot avoid the necessity of stabilizing school operation at a level of funding which the state can afford with its ever decreasing resources. Confronting this necessity means a lot more than simple budgetary cuts. It may mean privatization of public education (that is, putting public schools up for sale) and incorporation of market elements into the remaining public schools (such as fee charging, payment-by-result for teachers, and elimination of the tenure system). As well, such familiar neo-liberal policy measures as private school funding, charter schools and school choice in the public sector may emerge as more viable than ever. The public system of education may thus collapse. The current arrangement of the teaching profession, then, would no longer be viable.

    What is wrong with the current arrangement of the teaching profession? Consider who the teachers are now. They are in law "certified teachers," where certification is made for teaching a particular subject in a particular range of grades, for instance, mathematics in junior high, music in elementary, and chemistry in senior high. The certification paper also specifies the level of competence of the bearer, suggesting a suitable place in the more or less uniform remuneration system. Overall, teacher certification is a procedural device for sorting trained teachers into a national (a provincial, if in Canada) system of schools. It is undoubtedly a product of a time when the public system of education expanded incessantly thanks to the nation state's ambition to construct a large set of schools with which to beat rival nations - a time in which familiar buzzwords were amalgamation, consolidation, and efficiency in organization. As the education system got bigger and bigger, an individual, whether a student or a teacher, needed to be placed in such a way as to maximize the output of the system. Ironically, the procedural device of teacher certification created perpetual problems for the schools which could be neither amalgamated nor consolidated, let alone organized efficiently. Examples are the "small schools" in sparsely-populated communities in Newfoundland and elsewhere, where a teacher certified for a subject had also to teach other subjects for which he/she was not certified..

    Privatization of public schools and incorporation of market elements into the remaining public schools, however, will invalidate this procedural device, for both private schools and public schools with market elements in them will develop diverse forms of organization which will require different kinds of teachers. The fluctuation of supply and demand in the education market will require school organization to be flexible and mobile, that is to say, to expand when demand rises, contract when it sinks, and pack and leave when there is a better place to move to. When the schools - that is, the employers of teachers - operate in this way, a teacher cannot remain a mathematics teacher for junior high schools or a music teacher for elementary schools. His or her expertise will have to change flexibly to meet the demands arising from the market. He or she will have to be able to teach a broad range of subjects to a wide range of grade levels. As well, he or she will have to be able to operate successfully not only in the public setting entertaining public concerns, but also in a private setting entertaining private concerns, profit making in particular. Furthermore, he or she will have to be prepared for a wide range of places and sell himself or herself vigorously for a better deal and perhaps a bigger profit. Flexibility and mobility will thus become the governing rule of the teacher's operation.

    Viewed from this perspective, then, the significance of the profit-seeking culture in teaching should be clear. That culture is one of the many possible ethical alternatives for the new teaching profession. And that culture suggests that teachers need to prepare themselves to be more marketable and to actually sell themselves globally. In this sense, we can say that those brave Newfoundland teachers in South Korea are the pioneers of our time.

    To my pleasure, two of these teachers in South Korea visited me recently as if to verify the pioneering nature of their work. Both were doing very well although they had been in that country for only two years. One of them, a Corner Brook man, told me of his desire for marrying a Korean girl and settling there with a permanent job at a university. He showed me a notebook full of Korean words and asked whether there would be anyone with whom to practice Korean while at home. Another teacher, a St. John's man, came back for a teaching certificate in our Secondary Education program with which to seek a better job back in South Korea. This man missed Korean food so much so that he asked me how I acquired in St. John's the characteristically hot and spicy foodstuff. No institution had prepared them for their adventure yet both teachers were adapting surprisingly well and with a great deal of confidence and hope.

    Had we prepared them for teaching environments other than the public system of education in the province, however, would they not perform much better? Had we trained them in a broad range of subjects for a wider range of grade levels, would they not be more competent in teaching whatever they were asked to teach even in a foreign country? Had we taught them even such common courses in other Canadian Faculties of Education as International Education, Comparative Education, History of Education in Selected Nations, Education and Culture, and Education and Economy, would they not make better sense of what they confronted in that country? If prospective teachers continue to enter highly specialized teacher education programs that prepare them primarily for a North American work environment, there is a very real danger that in future they will be less than adequately equipped to deal with a market-place in which globalization is an inevitable feature.