[MMM]

Originally Posted by WingsToDiscovery

For every one person you know who's here to teach, there are a hundred who aren't. You pretty much run this place; how many people like OP have you seen since you've been here? Thousands? On this forum alone. People inquiring about moving to Japan and immediately jump to qualifications for being a "teacher."

We'll have to agree to disagree, I guess. Just know that the people that take teaching more seriously don't hang out in gaijin bars and all-you-can-drinkers.

Originally Posted by WingsToDiscovery

I still don't think it's condescending at all. You go to school to teach if you want to be a teacher. On the job training in a few weeks is a slap in the face to those who actually have teaching degrees and spent years working on them.

JET is a paid apprenticeship. What is so insulting about that? People that WANT TO BE TEACHERS join the program. If you don't want to be a teacher, you don't join JET. Forty hours of your week is spent at school.
If it can give future teachers training, help students learn English, and overall improve Japanese students' comfort with foreigners, where is the insult?

Originally Posted by WingsToDiscovery

Of course, I actually think they even have an age stipulation. But hiring an unqualified, fresh out of school student over someone who's older but may have more qualifications, simply because it's economical is hardly a good point.

You are very feisty today, Wings. I like that.

You say "unqualified" with authority, but if the Japanese government says someone is qualified, who are you to say that is wrong?

And they aren't hiring young people because they are smarter than older people. They hire them because they have mobility that older people with homes, spouses, families, pets, etc. don't.

Originally Posted by WingsToDiscovery

People with more interest in seeing the world than what they've been hired to do.

I don't understand what you are saying here.

Originally Posted by WingsToDiscovery

That is assuming the majority of people are like this, which they're not. But you really did sidestep my issue. It's so unfair that Japanese people are paying ungodly amounts of money to be "taught" English by people who don't even have any teaching qualifications.

I didn't say a majority of people are like this, but I am not sure how you are qualified to say a majority are not.

Again, I worked for JET, and I don't know anything about the private eki-mae eikaiwa schools. My salary was paid for by the prefectural government, and not out of pocket.

Define "teaching qualifications", as you seem to have a definition in your head that does not match that with those who actually hire English teachers in Japan.