Teacher! Your hairstyle! You are witch!

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Said a student to me yesterday.

Which reminded me that, in all my entries about exploring this country, I haven't written much about the school or teaching.

That stereotype that Asians are serious about studying? 115% true, here at least. In order to give their kids a "boost" to get into college, Korean parents pay to send their kids to extra after-school schools called Hogwans. These classes are 1-2 times a week, for up to 3 hours. (CDI is 3 hours twice a week).

Any one kid will go to math hogwan, science hogwan, English hogwan, music hogwan...ect. The result is that students - we're talking elementary up through high school - could be attending class from 7-8 in the morning (depending on when the public schools start) to 10 at night. CDI has a class for high schoolers that goes until midnight. Then they take the bus home (some of them live a considerable distance away) and then, and only then, do they start their homework. And they get an obscene amount of homework. I mean obscene. When I was 10 years old, I had about as much to do as CDI alone gives. Add 5 other Hogwans AND regular school...there are no 8:30 bedtimes in South Korea. "My mom won't let me go to bed before midnight," is a more commonplace saying.

The upside is that once they reach University, they can relax and do a lot less work (black and white opposite of my school experience).

It's a completely different way of doing things, but it's so commonplace here. Koreans, much as I like them, give "conservative" a whole new meaning. If your boss or your parent or someone much older than you says "jump", you don't ask "how high?" You jump as high as you possibly can, knowing that they'll probably ask you to jump higher no matter what. Respect is a huge thing here. So are manners, and the "Korean way" of doing things. Without fail, Koreans are nicer to me if I attempt to speak in Korean, no matter how terrible it may be. Also, simple politeness seems to mean the world to them.

Of course, the kid in my middle school class who asked me "will you marry Korean or American?" doesn't seem to follow that, but mostly it's like that. My students call me "teacher", because in Korea you refer to an elder person by his or her title.

It bothered me at first, giving them so much work when they already have a ton to do, but I don't really have a say in the matter. So I try to make classes fun. Given that my lower level kids are reading a children's version of the Salem Witch Trials, it's not easy. But we staged a witch hunt (hence the title of this entry), and that helped.

My older level is reading essays about CardioVascular Disease and Genetic Engineering, so there's little hope for them. But I do what I can.

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Comments

[Kristen]

So do you teach a hogwan or a regular class? How many different groups do you have? Do you decide what to do in class and what work to assign or is it all laid our for you? Are you going to marry Korean or American?

[Skypaday]

Ha
CDI is a hogwan. I have 4 groups, each twice a week. 2 elementary and 2 middle school; 3 lower level and 1 upper level. I have no say in the work they do or the work I assign. I have to follow a curriculum. Who knows?