Dan - The Korean Schooling System & my Experiences.

For this post I wanted to talk about an aspect of Korea I've learned about, and not necessarily my personal experiences. What better aspect then the where I'm working? Today I'll talk about the Korean school system. You might have heard that Korean students are so hardworking, so studious and so well-behaved. You may have also heard that Korean workers are extremely hard working and work very long hours. Each of those statements are mostly true, but with several very big caveats. This is all based off my initial observations so please tell me if I'm wrong about a few things.

The kids in Korea generally start school in first grade, though there are private kindergartens and preschools. Grades 1-6 are Elementary, grades 7-9 are middle school, grades 10-12 are high school. Unlike in America, the grades aren't Freshman, Sophomore, etc. If you're starting your first year of middle school, you would say you're starting Grade 1 in middle school. Same with high school.

My school (again). The kids have gym in the yard here.

View from my 6th grade classroom

My 6th grade classroom.

Teachers are very well respected over in Korea. I've gotten a lot of students bowing to me in the hallways between classes. We're not supposed to bow back, but I always give a head nod (bow with your eyes, my coworkers say). This doesn't mean they're well behaved though. Honestly, kids in Korea act pretty much the same as kids back home. Maybe a little more wild; there's a lot of hitting and playful physical violence happening at my school. But nothing that makes me think "Wow, schools so completely different over here."

The teachers in these schools are very close-knit. Each grade has their own teacher's lounge which most go to inbetween classes to have a drink of water, coffee or tea. Or maybe just a few snacks to tide them over until lunch. They like to talk about their lives and plan activities to do on the weekends. Most of my coteachers are new parents and are unable to go out drinking on weeknights/weekends, but they enjoy playing ping pong or grabbing coffee at a local place. Oh man do my coteachers love ping pong. We play at least twice a week in the gym with teachers from all over the school. They can get really into it, but there's a lot of laughter and fun. Doo-Yun, one of the sixth grade teachers, bought me ping pong shoes as a gift and offered to order a ping pong shirt for me. I'm really enjoying it, sports are a great way to bond with new people when you don't speak their language.

6th grade teacher's lounge. Plenty of snacks and coffee to go around!

I AM LITERALLY TYPING ON THIS KEYBOARD RIGHT NOW

Bells in Korean schools are more of a suggestion than end-all-be-all. Students and teachers alike are regularly coming into the classroom after the bell rings with no sense of urgency. Each class is 40 minutes long, with an hour long lunch break for the teachers and a mix of lunch and recess for the students. Schedule changes are very frequent. My third week I walked into school at 8am only to find out the 40 minute lesson I had planned was rescheduled to be 80 minutes. And I had until 8:30am to fill in the empty time. Teaching is all about being prepared, and it's more apt here. Always have a backup lesson plan.

I've incorporated a three strikes rule my classroom. First time, I walk over to the disruptive student and hold my finger up for "warning one". Second time I make them stand in the back of the classroom. Third time I send them to the principal or administration, which I heard happens with other teachers for especially unruly students. So far none of them have gotten past warning two. I only see each student for 40 minutes every couple of days, so there really isn't that much time to act out. Corporal punishment is a little bigger over here too. I've seen punishing a 3rd grade kid by having him hold his hands over his head in the back of the classroom for five minutes. I've seen 5th graders sit on their knees for over five minutes in the hallway. And once I saw one of my sixth grade coteachers slap a student right across the face. I had been warned that this is commonplace in Korea and well within the cultural rights for a teacher to do so before working here, but it was still shocking to see.

Schools in Korea do not often have an indoor janitor. The students are assigned and expected to keep the school clean themselves. This means staying after school and sweeping the hallways, picking up trash they see throughout the day, emptying garbage and washing windows. There is an outdoor janitor who keeps the grounds clean, but indoors is mostly the kids.

Most of the teachers eat lunch with the kids in the cafeteria. The lunches aren't too bad here. They are always served with some variant of rice, soup and kimchi (fermented cabbage, a staple over here). Water is drunken after the meal and not during (they believe it helps with digestion). And the cups are so. freaking. tiny.

Typical school meal. Kimchi (upper right) and rice are always there.

I have anywhere from 3-5 classes a day, each lasting 40 minutes and running from 9am to 1:40pm (with a lunch break from 12:10 to 1). Monday-Wednesday are 3rd and 6th grades, while Thursday and Friday are 5th and 4th grades. My classes are always taught with a coteacher, though their level of involvement ranges from "You plan and teach the whole thing, I'll just assist when necessary" (which is good in a way, I like having control) to "I'll plan and teach most of the lesson, you step in for this specific section" to a middle ground of "Let's plan and teach together. You focus on this part of the lesson, I'll plan for the other and we'll be helping each other out during the teaching" (This teacher and I work best together).

My lessons obviously range wildly, but they generally start out with a anticipatory set (a short song or game or anecdote to get their attention). After that, we do some key words in a powerpoint I or my coteacher make ourselves. Here is an example of one such powerpoint. The lesson was on invitations (Would you like to go camping?) and responses (Yes I do!/Sorry, I can't). After that is book work: The students have a textbook to follow that includes an interactive CD so I can follow along. It ranges from video skits, games, activity sheets, songs, conversational scripts and fill in the blank exercises. I generally do 1-2 pages a session. There's usually 10-15 mins at the end, so we end with a game! Here is an example of a "No Laughing" game I did with my 6th graders. It was a riot.

So what's this about the Korean working and studying environment? It's no secret that Korean students are some of the most stressed in the world. Entrance exams for university are notoriously difficult and the system extremely competitive. Take into account the enormous social pressure from family, friends and society to be accepted and you've got some chilling teenagers. Many of them go to private schools, also called Hagwons, in the evenings to get a leg up on the exams. They may be there until 9pm or 10pm at night, five days a week. The weekends are full of studying and social life is virtually nil. This greatly contributes to the fact that suicide is the number one cause of death among Korean citizens under 40. They are stressed, overworked and overwhelmed. The silver lining is that university life is much less stressful than  high school exams.

If you get sick in Korea, as long as you can stumble your way to work you will plump your butt in that chair and stay! Don't you want everyone to know that you are so diligent and hardworking that even when you are coughing up your insides? When you get your coworkers sick, they will be given the same opportunity to prove they are diligent as well! Everyone wins!

Yes, that's the truth here. Unless you are physically unable to leave your apartment, expect to come to work. But don't expect to work. Showing up and napping in the lounge is still considered to be working and your employers will be much happier for you doing so. And yes, face masks are very fashionable when a bug is going around.

In Korean culture being at your desk = working hard. Don't get me wrong, my coworkers are extremely passionate and are great teachers. But there's a lot of lounging around, gossiping and free time that really doesn't require us to be at the school. The kids get out at 2:30 and honestly most everyone's work could be done at 3:30. But as in our contact, we are require to stay. If some weather related issue happens and the kids are not required to come to school, we teachers likely are. It falls back on the mantra of being in your seat = working hard. I haven't met a lazy Korean yet. But I have met many who adhere to this mantra.

The last issue I'd like to adhere to is the hierarchy. As a new teacher from a different country, I am at the bottom rung of the hierarchy. If I have a problem with the school, I report first to my coteacher. No exceptions. If I am unable to resolve this issue with my coteacher, I report to my head teacher. No exceptions. From there, it goes to the vice principal, principal and the District Office. No exceptions. This is common among any working Korean. Going over someone's head is a MAJOR faux pas and is incredibly disrespectful.

So that's it for elementary school in Korea! The smaller things are different, but the bigger things remain the same. Kids will be kids (except the older ones study their butts off and are under much higher pressures) and coworkers are still coworkers (though they play more ping pong and come to school when they are sick). These are all, of course, based on my own experiences and only what I've observed.