On Monday, my co-teacher, Mr. Lee, picked me up bright and early at 7:30am to head to school. When I arrived, I met a lot of the teachers and introduced myself (in Korean!!) to the gyomushil (teacher's office). In Korea, all the teachers share one large office and go to the students' rooms instead of the students changing rooms. Then, my co-teacher informed me that I would also introduce myself to the students. I don't know what I had in mind, but it was definitely not an assembly of all of the students, during which the principal talked for 20 minutes (presumably about me, but what could he know that would take 20 minutes?) and then I spoke. I pretty much just told the students a little about myself and told them I was very happy to be there. My co-teacher took pictures:
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| The principal and I. |
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| Giving a speech. |
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| I have no idea what I was laughing at, because the man does not speak one word of English. |
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| All the students and teachers. |
I taught my first few classes and all went well. Later Monday afternoon, I got my first taste of infamous Korean schedule changes. So apparently, schedules are never really set until... well... it's actually happening. So, I am getting ready to go to my last class of the day and the teacher across from me tells me that we don't have class, we have a celebrity coming for a school-wide talk. Oh... thanks. And by the way, the "celebrity" was a famous math tutor! And the kids were acting like he was a movie star or something. Only in Korea.
The kids are so sweet and funny, they make me laugh a lot. I think I am really going to like teaching them. The teachers are also really nice. Even if they don't speak English, they go out of their way to be nice. They always greet me, and keep buying me coffee! I swear, I'm going to be wired for the next year. The school grounds are gorgeous and the students keep it really clean. The cafeteria food is... okay. The cafeteria is under construction, so it's apparently not their best fare (thankfully).
So I have made friends with the teacher across from me; he is an English teacher about my age. This is his first year teaching so we swap ideas a lot. I've also made friends with a few female teachers. Some of them speak English and some don't. At lunch, we mostly sit gender segregated because it's a very conservative school, so I've gotten to know them a little. Yesterday I was very pleased and honored because they asked me to take a walk with them after lunch. It was very nice to spend time with women my age ^^.
In my whole, you know, week of experience in the Korean education system, I have noticed a few things. One is that teachers are highly respected. They are considered an essential part of the society. Another thing is that the system is not perfect. Although Korea is first in the world in reading, math, and science scores, there are a few aspects of their schooling that doesn't sit well with me. One is that the students NEVER have time for anything but studying. High school students go to class from 8:00am until 5:00pm. From 5:30pm until 11:30pm or midnight, they go to cram schools, called hagwons, where they study with tutors and do their homework. And they have school every other Saturday as well. They have 220 school days, compared to the US's 180 school days.
The other part that I am dissatisfied with is the supposed integration of the students. Students are separated into homerooms. These homeroom classes stay together all year long, in the same classroom, while their teachers move around to them. The students do not have the same 7 classes everyday, but rather a mixed schedule. Korea standarized tests all the time. So, generally, homerooms are made up of the 2-3 best students and 2-3 worst students, with all the others spread out through the homerooms. My school is small, so there are only 4 homerooms per grade. So I teach classes 1-1 (year 1, homeroom 1), 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4. These are all the first grade students. Then, I teach second grade as well, the year during which students have to choose a "major:" either science or "other." So I teach 2-1, 2-2, 2-3a, 2-3b (the two science major classes), and 2-4.
Ok, so here's my actual concern: all the X-4 classes are the local students. They are lumped together regardless of level just because they are not boarding students, and they are even separated in the school. These classes are also co-ed, as opposed to the other gender segregated classes. While I am not necessarily advocating gender segregation, what I am doing is trying to point out that these students are treated differently. They are considered less important and "stupider" than the other students. The worst part is that there are special needs students in my classes who clearly are not getting the support they need. There is one student in one of my first grade classes and another in one of my second grade classes.
I had no idea I had learning disabled students until, in the middle of class, I am calling on each student to tell me in English one thing that they like and one thing they don't. I call on the student and she just stares at me. All the other students start yelling, "teacher, teacher, she... different. Special." Finally, one student remembered the word, "handicap! Teacher, handicap!" It was painful. What was worse was when I realized that the activity I had planned for the class would really not work for this student. She clearly did not understand a word I said, and when the students tried to explain the directions to her in Korean, she just stared at them. Finally, I gave her some markers and paper to draw on while we moved on. I honestly didn't know what else to do. It made me feel very inadequate as a teacher, as well as just plain bad as a fellow human.
Because Korea is a collectivist society, individual needs are sometimes overlooked. I'm afraid that this is the case in regard to special needs students in many schools. However, times are changing and I found out that the special needs students in my school see a specialist three times a week. While I disagree that completely removing special needs students and isolating them all together is not a good strategy, neither is thrusting them into the classroom with 30 other students and not addressing their needs. I honestly don't know what to do to differentiate my lessons to include them, while still challenging the other students. Luckily I was a little more prepared for the second time it happened, but not much.
So, there are good things and bad things about the system here, just like at home. As I become more familiar with the school and how it works, I hope to better formulate a plan to really help these students.
On a lighter note, I finally snagged some pics of my apartment. For your viewing pleasure:
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| Space toilet... I have no idea what all those buttons do. |
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| Space toiletttttt |
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| Also a space shower. It has four different shower heads at various heights. Why? I don't know. |
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| Living room area. |
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| If you look out the balcony window there, you can see the river. |
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| Dining room/kitchen. |
As a bonus, I have also included a picture of the recent gift given to me by my host father. It is a commemorative hand towel, to celebrate the 7th year anniversary of his doctor's office. Enjoy:
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| Why thank you, host father. |
Told you. Everything here is cutesy ^^.
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