Snow Day!
It finally snowed in Gangneung. It started to rain on Sunday afternoon, and by early Sunday evening, it had turned over to wet, slushy snow. By Monday morning, we had maybe 18 inches of nice fluffy powder. Beautiful.
Our co-teacher called and said that classes were canceled. Teachers still needed to come in, however. We tromped to school where we found the other teachers shoveling out the parking lot and the roads that lead to it. Erin and I grabbed shovels and got to work. After maybe 45 minutes, the principal showed up and sent Erin back inside. (”Women shoveling? Unheard of.”) I kept at it for another 45 minutes. It was a lot of fun, actually. Most of the teachers were in pretty good spirits, myself included.
After the shoveling was finished, they set up tables outside the front door and served kimchi, tofu, and malaki (a sweet rice wine). Once that was finished, we had soup and more makali in the science lab. Then we sat at our desks for an hour and went home at noon. I can say with great certainty that this was the best work day ever.
Check out the pictures:
Edit — Erin has most of these photos, along with some others, posted here.
The completely finished newspaper
The last version of the school newspaper that I posted (here) required a few changes. In addition to the missing photo and a couple typos, the school requested some alterations. First, the article about school violence was cut. Honestly, I expected this would happen. It talked about a tragic incident at a nearby school, in which one student accidentally killed another. I gently suggested that the author of the story choose another topic, but he wanted to write about this one. I figured I’d go along with it. I thought it was a story that actually mattered to the kids, and I’d back it until the administration said otherwise.
Because I no longer have the newspaper class, and the kids are busy with exams, I wrote a brief story about the school festival to fill the hole. I hated to cut the kid’s story, and I certainly don’t need to practice my English, but there wasn’t much I could do.
The second correction involved the soccer team story. Evidently, the new team, Gangwon FC, held their draft in December. Because of this, the information in the article was out of date. Again, I can’t really get a re-write from the kids, so I ended up re-writing one paragraph and making a few other changes to the article. It’s not really something I was comfortable doing, but the school wanted things changed ASAP. My co-teacher seemed fine with me doing the writing.
I emailed both students to explain the changes. I know it’s like a small thing, but it’s their work, and changing it doesn’t seem ethical to me. I suppose I should learn from my own lessons. I taught the kids that one of the first steps in writing should be identifying the audience. You have to be sure that what you write is suitable to the given audience. The class decided that the audience for the newspaper was teachers, students and parents, but that’s not really true. The newspaper is a bragging point for the teachers and administration. More than anything, the goal is advertisement for the school and the people who run it. As such, the stories must reflect positively on the school. Unfortunately, this means that accurate information and “appropriate” content are more important than demonstrating the honest (but sometimes flawed) work of the students.
But ignore my cynicism. I’m still fairly proud of the final copy, and it was (generally) a fun project.
The (almost) finished newspaper
Well, I promised I’d post the school newspaper, and here it is. This isn’t quite a final draft. I need to add one more picture, and I’m sure there will be some fussy little details to edit. If you see any glaring mistakes, let me know. (But keep in mind that these were written in just a few hours by Korean middle-school students.)
If you missed my previous post about the school newspaper, you can read it here.
A few older pictures
I found a handful of pictures on Erin’s camera that I had forgotten about. These are from an afternoon bike ride we took more than a month ago. They were taken at Gyongpo lake, a small lake near the ocean. There are paths that circle the lake and run through the rice fields nearby. A very pretty place.
The pictures aren’t great, but here they are:
Almost finished with a frustrating project
One of my tasks as a native English teacher has been continuing the English newspaper class started by my predecessor. This has been a fairly frustrating project from the start. On my very first day, I was shown a two-page printed newspaper, and told that I had to edit some things before it could be published. I had to find the file on the hard drive, replace a photo, and make some minor tweaks to the layout. I’d never used Microsoft Publisher before, and couldn’t read the Korean menus, but I’m fairly tech-savvy and managed to get it sorted out.
Then the real fun began. I was told that I would teach a small class 3 days a week, with no co-teacher. The end result of this class should be another issue of the newspaper. The rest was up to me. Along the way, I was given several other assignments. For the first few days, we prepared a script for a skit contest, which was later cancelled. We spent several days in October making decorations for the classroom (because a comittee was coming to inspect the school). In between these projects, I focused on newspaper-related topics. We learned about formal and informal English, the use of statistics, and the writing style expected in a newspaper. This ended up being one of my favorite classes. I was a little unsure of myself, but the kids were hard-working and spoke excellent English. They made things easy.
About half-way through October, we picked topics for the newspaper, and began to work on stories. At this point, I was assuming this was a regularly-scheduled class, and would continue until final exams (the first week in December). I was wrong.
The third week of October, I was told that my class would conclude Oct. 31st. I would then have November/December to assemble the paper and get it printed. This left me only 6 class periods to actually finish the articles. I had planned for 12-18 classes. I recruited Erin to help me work with the kids, and we got busy. In the end, my students did some fairly impressive work. I had 9 stories (1 from each kid). Topics included the local English contest, a new soccer team in the province, the Large Hadron Collider, and the sub-prime mortage crisis. Given the timeframe, it was very impressive.
On the very last day of the class, our co-teacher asked me what topics the students wrote about. I explained that they chose a variety of stories; some were school-related, others dealt with local, national, or international issues. I was told that it is a school newspaper, and as such, it should be about the school. I didn’t say anything at this point, and it hasn’t come up since. The kids did fine work, and the school should be proud of it.
In the last couple weeks, I have typed the articles that were hand-written and fixed typos and minor errors. I contacted the students to approve any changes. I got the text into Publisher, and spent a few hours adjusting the layout. I found a couple photos to use (under Creative Commons licenses, of course). It’s been a surprisingly time-consuming project, but it’s almost done. I’m waiting on a couple photos, and then I’ll need to make some final tweaks to the layout. I was convinced that the end result would be pretty crappy, but I think it looks OK. Next semester will be better, but I’m proud of it. I promise I’ll post a PDF when everything is finished.
Even if the students got nothing out of it, the entire class has been educational for me. I’m starting to realize how difficult it is to plan a cohesive series of lessons. Coming up with ideas that are interesting, useful, and build towards a final product is a hell of a challenge. It’s also been a real eye-opener to learn how time-consuming a small project can be. I’ve certainly got a new respect for good teachers. Effective lessons are rarely easy to execute, and teaching energetic students while meeting the expectations of supervisors is a frustrating and sometimes impossible task.
I guess that’s why I’m making the big bucks…
A plug for holyshitkorea.com
I know most of the people who read my site also read Erin’s, but I thought I’d link to her most recent post anyways. She’s written an excellent post about the way classrooms are used in Korea. For those that don’t know, each class has it’s own room, and the teachers move to different classrooms throughout the day. It seems like a fairly insignificant difference, but Erin and I both think it’s a source of much larger problems.
You can read her post here: Some unsolicited advice…
Small victories
I’m learning to be pleased with the small improvements I see in my students. When we first arrived, our students already knew the question “How are you?” When asked, they would demonstrate their excellent memorization skills and rattle off: “Finethankyouandyou?” The shy kids would simply answer “fine”.
After more than 2 months of teaching, about 50% of my students will respond with something other than fine. Some are good, some are so-so (they love that expression), some are bad. A few are even terrible or great. It makes my introduction/greeting slightly less boring.
On a related note, Erin’s efforts are also paying off. When we started, the students already knew “nice to meet you” (nicetomeetyou). They said it every time they saw us. I’ve “met” some of my students hundreds of times. Erin has gone to great lengths to remedy this, and her students have mastered the more-appropriate “nice to see you” (nicetoseeyou).
I suppose that counts for something, right?
Sometimes Korea is a little strange.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I don’t have any excuse, except that not much has happened. Teaching is pretty much the same, the economy still sucks, life marches on.
Last week, however, the Korea Herald reported on two Constitutional Court cases that were too interesting to pass up. A little background might be helpful.
The Constitutional Court is a specialized court that deals primarily with constitutional review. It also handles impeachments, party dissolution and some other odds and ends. Like the US Supreme Court, its decisions cannot be appealed. Judges are appointed differently, however. Three are appointed directly by the President, three are selected from candidates that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court nominates, and three are appointed by the National Assembly (the legislature). It’s an interesting system.
Case 1: A victory for blind masseurs!
In Korea, only the blind can become certified massage therapists. You read that correctly. An entire profession is reserved for the blind. This is Korean law.
This is a fairly contentious issue among the parties involved. In the past, this was a government directive, rather than a law. In 2003, the Constitutional Court upheld the restriction, but a 2006 court declared the directive discriminatory. This upset the blind massage therapists, who protested until the National Assembly passed a law restricting certification to the blind.
In September 2008, a group of sighted therapists appealed this law to the Constitutional Court. The Court upheld the law, and issued the following statement:
It is true that the corresponding clauses restrict the freedom of choosing a career for the non-blind. [...] This restriction, however, is an inevitable one, necessary to secure a minimum level of social support for the blind who have few other career options than massage therapist. It, therefore, does not violate the petitioners’ constitutional freedom on careers and equality.
An interesting footnote to this story is the method of protest that both sides have used. They gather on bridges, and threaten to jump off. Sadly, some of them have followed through. I don’t know why they jump off bridges. It seems like there would be a dozen other ways to protest, but bridge-jumping seems to be the chosen form of civil disobedience.
The New York Times published a good story on this back in September (here’s the link). I can’t link directly to the current Korea Herald story, because of their crummy web page.
I don’t even know what to say about this one. It just seems weird to me. The original policy goes back to the years of Japanese colonization, but I don’t know the reasoning behind it. If it’s a modesty thing, it seems archaic. As a social welfare system, it just seems odd. I guess it guarantees at least one career for the blind, but there there are hundreds of thousands of illegal sighted therapists because of it. I welcome your comments on this one.
Case 2: A setback for adulterers.
Adultery is a criminal offense in Korea, punishable by up to two years in prison. This actually isn’t that uncommon; adultery is still illegal in many US states. Hell, in Michigan, it could get you life in prison. I don’t think these laws generally get prosecuted, however. In Korea, they aren’t often prosecuted, but it still happens. The Korea Herald reported that 47 cases were prosecuted in 2007, down from 103 in 2005.
The Constitutional Court upheld this law, as it has done on three other occasions (1990, 1993, and 2001). Interestingly, 5 of the 9 judges ruled that it was unconstitutional, but it requires six votes to overturn a law.
In its ruling, the Court stated that “[t]he law is intended to safeguard marriage, which is the bedrock of family life. Adultery, thus, cannot be a purely ethical or moral issue which the law cannot meddle in.”
Socially, Korea is pretty conservative, so this isn’t really a surprise. In my opinion, no matter what the Court said, this is clearly an ethical/moral issue. Laws governing such things always disappoint me. I suppose my title is incorrect, as this really isn’t strange. Especially after three more US states passed constitutional bans on same-sex marriages. In Korea and the US, social conservatives continue to fight for a government small enough to fit in your bedroom.
Thoughts on the Korean educational system
After a few weeks of teaching here, I’ve noticed some interesting things about the school and the educational system. My experience is limited to one middle school in a rural province, but these observations seem to hold true in other places, according to other teachers.
Korean students work hard.
Our kids are in school by 8:30am. Most of them have classes until 4:30pm. After school, they go home for dinner. Most of them spend the evenings at private academies, learning English, math, science, or music. If you’re on the streets between 9pm and 11pm, there are kids everywhere returning home, still in their school uniforms. They live and breathe school.
This is less than ideal, in my opinion. Erin’s co-teacher has kids, and says that they have no time to learn anything but school. They can’t cook, they don’t work part-time jobs, and they hardly see their family during the week. Hell, a lot of the kids are at academies during the weekend, too. I might be seeing things from an overly American perspective, but in my opinion, it’s hard to call that a childhood.
On the positive side, they take school seriously. Middle school boys are a handful no matter where they’re from, but I can’t help thinking that these kids get a lot more out of school than I ever did.
Grades/test scores matter, and they matter young.
In Korea, high schools are competitive. You don’t simply go to the school in your district. To be admitted to a well-ranked high school, you need good grades and test scores. I think they typically take an entrance examination as well. This means that young kids are seriously worried about their grades. The kids at my school are 14, 15, and 16 years old. (In Western ages, they would be 13, 14, and 15.) Even the 13-year-old kids take midterms that can determine their future. Poor grades in middle school, and you end up at a vocational school. It keeps them focused, but I imagine it’s rough on the late-bloomers.
Rote memorization is still the norm.
This is something that everyone says about Korean education. It’s important to note that I haven’t seen many classes, and this is a pretty broad generalization. However, I think it’s often true, especially with older teachers. Our co-teachers often stress group call-and-repeat exercises, rather than individual efforts. The kids have memorized responses to typical phrases, but often don’t understand them. It’s interesting to see.
As I said, this is often considered a common attribute of Korean education. In my opinion, this is overstated. I certainly can’t say that US middle school and high school stresses critical thinking. Even at university, it was often clear that students learned to fill in the blanks, rather than think. But overstated or not, education here is often a rote processes. I think this is due in part to the emphasis on good test scores. These kids test amazingly well, but it doesn’t necessarily indicate real learning.
Corporal punishment is still common.
Yes, some of the teachers hit the kids. I’d even say that a lot of teachers hit the kids. This one is changing quickly. I’ve heard that it’s illegal in Korea now. I’ve even heard that in the bigger cities, it’s not tolerated. Parents will complain or sue. In Gangneung, especially with older teachers, it happens. Usually it’s a token sort of punishment, a quick rap to get their attention. Sometimes it’s a bit more. I’ve seen a few teachers really smack the kids hard.
I have mixed feelings. I’m sure the educational purists are dead set against it. I’m sure there are other disciplinary measures that work as well or better. But here, it seems to be part of the culture. The kids obviously don’t like it, but they don’t seem traumatized. It seems to be commonly understood that it might happen if you really screw up. After it happens, they’re generally very well-behaved, and even good-natured about it. They don’t seem to hold it against the teacher at all.
As I said, it’s changing rapidly. The younger teachers don’t do it, and the kids know that it isn’t really accepted. If I had to venture a prediction, I’d say that this will completely disappear in the next 10 years.
Things really aren’t that different.
All-in-all, I’ve been more impressed by the similarities than the differences. Boys are boys, no matter where you go, and teachers seem to have a similar outlook. There’s the same sense of community (maybe commiseration) in the teacher’s lounge. Just like teachers back home, there’s always food being shared.
The more places I go, the more they all look the same.
A bunch of hiking pictures
I’ve been lazy about uploading pictures lately. Today I don’t have to teach elementary, so here is a big batch of hiking pictures.
The first gallery is from our first real hiking trip. We went to Seoraksan National Park with Ben (a Canadian English teacher) and Mihyun (his girlfriend, also an English teacher). We hiked to Ulsanbawi, a rock formation in the park. When I say hiking, I mostly mean stair climbing. The heavily-traveled trails are pretty tame, for the most part. Certainly strenuous, but not technically difficult.
The giant buddha is a bronze statue near the entrance of the park. The other statues are at a shrine on the beach that we visited on our way home.
These pictures were taken from a hill near our apartment. It’s wooded and there are some trails going up it. It was a hazy day, so you’re not necessarily looking at smog. The city is a bit smoggy, but I think it’s usually a mix of exhaust and smog. It’s not the prettiest city I’ve ever seen, but also not the ugliest. (This is an unattractive angle, however.)
These pictures were taken on our second trip to Seoraksan Nat’l Park. Erin and I went alone, and it was insanely busy. We should have known better than to visit a popular park on a holiday weekend. We hiked a an easy trail up to a cave in the mountains. It was a beautiful walk.
These pictures are from last Sunday. We went to a small mountain near Yongpyeong Ski Resort with Ben, Mihyun, and another teacher. It was a gorgeous walk, but we got a late start and the trail was a lot longer than we anticipated. We turned back about halfway up. I didn’t take many pictures, but the changing leaves are gorgeous. Korea is pretty if you can get out of the cities.
More writing to follow soon…
