Test Day

Today was an interesting day at our school, because we got to see how seriously Korea takes their testing.  Our school is a private elementary school; there are also a middle school and high school in different buildings on campus.  Since we teach in the elementary school, we never interact with the older students.  However, today when we showed up at school there was a large group of young people standing outside the high school with signs, shouting at cars as they drove up to drop off students.  Bradley and I assumed they were protesting something, but we didn't really know because everything was of course in Korean.  When I got to my first class of the day, I asked the students if they knew why there were people yelling outside of the school.  They said that "it is for the test, they are cheering."  We later learned from the Korean teachers that the high school seniors were taking an examination, along with ALL the other high school students across the nation, to qualify them for university.  Depending on their scores, they can either go to a high ranking university or an average one.  They test from 9 to 5 (!!!!!!), with an average of an hour and a half per subject (way harder than the SAT!).  The teachers also told us that all elementary students were asked to come in 10 minutes later today, so that their parent's cars would not cause traffic and make the high school students late. In addition, it turned out that rather than protesters, all of the people outside the high school were parents, siblings, and middle school students who were simply cheering the high school students as they arrived for their big test.
The importance of this test was also shown later in the day, when we went to lunch.  In order to get to the cafeteria, you have to exit the side of the school and cross a common courtyard.  As the students exited the courtyard, the vice principal stood at the exit with a finger to her lips, indicating that the students should walk silently across the courtyard so the sound wouldn't carry to the high school and disturb the test takers.  We also learned that today, planes are not allowed in the air at specific times when the students are taking the listening parts of the test.  As we left school for the day, there were a few dozen parents waiting outside the high school, waiting to cheer their children as they exited the school.  It was kind of awesome to see how supportive they were of their students, but at the same time, also demonstrates how much pressure there is here on the students.  One of the Korean teachers told me, "The students have been preparing for this day for 12 years," meaning their entire education leads to this day.
It has certainly been a learning experience seeing the amount of pressure these kids are under, and comparing the Korean education system the the U.S.  First, students go to regular school from 8:30 to about 3:30 or 4.  Then, the majority of students (in the country, not just our school) go to a private academy after school for several hours to learn more about a variety of subjects.  Most of my students do not get home until 8 or 9 at night.  They then have to study or do homework from both their school and academy, and many students don't go to bed until midnight.  In addition, many students go to academy for at least a couple hours on Saturday and Sunday.  It is really astonishing how much these students have to do, and how little time they have to just be kids and relax.
The reality of the stress the students are under was emphasized today while I was grading English diaries.  The students write in these once a week, and Bradley and I check them.  I really enjoy doing this; I think it is a fun way to get to know the students better. Today, however, I had one entry where the student talked about being hit by a stick on his hands 5 times at academy because he hadn't finished his math homework (corporal punishment is allowed here, and happens more commonly in academy.  I haven't really seen it at my school, except for when a teacher grabbed a student by the ear and led him out the door).  I had another diary entry where the student talked about how she got A's on all three of her tests she took last week, but she had only gotten scores of 95 out of 100, and both she and her parents said she should have done better.  These students have so much stress, and this leads to mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.  Mental illness is highly stigmatized in Korean culture, and few seek treatment.  This in turn leads to the extremely high suicide rates here, particularly among young people.
Knowing all of this really makes me feel so much more patient with the students, and I try much harder to make my classes more fun, so they will be learning in a more relaxed atmosphere when they are with me.  I tell them they are smart, and I write back to them in their English journals and tell them that they are amazing.  When I see a student nodding off in class, I just let them be, because I know that more than likely they were up very late the night before.
While there is a lot of pressure on the students, their self-motivation seriously impresses me.  The students here are more able to get to work on an assignment without me having to constantly keep them on task.  Last week for Halloween I brought in crosswords for fun, and when I passed them out it was absolutely silent.  They work so hard, even when they are doing a fun assignment!  When I was a substitute in America, the students would be talking and chatting the whole time they did a crossword.  The students here have such drive to do well and they aren't afraid of studying hard.  I am simply in awe of them sometimes.
While I think that the students in the U.S. could benefit from pushing themselves a bit harder, there comes a point when it is too much.  There is a balance that must be achieved in order for students to reach their potential, and not be pushed to the breaking point.  Being here and comparing the ways these two countries educate their children has really been a learning experience (pun intended, haha).

Hooray for midterms!

So, I know I have gotten behind on the posts.  Lucky for us today we had midterms, which means that while the students were taking their tests, we got to sit in our office and relax all day, and get paid!  So I took the time to write four new posts.  Hope you enjoy them!!

Jinju lantern festival

We took a weekend trip to another city about two hours away, called Jinju.  We went to see the Lantern festival there.  Jinju is a city along a river with a large fortress from the 1500s, which was invaded by Japanese in that century.  The first time the Japanese invaded, the Koreans were able to hold them off by putting hundreds of lanterns on boats and tricking the Japanese into thinking that there was a larger Korean army than there really was.  However, a year later, the Japanese returned with thousands of more soldiers and ended up massacring thousands of Koreans and occupying the city.  So, every year Jinju has a lantern festival to remember both battles.  There are hundreds of lanterns that are modeled after all kinds of animals, famous people, and characters from movies or books.  There are lanterns depicting everyday Koreans during the 1500s, and there are lanterns of soldiers and fortresses.  It was really amazing!!!

We got to write wishes on lanterns which we later lit and had them float down the river . . .

My wish

Haha!

Us with our wishes on the river

There they go!

All kinds of lanterns, this one is a fortress you can walk through!

The building and walls on the top of the hill is the Jinju fortress

There were temporary bridges you could walk across to get closer to the lanterns

View from the fortress

Unfortunately, I don't think our wishes will come true, as they bagged them and threw them away at the end of the night!  

Even the trash cans were turned into lanterns!

Gwangju Recollection Festival

So, there are a lot of festivals in Korea. This one we came upon by accident, the Gwangju Recollection Festival.  This festival was held in our city and is supposed to be a day where they celebrate democracy and remember the activism that occurred in our city in the 70s and 80s.  We were headed downtown on a Tuesday night because that  is where our Korean class is held, but when we arrived there was a parade, and a very busy street had been blocked off for performers and lots of booths were set up with food and carnival games.  This festival went on for a couple days.

The huge stage

A very busy street downtown that was blocked off for the festival

Our friends Lizzy and Mitchell

Lots of people enjoying themselves . . .and this was a Tuesday night!

Some performers, yes, in Native American costume!

Food Vendors

A tunnel for people to write memories of activism 

Some of the side streets decorated for the festival

Mudeungsan Hike

Hi everyone, this is Carrie.  We have been busy!  Last weekend we had quite an adventure.  Our city, Gwangju, is very close to a mountain, Mudeungsan.  We have hiked on trails there before, but last weekend we had our longest and most difficult hike yet!  We decided to meet up with some other foreign teachers at 3 AM to hike to the summit of the mountain, in order to see the sunrise.  We were nervous at first for several reasons: one, the buses aren't running at that time, so we would have to call a cab and request one in Korean!  Also, previous experience told us that this wouldn't be easy, and we would be hiking in the dark.  However, we decided that it would be worth it, and we were right!  We left our apartment around 2:30 AM, (after I had taken some Nyquil and zonked out at 8 the evening before), and before we even took out our phones to call, we found a cab that just happened to be driving down our street (sweet!!!) So we headed over to the base of the mountain to meet our friends (14 other teachers came).  We had heavy clothes on, (it is getting cold here! And was even colder at the top) lots of water, and flashlights.  The hike took us about 3 hours to get to the top.  Along the way, it was so dark and the stars were gorgeous.  We stopped and rested  at several points, and at about 4 in the morning we heard the sounds of a Buddhist monk somewhere in the forest, hitting an instrument I have seen them use often, though I don't know the name.  It is wooden and hollow, and it is hit with a small wooden mallet.  The trail is near a Buddhist temple, and the sound carried across the mountain and valley.  It was so beautiful and haunting to hear in the dark of the night.  Our whole group sat in silence and listened for several minutes.  We continued on, with Bradley and myself in the rear. :) When we finally reached the top, Bradley and I were exhausted and tired, but it was SO worth it.  We got some beautiful pictures and we both felt so proud that we had made it.  It was definitely a memory I won't forget!!!

Waiting for the rest of the group to arrive; it's 3 am but we are ready!!

Some city lights far below and darkness all around

It is starting to get lighter as we reach the top

70 million year old rock formations towards the top of the mountain!

Beautiful!!!

Here comes the sun!!

It looks like an ocean below us but we are above the clouds.

Some of our group

We made it!

A bit higher in the sky . . 

Below us, the city of Gwangju, but a little hard to see through the morning haze.  The tall buildings are apartment complexes.

The rock formations in the daylight

Heading back down

Bradley's fancy color setting on the camera, highlighting only reds and yellows

What an amazing day!!!!