Lack of Co-Ed Classrooms and Schools in Korea

Every day at 8 AM I have an early morning conversation class with groups of about 10 middle school students.  Today with my 3rd year students I had a discussion about how high school in Korea is different from the US.

One of the questions I asked the students was whether they would prefer to have separate boy and girl classes or boy and girl schools like in Korea or have all co-ed classes and schools like in the US.  I asked this question to both the 2nd year and 3rd year classes, which were a mix of boys and girls though they sat on separate sides of the room.  Though I did have a couple 3rd year boys that said they would prefer co-ed, in general the students preferred having separate classes and schools.  I noticed that the girls especially preferred the classes to be separate.

When I asked the girls why I received responses such as: I feel more comfortable, boys cause too many disruptions, boys cause too much trouble, etc.

Based on how I have noticed the girls act in classes where there are mixed genders, I do feel that this is the case: The girls here don't feel comfortable with boys in the room.  I have never see them interact with each other even if it is a co-ed class.  I've also noticed that in these classes the boys do more talking and feel more comfortable, but the girls are quiet.  It seems that only when the boys are gone that I can REALLY get them talking with me.  I often feel like I have to pull answers out of them to answer because it is almost like they are embarrassed to talk when the boys are in the room with them.

It is quite a bit of a culture difference from the environment where I was brought up in the US, where it is normal to have guy-girl friendships and to sit next to and interact with each other in class.

Korea's School System: Part 2 - Elementary School

Though I haven't taught in an official Korean "Public Elementary School", I do have the experience of teaching at a Hagwon at this level so I do have an idea as to how the students are treated and taught at this level compared to in the US based on my experience and associating with some fellow foreigner friends.  However, I will say before I get started that I'm sure there are variables that I may miss because I haven't taught or been in a true public elementary school.

The initial culture shock to most foreigners coming to Korea to teach at an elementary level is the lack of structure.  You walk into school that first day and you're told to take off your shoes at the door and put on slippers.  You think "Okay, I heard about this before coming here" so you were expecting this.  Then you find your desk and start to prepare and look at your schedule and you have kids coming in the room to just "hang out" with you.  They come in your room to ask you what you're doing, they ask you what you will be doing in class today, they sit on your lap, they want to play "rock, paper, scissors", they play games with each other, they give you candy... they basically do whatever they wish in the teacher's office.  Coincidentally, the only time that they may NOT do this is if the foreign teacher watches the door and tells them "Go to playroom!"  To someone from a western culture, this is absurd -- why on earth would anyone let little kids come into the teacher's office when they're supposed to be preparing for class?  The Koreans think of nothing wrong with this... as they are just being kids and they are letting them.

With private institutions, the way the classes are organized exactly depends on the school.  I know at Hagwon's and the private kindergarten and preschools, students move between classes.  From my experience at these schools, they go to class with one teacher, may  have a 10-15 minute break to run around the school and then the bell will ring again and they go to start their next class.  Some Hagwon's are a bit different here where you have one teacher that has the same kids all day, so it depends on the school.  

As far as public schools, the students have one Korean teacher all day but for English and Art they have the English and art teacher come into their classroom every day for these subjects.

The one thing that really stood out to me working with younger kids in Hagwons is that they never stand in lines.  This MIGHT be different in public schools, but seeing how the culture functions it doesn't seem to be something that they do in schools (if they do, someone else can certainly clarify for me).  I've never seen any teachers instruct students to "stand in single file line and walk down the hall".

Teachers Meetings

I've noticed a bit of a trend with public school teachers meetings in Korea: They always have food and they commonly have drinks.  The food includes types like rice cakes, meat, fish, kimchi, fruits, and perhaps even some kimbop.  What I find amusing, however, is that though you may have some orange juice to drink, they do also have makkoli (rice wine).  Imagine bringing in bottles of Riesling or some other wine to a teachers meeting in the United States -- it would certainly be looked down upon in the conservative nature of American schools.

This is not to say that Korean schools are still not conservative in their own way (because in some regards they are seen as, perhaps, more conservative than schools in the US) but this is one example of something that is seen as perfectly fine in Korea but would never be thought of in the states.

No "Lunch Duty"

It took me nearly 3 weeks of working at a Public Middle School to notice this: There is no lunch duty for teachers.  In fact, what is interesting is that the teachers eat in the cafeteria WITH the students in their own little designated corner.  Nobody watches the students or tells them what to do -- they know what to do and they just do it.  The teachers go about eating their lunch and the students go about eating theirs.  Nobody ever yells to "be quiet" or when to go in line to go back -- the students go up to get lunch completely on their own and then leave when finished so they are back in class.  There is no structure to it whatsoever... everybody just simply eats lunch in peace.  There's no stress or obstacle in it: You just eat lunch.

In fact, in hindsight, I do recall now asking some Korean students once if they ever participated in a "food fight" their quick reaction was "Gosh, I would never even think of doing that".

I suppose that after being here this long I really didn't think much of it because it's typical Korean way of doing things to have little to no structure.  The teachers don't have any "duty" of any sort (lunch, bus, after school, etc.) -- they just teach.  Heck, I don't even think my school has a master schedule yet as far as class times go and it's 3 weeks into the school year.  Everybody just goes with the flow of what schedule they are told for that week.

Korean Reasoning

One of the puzzling things of living in Korea is their ways of reasoning (or, as it may be perhaps seen by a westerner as, lack thereof).  Even after living here for 6 months it never fails to amaze me some days when going about the simplest tasks sometimes.

I will share a few stories to give an idea as to what I mean by this:

- This first story is one of my first episodes of coming to this realization.  This took place last fall when I was with a friend and we decided to walk through some ancient tombs.  Naturally, these grounds required a small pay for admittance.  Luckily my friend was pretty fluent in Korean so communication wasn't a barrier.  However, for some reason that day the man didn't have any change and had to go find some (the cost was only like 1,000 KRW each or something very small).  Instead of having us wait until he ran over to grab some change, he just let us in and told us to pay when we got back.  Of course, my friend and I are thinking to ourselves "1.  Why would you not have change and 2. We could easily just walk in and then leave without paying, so why are you letting us in now."  It worked out fine nonetheless.

These next two are two experiences that I've had on my own recently when shopping.

- I was out shopping with one of my co-teachers upon my arrival at my new apartment and I decided that I better buy a few bath towels.  We found the bath towel section and there was a special sale price if you bought 3 of the larger towels.  Naturally, I grab 3 different colors: pink, green, and blue.  My co-teacher responds in saying "Oh I don't think you can get the discount that way.  You have to get three of the same color."  I'm puzzled with this issue because, regardless of color, all are on sale and all they would have to do on the check out is to scan the same one three times if the computer programming was an issue.  My co-teacher found a worker to clarify and he said that I had to buy all of the same color because the computer wouldn't recognize the discount with three different colors.  Needless to say, I just left it at that and disregarded the discount.

- For this last one I was shopping at the local E-mart to buy some weekly groceries.  I was picking up a few things in the produce section and I grabbed a yellow bell pepper.  They weren't pre-packaged, but I found a plastic bag and it put it in there in my traditional western-culture way.  I'm thinking in my head that they have a chart with codes for all the produce as they do in any western culture grocery store to ring up the item.  However, I get to the check out and the Korean lady at the check out asks me (in Korean) where the sticker is.  I'm puzzled and a bit confused as to where I was even supposed to find a sticker to place on this pepper.  "Why was it not on there to begin with?  Why didn't they just pre-package it with the sticker on their to begin with?  Why would they be expecting the customer to wander around and find a sticker to place on their produce item?" I'm thinking to myself.  Needless to say, they had a lady in customer support run back to get a sticker for me so I could buy my bell pepper.

So there's just a few examples of how the reasoning of Koreans may seem a bit "backwards" to someone of a western culture perspective.  This is not to say that either way of reasoning is either right or wrong, but rather a point in the difference between the two.

Eating live octopus

It was just your typical Friday afternoon: I was done with my classes for the day and just had little bits of prep to do for next week's classes.  Today some of the students had brought in some food to the teachers' office for us to eat.  I immediately saw the classic rice cakes and some raw fish (similar to the sushi that you get at a Japanese restaurant).  "Most all of what I've already seen" I think to myself.. and then I look a little closer at that dish of squid and realize that it is definitely moving: Live octopus!

I was offered several times, but needless to say I politely declined and said I'll stick with the tasty rice cakes and orange juice. :-)

One of my English Korean co-teachers clarified for me that you do have to be sure to chew it very well when you eat it because you can choke on it, as the suckers may stick to your throat otherwise.  The thought of this alone was enough to turn me away -- but at least now I can say that I've seen it!!

Korea's "American Idol"

During my day I happened to get a sneak peak of a show that looked awfully familiar to a popular American reality show. You guessed it: Korea has their own version of American Idol as well. Their show is called "K-Pop Star" and they also have three judges. I must say -- even though I don't know enough Korean to know what they were saying, one of the judges did seem critical enough to pull off being considered as the Korean version of Simon.