A Day in the Life of a Korean Student

I realize by now, after scanning the titles of my last 20 or so blog posts, that I have completely neglected to talk about the one thing that brought me to this country in the first place. The thing is, I haven’t actually “forgotten” to talk about it…whenever I write these blogs, I always feel like I probably should talk about my job more, but my fingers tend to operate according to their own agenda. The problem is that I find the topic of “work” to be a boring one both to read about and to write about. Additionally, it’s such a massive topic that could be taken in so many different directions that it feels almost too overwhelming to write about. Nevertheless, I think that some things about school are worth mentioning…

And now that I’ve invited you in the last paragraph to take an inside look at my always complicated thought process, I’m going to tell you about the life of Korean youth, for it is an active and demanding one. Depending mostly upon the socioeconomic status of a child’s parents, children in Korea will not go home at the end of the school day and play Nintendo until midnight. If their parents can afford it, they will send their kids to as many academies as can be fit into their already busy schedules. An “academy” in Korea is essentially a private school that teaches kids a particular skill for a few hours each week. There are math academies, piano academies, science academies, Korean academies, basketball academies, and, of course, English academies. Korean parents don’t send their kids to 2 or 3 different academies a week because they hate their kids; they do it because they (a) want their kids to be exceptionally intelligent, and (b) want to boast to other parents about the exceptional intelligence of their kids. So by the time I get ahold of a kid at 9:30 P.M. (when my last class begins), he or she may have been going to school almost nonstop for 13 hours.

As if the ceaseless schooling isn’t taxing enough, kids also have to do vast quantities of homework for both public school and academies. I can’t say with certainty how much homework they have to complete for the other schools they go to, but at MoonKkang English Academy, it is no small amount. If they consistently fail to complete their homework or fail one of the tests that are given to them each week, they will get a jaeshi, essentially Korean detention. Jaeshi ranks #1 amongst the fears of all MoonKkang students, and it is the exclusive motivator that makes students do their English homework, for if they get a jaeshi, they will have to stay at MoonKkang redoing their homework or test for no less than an hour after class ends. As you can imagine, this is not a pleasant experience for them, and the mere mention of the word “jaeshi” often elicits a wide-mouthed and panicked gasp. “Teacher!” they plead, “No jaeshi! My mom is crazy. She will kill me!” As a teacher, I am at liberty to give students jaeshi for a number of offenses. However, bearing their arduous schedules in mind, I find myself often sympathizing with a lot of students, perhaps more than I should. It takes some serious naughtiness for me to inflict another hour of school upon an overexerted 12-year-old. There are, after all, less cruel methods of disciplining children.


Artwork from the most exuberant child I have encountered in my life...

Oh, by the way, have I mentioned that Korean kids also go to public school on Saturdays?