Week one down

I have survived my first week of teaching! It has been an intense, long, rewarding, exhausting week.

So, here's the deal with my school. It's called Daegu Foreign Language High School, and it's a small boarding public school for the smartest of the smart kids; we actually have one of the top high school students in the country attending the school. There are three grades at the school--first, second, and third (sophomore, junior and senior, sort of)-- and six classes per grade composed of about 30 kids each. I teach first and second grades. I see each class once a week for English conversation classes, and I see the second graders a second time for an English literature class. In addition, I'm teaching a gifted literature class (which includes Miss Smartest of the Nation Smartpants) once a week for 90 minutes. I teach 3-4 classes a day, and have the rest of my time for planning.

For my conversation classes, the 30 kids are split between me and two other native (as in, Native English Speakers) teachers, so I have ten kids in these classes. For the English Literature class, I have a co-teacher--Ms. Park. We just started reading Island of the Blue Dolphins! I almost cried for joy when she told me she wanted to teach this book--it's like I'm reliving my childhood...well, the good parts. And for the gifted class, we're doing Lord of the Flies as I mentioned in my previous post.

So, those are the logistics.

The schedule these kids have is insane. They are up around 6am and are not allowed to return to their dorms until 11pm. They are required to attend classes until 10pm (in the case of the gifted students) and/or study in their classrooms until 11pm. After they did all their introductions to me and Shaun (one of the other native teachers), we noticed that one of their main hobbies they mentioned is sleeping. I don't know how they function on so little sleep, or how they focus for that many hours a day. It's such a difference from how Americans (or maybe all "Westerners"....don't know) treat their teenagers; I've heard so many times how much teenagers need their sleep, and not just 8 hours, but lots more because they're growing, etc.

There is a reason Korea has risen in prominence on the world stage as quickly as it has. Korean people, so far as I can tell, sleep very little, and they demand an incredible amount from themselves. The teachers at my school work 6 days a week, sometimes 16 hours a day. They have constant teacher improvement seminars and training that takes them to other cities; this training can go until midnight. And on top of all this, Koreans still seem to party fairly hard. One of the teachers I work with told me she had teacher training until midnight, after a full day at school, and then went out for drinks until 2am, and then came into school the next day. The work ethic amazes me. For the the native teachers, however, they are much more accommodating. They give us our full weekends, and our days are 8 hours long. I'm glad for that, of course, but I wonder how we are perceived because of our less rigorous schedule. Do they think we're lazy, coddled, lucky? It's strange.

We were told that some Korean teachers dislike the foreign teachers because we make just about as much money as they do and because being a teacher in Korea is a difficult job to get, and here come all of us to teach fewer hours with less demands. Not to mention the fact that many of us (me included) have no experience teaching and/or are straight out of college and have no concept of a work environment (me not included). I would be pissed too. These are the things I think about as I try to navigate my way through the hierarchies and the politics and the general school etiquette.

That aside, this school is amazing. I am really lucky to have been placed here. Every teacher that I have come in contact with (including the Principal and VP) are warm, caring, interested, and unbelievably helpful. There are a few teachers in particular who have gone out of their way to make our transition to Korea as easy as possible. Any question I have had, they have answered within minutes. It's incredible. And as for the work, we are given free reign to create assignments, projects, and lesson plans for our students. We are trusted to do a good job. We are trusted to be proactive. We are trusted to be engaged. In short, we are trusted. This is a great feeling.

There are definitely some frustrating things too and some culture/cultural clashes, but those I shall save for another post. This one hath runneth over...