Education

Irony knows no bounds.

When I was growing up, I hated reading with a passion. Mom spent hours trying to get me to read. Bribing me shamelessly in an endeavor to get me reading. I went to summer school for many years just for reading. The concept that letters represent sounds was not one I grasped easily nor quickly. Now, I spend my days slowly sounding out words to children. Teaching them a is for apple. Trying to get them to grasp the concept that all words need at least one vowel. I assign sections of books to students who tell me they don't like novels. But instead of teaching one child I teach at least a hundred students. God, I must have been a pain in the posterior. Well, karma's a *itch(see Mom I didn't swear). Actually, I really like it. I may have come here to learn about Korea but it's definitely the kids that make it worth while.

Random bits:
"Thank you for teaching our spoilt child." This is a comment from a parent on a report card.

"Women's life is too hard. I think I'm a housewife, and I write this. Today I did household chores at home all day long. After I prepared breakfast and washed dishes, I did the laundry using a washing machine and hung the wash out on a clothesline my waist is painful. And then I prepared lunch. I had bread for lunch because my family went out. I felt comfortable because preparing lunch was easy. I read a book for a short time, and then it was time to prepare supper. I washed rice and make kimchee soup. My family came back home one after another, and we had dinner all together I washed dishes and cleaned each room. It was a very hard day. It seems that women's housechores are hardest in the world. Especially housewives live harder life than any other women from this point of view, studying is a very easy part. If I were a housewife, I would do housechores repeatedly." - diary entry

This is an interesting entry from one of my thirteen year old students. Women's roles are starting to shift in Korea. This is a very traditional view of how women/wife should be. One fo the first questions I get, even from my young students, is "Do you have a boyfriend?" or "Are you married?" One of my co-teachers is twenty seven in American age, but about to turn thirty in Korean age this Chinese New Year. There is a lot of pressure for her to get married. So much her family has even resorted to matchmaking services. You are supposed to be married by the time your thirty, and you aren't supposed to get married when your twenty-nine because it's bad luck. Once you are married and have children you aren't really supposed to work. Economics has changed that and many of my co-teacher work, but their children are older. It used to be that when you had a child you lost your name. You became your eldest child's mother. "Lee's Mother." Some children would not even know their mother's name. This too is beginning to change. Education is very important in Korea, it defines everything from what jobs you can get to who you marry. Education is a mothers' responsibility. One of my co-teachers told me she had high aspersions for her son. Most kids here don't have one after school activity, they have several. As a kid if they know an instrument and they will list at least one)(and it's usually piano). Some of them also have extra lessons in math or reading on top of public school. We loose older students every month to cram schools, which will prepare them to get into the right high school and eventually the right college(the best college). Today, seniors across the country sat for their college entrance exams, while their mothers stood outside on the brisk fall day praying for their child to do well. No, not to do well to be excellent, the best, perfect. The perfect wife, the perfect child. Perfect Korea.