Small school visit outside of Chuncheon, UNL Fulbright-Hays participants with principal and vice principal of the Korean small school.
The day we visited the small school outside of Chuncheon I was taken back to my primary school days in the rural country school, where there was more to school than reading, writing, and arithmetic. At this Korean primary school, you could feel the sense of community; the local school meeting the local educational needs of the community. The teachers and administration care deeply about their students here and their role in the small local community. Focus is on the student and providing each student with solid learning base enhanced with extra curricular activities after school, so as to focus on the whole child not one aspect of learning and development.
The school is eco-friendly and has a feeling of safety and security while maintains a consistent level of respect for the environment as well as the teachers and administration. When I attended rural school, it was a two story building in the country and the local families for generations would send their children here to learn before going on to high school. My rural school was K-8th grade, and the first four years I was a student there grades K-8 were all in the one room on the top floor. Then, when new families moved into the district another teacher was hired and K-3rd grade was is the basement and 4th-8th grade were in the upper room to keep teacher to student ratio lower. The concern of individualized instruction was also evident in the small schools 1:10-12, 1 teacher to 10-12 students. The lower teacher to student ration allows the teacher and students to focus on individual instruction when necessary. The respect and decorum of the students demonstrated the value they placed on the teacher and their learning. Class time was learning time, focus on the task or objective and recess or break time was play time.
Besides playtime, similar to my rural school days (2 recesses and 1 after you finished the lunch your mom made you) students also have the opportunity to explore their talents and skills with the extracurricular after school activities that are offered. There are three different activities in which to enroll for every day of the school week. So, a student could enroll in one for each school day and expand their development with these activities and learn with a more hands on approach which affords the children to explore their own likes and abilities, while maintaining a level of respect for not only others but also themselves.
There was a core goal of providing nutritious meals to students to aid them in their development physically, mentally, and emotionally. The school cooked daily meal for students to maintain healthy eating habits and to spend time socializing with other students. Healthy food also plays a factor in the classroom according to the teachers and administration, they see natural food as a way for a student to feel better about their self and helpful with cognitive and learning brain functions. Lunch time at my rural school was all of us with our teacher enjoying the homemade lunches we brought in our lunch pails and the conversation we’d all have together, teacher and students K-8th grade. After eating, we then had recess time and relaxed so our brains would have a break and be ready for the afternoon lessons.
Parental involvement in the school is somewhat different than in the US now; again, the involvement and attitude of parents about school is more similar to the attitude parents had when I was going to school in the country school. School, teachers and administration, meet with the parents of the small school twice during the school year, once at the beginning (similar to the opening of the school) and again with the student’s home room teacher, principal and vice principal. The school hosts special events for the family such as a family swim day with temporary swimming pool. While in the rural school we would have special events for the holidays of Christmas, school play, school music, and the end of the year school picnic. In the US, there seems to be the trend of more special events that take more time a way from the learning.
I enjoyed this visit tremendously because it brought back the care and learning of my childhood; and, if I am honest with myself, a motivator for me to be “ as a teacher, my love students and learning and sharing all I can with my students, who I view as “my kids” while I have them.
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