One of the main focuses of our trip to South Korea has been learning about the education system. My knowledge of Korean education pretty much only came from what I had seen on movies and TV shows, which obviously didn’t show the ins and outs of a school. My preconceived notions were that it is very intense, grueling and competitive. Although I still think that may be the case in some schools in Korea, I would say that is very different from what we saw in our school visits. Though there were many differences that stood out, I was surprised to see some similarities within the classrooms here and my own classroom!
One of the first things that stood out to me were the cafeterias. In all of the school cafeterias we saw, food was being freshly made from scratch. There was no overly processed food to be seen! Foods ranged from homemade kimchi, fresh meat and noodles. You could tell that schools really care about feeding their students healthy and homemade meals that not only nourish their bodies, but prepare them for learning.
At one school visit, I was able to sit inside a classroom for some time and observe. This was a 6th grade science class and they were playing a review game that is basically the Korean version of a game we play in the US! It was amazing to see the similarities between the students and the teacher and my own classroom. It was like I could have been watching my own class! At one point, the teacher had accidentally put the wrong answer choice as correct and the students all got it wrong. It was great to see the teacher laugh it off and apologize to the students, something that I have done many times as a teacher. This particular school also stood out to me because their beginning presentation said, “Everyday happy”. Their mission was to make students happy and smile every day!