My Dizzy Rascals

It's Sunday night, and another Monday is looming. Actually, I rather like teaching my little rascals. As a substitute teacher once said, '95% of those kids are diamonds'...(I choose to ignore the other 5%) and so I generally feel pretty lucky as a teacher. Teaching little 'uns between 6-12 years old, start classes at 3:30pm, finish at 8:30....it's a pretty fun and easy ride.

But my kids don't have an easy ride. When I was between 6-12 years old I'd be home, strapped into my rollerboots and doing circuits of the garden by 3:30pm.....not just arriving at my second school for another dose of classes. I'm sure that a huge proportion of my young life was spent running around the streets with my school buddies, playing british bulldog, watching byker grove and sleeping. But here in Korea, freetime is a rarity and studying is a very different story.

As in England, all South Korean children attend school during the day (public school). They also have school every alternate Saturday. But after school, instead of having the evening to spend frivolously with friends, the children rush to their second school......'hagwans'...or academies. Academies can be in any subject - maths, science, English, and just like public school, have homework, tests and report cards. During the public school holidays, us hagwans are nice enough to provide extra classes to fill in the study gap. Many students have 2 or 3 hagwans, and so literally run from one to the other until 9 or 10pm. And these are just the elementary school children. High school children stay at school until past midnight.

Crikey malikey I hear you cry! Well.....yes. When I first started teaching, I used to tell my kids that in England, we don't go to school on Saturday, and school fnishes at 3:30pm. But watching their little weary faces made me feel so bad, I prefer the 'ignorance is bliss' stance now. In credit to Korea, it does hold the highest literacy rates in South Asia, and one of the highest literacy rates in the world (also the highest suicide rate in the developed world......coincidence?)....but I wonder how much a child can mentally absorb after 8 hours studying.

The vicious circle is that any child who doesn't attend an academy is inevitably disadvantaged to those who do - forcing parents to work more to pay for more academies and repeating the cycle. Parents work such long hours in Korea that there is an ageing population - they are not having enough babies to provide for the older generation in the future. The Government tried to tackle this problem by sending home workers an hour early on a Wednesday, 8pm instead of 9, so they could procreate. Maybe the Government realised this wasn't working when everyone was going home and sleeping instead.

Anyway.... back to my little rascals. Every teacher has different teaching methods for their kids, but seeing as our kids are forced into an work-a-holic lifestyle at a tender age, I always try and make my classes as fun as possible. So long as they are effectively practicing their English, I am happy to make movies, throw balls, speed through tongue-twisters, have writing relay races and play games (even if I am overly competitive and have to win, even if my opponent is 6 years old and we are playing snap).....after-all, motivation is the single highest factor in determining a students success.

So they might be tired, they may be little rascals, but they are my little rascals and I wouldn't swap them for any others. Let's hope that in the future, Korea gives them a break and realises that being young is for having fun.....not studying until you're dizzy. I want little rascals not dizzy rascals! ;-)