These are some of my students doing the standing long jump during their fitness testing about a week ago. This day was similar to the once-a-year physical fitness testing at American schools. They were tested in sprinting, standing long jump, push-ups, sit-ups, and maybe a couple of other things.
In addition to a uniform, students wear sandals in the building. They show up in tennis shoes (Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars are still popular here) and change into sandals when they come inside. Occasionally students will walk around my classroom in socks. In theory I guess the floors should be cleaner since the shoes they wear inside don't get worn outside. Even the teachers, myself included, have indoor and outdoor shoes. I leave my dressy sandals at school so that I can show up in tennis shoes and change to my "indoor shoes" when I arrive. I was told of my mistake on day one when my outdoor and indoor pair were one and the same. Oops.
Because of the prevalence of uniforms, it didn't take long to realize that there are students everywhere! One night I ate dinner in Pyeongtaek w/ the other English teachers from my school (all Korean), so I didn't leave the city until 7 p.m. Even then, hours after school had ended, students were still in their uniforms. I'm not sure if these were students who attend the special evening academies for English, or if students are comfortable enough in their uniforms that they don't change out of them after school. Either way it's bizarre to realize how many students are in the city since they're so easily recognizable. If you walk down any city street in America you can try to guess who the students are based on age, but I don't remember ever feeling surrounded by students like I do here.
I also find it strange that the students don't bring things with them from class to class, or at least not to my class. I remember hauling textbooks, notebooks, calculators, pens/pencils, etc. from class to class. Un-needed items for any given period got stored in a locker, but I always had something with me. I have yet to see a single student with a backpack during the day and there are no lockers that I've seen. I've taught for four weeks now and still have students showing up to class without so much as a single piece of paper or a pen or pencil. They have English notebooks that they've been told to bring to every class, but many still don't. It makes it difficult when half the class has nothing to write on or with. That first week I had to make sure I had plenty of scrap paper with me for every class and even now I try to keep some around.
One last thing, I have to mention lunch. I walk past the kitchen each morning when I arrive and they're already getting everything going for lunch. They're often unloading or starting to prepare huge amounts of vegetables and rice by the time I arrive. I try not to think about the quantities and types of meat they're also preparing. The hallway outside the kitchen is lined on both sides with a bunch of metal carts on wheels. There isn't a school cafeteria so the metal carts are used to wheel big pots of rice, soup, kimchi and whatever else is made that day through the first floor hallways to the classrooms. The carts stay out in the halls where the students line up to put their food on metal trays with indentations for each course. Then they eat in the classrooms. The teachers eat in a small classroom next to the kitchen, also on metal trays. After being told I'd put the wrong foods in the wrong spots in the tray on my first two days, I now know where each item is supposed to go and haven't made those mistakes again. Who would have thought rice should be on the bottom left, soup on the bottom right, and the kimchi and other sides in the three smaller indentations at the top? Not me, I was just hungry.
No comments:
Post a Comment