수능대박!

It's that time of the year again... the Korean quasi-national holiday when schools close, streets are shut down, police escorts are on the ready, and 650,000 high school students take the college entrance exam that may determine the course of the rest of their lives. The 수능 (sooneung), or Korean SAT, was today, and this whole past week, my fellow teachers on Facebook have posted optimistic notes for their students and photos of various 수능 "celebrations": underclassmen gathering to cheer on their 선배 (seonbae), school cafeterias serving cake at lunch decorated with words of encouragement, and the like.

The phrase that seems to have become this holiday's standard greeting is, "수능대박!" (sooneung taebak) It is short for 수능 대박나세요!", which translates roughly to "Good luck/Succeed on the KSAT!", although "대박" alone can also mean "to hit the jackpot" or, in slang, "awesome".

Only a handful of my science high school students took the 수능 today: one third-year and around seven second-years. Most of them don't bother with the 수능 because they take individual entrance exams for the science universities to which they're applying. In fact, about half of them have already finished the university application process and are currently in the throes of Senioritis. In any case, I ran into one of my third-years before leaving school yesterday and, knowing that she had the fateful nine-hour exam looming ahead of her, cheered her up with a quick, "수능대박!"

So I've mostly missed the fervor that envelops most Korean high schools around this time. However, I haven't been oblivious to the way advertising has taken advantage of 수능 season. Pretty much every bakery in Korea has advertised 떡, Korean rice cakes, which are a traditional gift to test-takers because the stickiness symbolizes information sticking to their brains.

수능대박! Bakeries use the Korean SAT to advertise.

I snapped a photo of this bakery window this morning. The cute handmade poster on the left says: 다양한 합격선물로 마음을 전하세요... 수험생여러분 수능대박 나세요~! Translation: "Say how you feel with various exam-passing gifts... Dear exam-taking students, good luck on the KSAT!"

The glossy professional one on the right says: 힘내라, 힘! 11월 7일 2013 수능시험. Translation: You got this! November 7th, 2013 KSAT. It's sponsored by some association whose name at the bottom I can't decipher, but look: delicious rice cakes for your stressed-out student! Must be a dessert company.

Another, more blatant, advertisement...

 And here's one more. It reads: 젊은 그대! 한산인. D-20 수능막판스퍼트! 행사기간: 2013년 10월 17일 ~ 11월 7일. 지금은 집중력 강화와 컨디션조절이 중요한 때입니다. 한삼인이 수험생 여러분을 응원합니다... 수험생 여러분 수능 대박나세요!!

Translation: You young people! Hansamin (which I think is a brand of red ginseng drink, used as an energy supplement). D-20 (twenty-days before D-Day, the day of the exam) KSAT last-minute spurt! Promotional period: 10/17-11/7/2013. Now is the important time to reinforce your focus and regulate your condition. Hansamin is cheering on exam-taking students.

Then... blah blah blah advertising "A+ red ginseng" as a KSAT gift set, 20% off (is still 100 bucks for a box of thirty), etc. There's also a gift for your mother, to thank her for being the most supportive of (read: tyrannical regarding) your education.

The cheering way-too-old-to-be-a-high-school-student is giving the popular refrain: "Dear exam-taking students, good luck on the KSAT!"

Well, that's that. The 2013 수능 is over and now second-year students all throughout the country are going to begin their year-long prison sentence of studying 24/7 until the 2014 수능. Someone buy these poor stressed-out kids some red ginseng...

Marxism

A few things happened today that would have astounded me when I first began teaching, but after a year and a half of experience with the Korean school system, I hardly batted an eyelash.

First, my schedule changed. This was completely expected; my class schedule is adjusted several times in the beginning of the semester, and then once more towards the end of the year once most of the second-year students have been admitted to various universities. Instead of teaching each of the four second-year homeroom classes once a week, I will be teaching one section of the early-admitted students five times a week. I did the same thing last year, and it was actually quite fun. Being able to see my students every day and to build lessons upon other lessons (the way I was taught English and French in high school) was a positive change that yielded some good results. What's different this time around, though, is that there are more students who have been accepted to university, so although my section is currently about twenty-five students, it's going to continue to grow as more admissions decisions are announced. Eventually, my class will either become too large to hold in a classroom and we will move into the small auditorium, or I will have to take over two sections, which will mean five more classes per week. We'll see how that turns out.

The second thing that happened was unprecedented and slightly unwelcome, but not at all surprising. I was looking forward to teaching the third-years again after the schedule change, but it looks like I won't be doing that. Instead, however, I was informed right after lunch today that the head teacher of the third grade wanted all his students to be administered speaking tests (sort of like a short oral exam) by tomorrow. Again: he wanted all the students to take a speaking test in twenty-four hours. I haven't even been teaching the third-years all semester! What the heck was I supposed to test them on? I argued a bit with the co-teacher who relayed this message to me, protesting that the idea was absolutely ridiculous and that there was no way for me to make this fair for my students. Apparently, though, there was some deadline for grade submissions that the head teacher had to meet (and had probably forgotten about until today), so the tests had to be this week at the latest. I managed to push it back to Thursday -- the day of the 수능, by the way, which a few of my students are taking -- and then threw together an assignment and rubric to guide the students as they prepared for what I hope will be the easiest 3-minute conversation with Andrew ever. I'm so sorry to drop such a load of bricks on my students' heads, especially because I really like my third-years and it's completely unfair to do this to them... but what else can I do?

Lastly, a funny story: every student was called to the auditorium today for a hastily-announced assembly on school violence during fifth and sixth periods. Consequently, my afternoon classes were canceled. I found out, however, that there was an ulterior motive to the assembly. As our vice principal lectured for two hours about nothing, essentially, the homeroom teachers and class captains went through every student's locker and dorm room to look for prohibited items (like snacks, electronic devices, pets, etc.). The second- and third-year students totally saw it coming, but my first-years were in for an unpleasant surprise. My co-teacher confiscated a few granola bars and brought them back to his desk. I thought the whole thing was hilarious, but also just a bit unethical. What about students' rights? I suppose they're waived when they decide to enter a school with a reputation for being like a prison. (I mean that in jest!)

Ah, the vagaries of Korean education. It's funny how lightly I can take all of this when the hyper-task-oriented and inflexibly organized me from one year ago would have taken the collapse of his meticulously-planned curriculum, the delivery of one shiny new pile of extra work, and the flagrant disregard for privacy with utter alarm. On the contrary, teaching here has never ceased to entertain. This is just one of the many reasons why I love my school and my job.

P.S. The title of this post comes from class today, when I played the "Six Degrees of Separation" game with my students. They had to link two random words using semantic associations with other words, like: Roy Kim/music/iPod/Apple/fruit/Jamba Juice, connecting the singer to the smoothie. I challenged my students to come up with the most difficult words they knew, and long story short, one poor student ended up having to connect "Marxism" with "anthocyanin". Those nerds. I love them.

Reading Comprehension

The bells were quiet today because the second-years were taking a national aptitude test of some sort. My co-teacher explained that it was not a practice 수능, or Korean SAT, but something both similar and much, much worse. The reason this test is the bane of many teachers' existences is that students' scores on it affect much more than their personal academic records. The Ministry of Education compiles the scores from every school and crunches the numbers to determine which schools are succeeding and which are falling short of certain standards. This in turn directs the flow of money and other resources to schools.

What's wrong with this? In short, setting stakes on national standardized testing is good in theory but doesn't work well in practice, because not every school is the same. Not every school should even be the same. Even high schools of the same size and in the same city could have very different student demographics, and thus might have different goals for their students. Vocational high schools, for example, should not have their funding dry up because the majority of their students will perform extremely poorly on the English section of a national aptitude test. Rich students in Seoul whose parents have the resources to send them to private academies for extra tutoring are taking the same test as kids from the Korean boonies; which student actually needs more financial support?

My co-teacher also told me gravely that in the past, teachers who have protested the implementation of the national aptitude tests have been unceremoniously fired. It seems as if those who actually understand the complexities of education are not the ones in charge of how it is run, and that is a travesty.

어쨌든... Anyway, I went off on a tangent there. I actually wanted to write a short, goofy post about the 수능 itself and my random involvement.

Some of my co-teachers have an interesting side job: creating practice reading comprehension questions for the English section of the Korean SAT. The passages they write and the questions they come up with are put through a rigorous editing and selection process and end up in yet another SAT prep book for Korean students to read cover-to-cover. During a particularly hectic few weeks, I was asked to help out and write about a half dozen questions of my own. I did so warily at first, not knowing if I would regret what I'd signed up for, but as it turns out, creating the reading passages was tons of fun. I spent an entire Saturday browsing the Internet for great articles and lectures (from TED talks, journals, news sites, and more) and adapting them for the exam. I covered environmentalism, psychology, language, technology, history, and, yes, even education:

"The problem with many educational systems today is that they fail to accurately measure aptitude. We can collect all the raw data we want: hours spent in school, average scores on the college entrance examination, percentage of graduates with a certain degree. Yet to use these statistics as the only benchmark for educational achievement is a misguided notion at best and a serious flaw in the educational system at worst. One need look no further than the ever-increasing numbers of unemployed college graduates listlessly roaming the streets while potential employers wring their hands over the complete lack of skilled workers to hire. This indicates that higher test scores and better degrees don’t always translate to better jobs, better lives, or better societies. Perhaps we should consider testing our students on their ability to use what they have learned from their textbooks in a real-life situation that mimics an actual workplace. That way, we could better understand if they are __________ and ready for the world outside of the classroom." (Adapted from “Use data to build better schools”, by Andreas Schleicher, TEDTalks)

Give that passage a read and then choose the best word from five choices for the tiny blank at the very end. This is what the English section of the Korean SAT is like, and yes, it's pretty brutal. My co-teacher was impressed with the questions that I had come up with. (To think reading comprehension was always my worst section in the aptitude tests I took in high school...) He was also really grateful that I'd lightened his load a bit: he'd had a quota of fifty questions. Whew.

That notwithstanding, I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed creating these test questions. I mean, I would do it again. I think this adequately proves that I am an incorrigible nerd. Among other things, maybe.

개학일 - First Day of School

What's changed?

Everything felt very familiar this morning. The same school, same clear blue skies, same brisk walk to campus. More studio apartments have been built in the empty lots across the street, but that's hardly significant. When I arrived at school today -- back in the chilly halls, back in my cozy office -- it was as if I hadn't even been gone for two months.

근데 모든것은 늘 변해요.

The day began with an 입학식 (matriculation ceremony) for the incoming class of first-years. New students! Over eighty of them! They looked so young and nervous, dressed in the same gowns that they would wear two or three years later for graduation. As they filed into the auditorium, our principal handed each of them a rose. Then, everyone sang Korea's national anthem, and there were various speeches, and I totally zoned out because I still 한국말 잘 못해요.

I snapped back to attention when some of the second-years (they're still first-years in my mind, but I guess that will take some adjusting) got up on stage to perform their own rendition of every Korean high schooler's theme song, Dream High, from the eponymous K-drama Dream High about high schoolers who sing and have tons of drama.
Gosh, it was so endearing! At the very end, SW and SM yell, "New students, welcome!" and "We love you!" Cue warm fuzzy feelings.

Next, some scholarships were handed out, some ceremonial bowing was done between the 선배 and 후배 (upper- and underclassmen), and then all the teachers were introduced, old and new alike. I felt the warm fuzzies again when some of my schools' more beloved teachers were introduced, like the second-year homeroom teacher and some of the physics and math teachers. The way the students cheered and gave 큰 박수 (a big round of applause), you could really tell they respect and like them a lot. I hope that when I leave this school, I'll be cheered for because my students appreciate how I've taught them, and not just because I'm the American oddity. As it were, when I was introduced, I heard mostly, "Oh, 앤드료 선생님 [is back]!" Surprise, kiddos.

After the 입학식, I went back to my office and prepared for classes. This semester, my workload has increased: 4 first-year classes, 4 second-year classes, and 3 third-year classes (hooray! I love my third-years). This, plus one or two classes with the other teachers in the English department and an English class for the Korean teachers if there's enough interest, brings my teaching hours up to fourteen. That's considerably more than last semester, but I'm ready for it. (Mentally, ready, that is. I don't have any lesson plans prepared past this week.)

There was also a 33% increase in the number of English teachers at my school: from three to four. Now that my school is finally at full enrollment (three grade levels), it needed an English teacher for the new third-years. I met him today, but apart from exchanging niceties, I stayed mostly out of his way because he was having a rather troublesome first day of school due to Technical Difficulties; i.e., computers not working, phones missing, and schedules and rosters not being printed out. I've been there, man. This brand-new school is already breaking. I feel for ya. He also has been tasked with the illustrious job of teaching 수능-prep English to our third-years, who are already sick of studying all the time. 참 안됐다!

Speaking of studying, I found out that, today being the first official day of school notwithstanding, the first-years (and all of the students and other teachers, in fact), have been in school for about three weeks already. Not only that, but they've been taking performance and aptitude tests, the results of which have earned some of them scholarships. So... they had three weeks of classes to prepare them for the next two years of classes. Whew.

In response this, I've renewed my resolve to make my class fun, engaging, and as stress-free as possible. During some down time before and after class today, I started browsing the Internet and brainstorming new ideas for the semester: art projects, games, and everything cool that falls within the intersection of English and science. New semester, new year... let's do this! 시작!

Admissions Exams for CSHS

I posted the following on my Facebook about a week ago:

First round of admissions results for my high school came out today. 285 middle schoolers applied for 96 spots, and today 50% of them got cut. My host mother has told me that the announcement page has racked up nearly 6,500 views in the two hours since it's been posted...

It's safe to say that the competition for admission into the high school where I teach is fierce. It is one of only two science high schools in this entire province (although are more in the Busan metropolitan area, which is technically not part of the province). It just so happens that the other science high school, located in Jinju, is the most respected science high school in the country, while mine is one of the newest and doesn't really have a reputation yet. A fellow Fulbright teacher, Ryan, teaches at the science high school in Jinju. I like how that makes us rivals!

Anyway, as I mentioned in the previous post, the admission interviews for the middle school students who want a spot in the incoming freshman class took place yesterday and the day before. It was two grueling days of interviews: the first was an oral exam to test their math and science know-how, and the second was an interview geared toward their character. Of the 130 students who were selected for interviews, exactly 80 will be offered admission (28% of applicants).

Having come from the public school system, I knew I'd be in for a few surprises as I got to know the system. It seems so similar to the hyper-competitive college admissions process. Everything is highly confidential; my co-teacher couldn't tell me what the questions of her interview were until they were all over. Even so, I do recall the teachers who were in charge of creating the questions on the math and science portion of the interview holding an urgent meeting on Monday to finalize (or come up with?) the exam content.

What surprised me the most was the helicopter parenting. Obviously, the middle school student applicants' parents were very keen on having their child do as well as possible on the interviews. How that translated to the parents' intent to hang around campus literally all day as they waited for their brainiac child, I don't know. I saw parents napping in idling cars (so wasteful!) and others standing in small groups by the school's entrance gates, just looking intently at the building. I really couldn't fathom why they didn't just go to work. My co-teacher said that it was a similar situation to the day of the 수능, when some parents hold onto the bars of a school's gate and pray for the entire nine-hour duration of the exam.

Nevertheless, I'm kind of second-handedly excited about the exams, because in about a week, I will know the exact makeup of the new first-year class that I will teach next semester! I'm sure they'll be bright, although I know now what to expect of their actual English levels. My co-teacher also says that due to the fact that middle school students can only apply to one specialized high school, the best of the best of the best all take their chances with the science high school in Jinju, and our school attracts what you might call the second tier. Well, to that I say: no big deal! I'm already looking forward to it.

수능 - The Sooneung

Today, the second Thursday of November, millions of Korean high school students have just finished taking a nine-hour college entrance exam, called the 수능 (sooneung). This beast of an exam blows the American SAT Reasoning Test and all APs out of the water in terms of difficulty, importance, and the crazed culture of high scores that surrounds it. The scores students receive on these exams can literally change their lives, more than the years spent in preparation for it already have.

The documentary ExamiNation, by Judy Suh, takes a close look at the 수능 and how it really affects the entire country. Most of the documentary follows a day in the life of an average high school student named Bitna, a day that is spent entirely in school, then in cram school, then in a tiny study carrel until 2am. There is one breather, a frank and moving scene shot on a rooftop where Bitna catches a dragonfly and then releases it, jealous that it doesn't have to study twenty-four-seven the way she does.

The twenty-minute documentary was very well done, and I highly recommend that you watch it. In fact, I've embedded it below, so you can watch it now and get a glimpse into the lives of the students I teach.

Well... not exactly the students that I teach. You see, less than 1% of my high school students took the 수능 today. Remember me saying that my high school is very new? I don't have any third-years (seniors) yet, only first- and second-years. Regardless, the 수능 also happens to be not very important to any of my students. At my science high school, the only subjects that matter are science and math. They don't need to study English, social science, or even Korean, for that matter, in order to be accepted into the top science universities in Korea. During their second year, they will take specialized entrance exams for specific universities, and do not even bother with the 수능.

As I've discovered very recently, however, the students who don't get accepted into university early are now faced with the prospect of a third year of high school very similar to that of the rest of their peers, and they have already begun studying for the 수능 that they will take in exactly twelve months. I'm already wishing them good luck.

Here is the documentary ExamiNation.

ExamiNation is a short documentary film about the notorious South Korean college entrance exam, Sooneung (수능). Can one exam dictate a culture and lifestyle in a country?

P.S. On a different note, I did teach class today, since it wasn't canceled at my school for the national exam. My nine-person college prep class -- the second-year students who have been accepted into university and need to practice college-level spoken English -- absolutely wowed me today by shifting the debate we'd been having on American political issues to the hot-button topic of same-sex marriage and successfully debating with each other in English for nearly ten minutes at the end of class. And they started off the period not knowing anything about American politics aside from who the US president is. So proud.

President Obama Won!

오바마는 이겼어요! Obama won!

This morning, I had only one class scheduled, but it was canceled without my knowing because my students had to assist in a mock-수능 (Korean SAT) examination. While bummed that I did not get to do my Election Day lesson, at least this left me free to watch Election Day unfold on my own. I hooked up the smart screen in an empty classroom to the Huffington Post's awesome live-updated Election Results webpage. It was intense and thrilling to watch electoral votes get picked up by the dozens by Romney at first, but when the West Coast brought it back for Obama, I cheered. I was also glued to Time's live blog, CNN's minute-by-minute updates, and my Facebook feed, and I couldn't really get any work done.

After lunch, I came straight back to my classroom to watch the swing states (Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Colorado) battle it out on the smart screen, and some of my students came by to watch. Even though I didn't teach any classes today, I was able to teach a dozen or so interested first-years, as well as my English co-teachers, about the electoral college and other interesting tidbits about the election, such as voter disenfranchisement, the bicameral legislature, and "flip-flopping".

When California went to Obama, I cheered. When Oregon brought him over 200, I cheered. When Ohio and Pennsylvania turned definitely blue, I cheered! And my students were also in on it. I'm so glad that they showed some interest; arguably Korea's future relationship with the United States hinges on the re-election of a man who has better foreign policy experience (despite questionable educational ideologies).

In the end, I'm very proud of my president and pleased that he gets a second term. Obama is imperfect, of course. Who isn't? He was hesitant and obstructed in the past four years, but I'm confident that we will all look past the messy politics and that real change is on its way.

Here is a video of his victory speech in Chicago, from the Associated Press:

Korea will also hold a presidential election this year. They occur every five years in the democratic South, and presidents have only one term. Thus, Lee Myung-Bak is on his way out (thankfully), and one of three contenders will take his place: Park Geun-hye (박근혜, right-wing), Moon Jae-in (문재인, left-wing), or Ahn Cheol-soo (안철수, left-leaning independent). The election will take place on December 19th, just a few days before I leave Korea to go home to the States for Christmas.

어디에 가요? Where are you going?

Where am I going? 모라요. I don't know. It's kind of embarrassing when people ask me (again and again) where exactly in Korea I am teaching, and the answer is that I haven't found out yet. However! I'm one step closer to finding out!

A few days ago, all the ETAs had to fill out a very long survey that would help Fulbright determine where we are going to be teaching for the coming school year. It was called a "placement form", but it wasn't as simple as checking boxes next to what city we wanted to live in.

The schools to which Fulbright sends its ETAs change a little bit every year; there is no comprehensive list of schools such that we can simply point to one and go. Most of these schools are average high schools and middle schools in rural or suburban areas. But some ETAs are placed in bigger cities, like Daegu, Busan, or Gwangju (no one is placed in Seoul, excepting special circumstances), and some are placed at advanced high schools (for example, the 과학고등학교 - science high schools).

On the placement form, we had to rank our preferences for all sorts of criteria, including: being in a rural area (which doesn't mean farmland, but more like small town), suburban, or urban; the size and gender makeup of our school; the geographic location, like mountainous or coastal; and access to extracurricular activities. It was long and very thorough; despite not explicitly asking if we wanted any particular cities or schools, it was designed to shape the range of possible environments in which each individual ETA would thrive as a teacher and cultural ambassador.

I might have discussed this before, but I would like to teach students of a higher English level who are already motivated to learn in the classroom. When I visited the Chungnam Science High School in Daejeon, the classroom that I observed seemed perfect for me, even before I had any experience teaching. (After one day of teaching, I guess I could see myself adapting to a lower level, though.)

Thus, in my placement form I indicated that I wanted high-level students in an urban environment. Thinking about Busan, where the weather is supposedly similar to that of San Francisco and where my good friend Hae-in lives, I also wrote that I'd like to be placed in a coastal region. And in the box for listing extracurricular activities to which I'd appreciate easy access, I wrote taking Korean classes, continuing taekwondo, volunteering at a Hana Center (tutoring and English education for North Korean defectors), and attending a church with a service in English.

(When I say the placement form was thorough, I mean it: there was even a section where you could indicate if there were any other ETAs, specifically, near to or far from whom you'd like to be placed. I left that section blank!)

Finally, after all of these preference rankings, there was a section to rank the rankings themselves. For example, I prefer a Protestant-affiliated school over a Buddhist-affiliated school, and I also prefer high school over middle school, but my preference for the age level is much more important to me than my preference for religious affiliation. So, I gave "School Type" a "1" and Religious Affiliation a "9" (out of twelve total criteria).

Before I submitted my placement form, I had a long conversation with Anthony, one of the Orientation Coordinators, to bounce my thoughts and ideas around. I told him about why I wanted higher-level students, students who were on track to actually use English in their futures. I talked about how I didn't want to feel like I was wasting my time teaching tons of kids who had no discernible future with this language aside from memorizing how to do well on the English section of the 수능 (suneung - the infamous college placement exam). Anthony is a cool guy. He understood perfectly what I was feeling, but also helped me put things into perspective and plan more realistically for the year. Anthony taught at a rural high school, relatively far from the cities and relatively lacking in brilliant English prodigies. The advice he gave me was to expect all kinds of students and not limit yourself with my own expectations. With average class sizes of forty, it would be impossible for all of my students to care as much as I want them to. Every class will have its stars and its slackers, and most of the rest will fall scattered in between. And I can't necessarily motivate them to learn English, but I can at least show them that English is more than a grammar book and a section of a test. As for the bright students, there are extracurricular "club classes" at which I can really reach out to them and help them get further in English if they want to.

That was Anthony's goal as a teacher: not to try to defy the structure (or confines) of the Korean education system and blaze his own trail, but to work within it and still introduce a different kind of English education, one that entertains and inspires. I should make it a priority to show my students that I care about them and their education -- even love them, if love can be defined as an inexplicable, deep concern for another's well-being. In the end, that is enough.

I really appreciated Anthony's advice. In my form, I still expressed my strong desire to teach at a higher-level school, and wrote what amounted to a small essay in the "Final Comments" section explaining exactly why. But, I also wrote that I will be flexible and can adapt to any school given to me, which is also true. And I'm realizing more and more how crucial it is to be flexible as a teacher. The chances of my getting what I want most are fairly slim. But in the classroom, when does anything go exactly the way you wanted? (I'm teaching again tomorrow; I hope all goes well, if not according to plan!)

When I find out where I'm placed, I will let you all know, and I'll start getting ready for my future students with plenty of gusto.