Sunday Favorites: The Korean Elementary School

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. This story originally appeared on June 4, 2010 when Summer and I visited a Korean Elementary School:

Our friend Shawn teaches English in the school system here, and we got to visit his classes today!  It was pretty fun, although I was disappointed to find out that I wasn't able to teach any kids to speak fluent English in just one day.  In fact, we were really only there to answer questions for about ten minutes at the end of each class period.  It was fun.  The questions depended on the level of English of the student and varied from:

"Do you wear your shoes inside the house?"

and

"Do you like kimchi?"

to:

"How did you find the flight to Korea?"

and

"What do you do to cope with jet lag?"

Of course, "Are you rich?", "Are you married?", "How much money do you make?" were asked.  It was very adorable.  When I told the class that I had 5 brothers and sisters, there was a collective GASP! followed by hands over mouths.  I also told them Americans eat hamburgers and french fries all the time.  ha!  Spreading the stereotype.  You have to say what they know, I think.  And that's why when asked who my favorite American Music Artist was, I replied, "Lady Gaga". 

Cute little signs leading up the stairs at the school:

Lunchtime:

The students go to school on Saturday, and also most have nightschool at an Academy.  They are in school until midnight or even later, and work on homework after that.  It's a pretty brutal schedule, and my English-teaching friends here don't really know how effective it is.  Kids just don't have the attention span for it.  They test well in subjects like Math and Science, and do very well at memorization.  I think it's ridiculous.  Poor kids!

But so cute and polite.  They all take off their little shoes and change into tiny slipper-style shoes for class.