Reintroducing the Work Horse Metaphor

Teaching is not necessarily just the transferring of information; it is also participating in the dramatic arts, therefore transferring useful information in the most entertaining and effective way possible. I therefore wouldn’t necessarily call myself a teacher, by more an actress with a life-long purpose. I always knew this, but I was reminded of it again last weekend as I spent time with Anna-Lisa, a good friend from home who is also teaching here, who is more entertaining and dramatic than I think I could ever hope to become! I do however, try. Yesterday and the day before, I taught a preposition song to the kids. After singing the song normally, we sang it faster, slower, happier, sadder, angrier etc.  The kids were laughing in fits by the end. The best part was when we sang it ‘sadder,’ I looked up and one of the kids actually had tears running down his face! Now THAT’S dramatic!

Generally, kids here grow up very differently than in Canada.  Similarly to us, kids go to school during the school year. However, activities after school do not include the play time/video games time/TV time/day care time that we tend to know as necessary. Kids here, once finished their time in day school, go to an evening school, one of which is known as the Hagwan. Here, students study extra English, Math or other disciplines. Based on stories from my teacher friends in Korea during the school year, it is common to wake a kid up who fell asleep during class. Another common activity after school is attending a piano or violin academy. These two instruments are very common in this part of Asia. Sports are well practiced here as well, but I am unsure if there are as many camps and teams as there are in Canada. Korean kids don’t go on “summer holidays” for two months like in Canada. If a family goes away for an extended vacation, according to one source I heard, it would only last about seven days. Korean kids fill their 'summer vacation' with more English camps and extra school (which is why I have a job). I asked one student in my class, “Will you go home and play tonight?” “No,” she replied. “I study!” “When do you play?” I asked. “Mmmm… maybe the weekend?” She shrugged.

Is Korea depriving its children of an “idyllic” childhood? What is an “idyllic” childhood? In the generation before ours (mine), our parents had many more chores and household duties than we ever did. I somehow doubt that my parents came home from school, plunked themselves in front of the TV and watched “The Roadrunner” all afternoon and evening. They most likely came home to a domestic household with more than two kids and helped to keep the bread and milk on the table. When I was growing up, I always had Saturday morning chores to do, a paper route, an after school job at Subway, babysitting, homework and more. Today, most (not all) kids come home from school, watch TV, run to soccer practice, participate in school activities sit in front of the computer. In the summer time we’re scrambling to find inventive things for our kids to do so that they’re not bored and getting into trouble (which is often found anyways). We could probably equate the amount of time Koreans spend in ‘extra’ school with the amount of time our kids spend in front of the technology that the former Korean kids invented… Hmm… It’s an interesting topic to think about. Are ‘idle hands the devil’s workshop’? Should ‘after school’ school be introduced in Canada? Would student work ethic and creativity increase, or decrease? How do we define an ‘idyllic’ childhood? How hard or how easy can we, or should we, push our kids?