Harvard

A plethora of hogwans befoul Korea. A hogwan is a small, privately owned school designed to teach children a special skill. And a substitute daycare since there is NO form of daycare in Korea (not even babysitters). Kids here attend multiple hogwans in addition to their public school. It appears that most are English hogwans, hence the plethora of foreign teachers from Canada, America, Australia, New Zealand, ect.. I didn't expext there to be so many teachers, nor did I have a clue that this has been going on since the 70's. However, English isn't the only priority in South Korea; my students also attend CHESS hogwans, Tae kwon do & other fighting styles, Calligraphy, dance, piano, Japanese or Chinese, and so on. I don't assign homework because some kids are falling asleep in my classes. In fact, I once took a child out of my head teacher's class and set her in an empty classroom to sleep because she was so tired she was crying. This deeply saddens my co-workers and I but there's nothing we can do about it on a large scale... knew I wasn't changing the world on this trip.
However, the result of this "cram school" system is a bunch of incredibly intelligent children. My students amaze me every day with the comments they come out with. And so I must share a few:
"LITTLE AMERICA" is the name of the hogwan I teach at. The classrooms are named: Oxford, Stanford, Cambridge, Berkeley, Brown, MIT, Yale, Harvard,.......... and my classroom is "The White House". (which means insane asylum in Korean according to the kids). Well the youngest group of kids is in Berkeley (5yrs old in Korean yrs. - 4yrs old in Western yrs.) Apparantly I have the next Rain Man in this class. "Chan" is a genius. I held up picture cards b/c I wanted the kids to say "apples" and "oranges" and "shoes"...... and the BIG one...... "caterpillar". I hold up the picture card for oranges and say, "What's THIS?" Chan immediately replies "17 oranges". The back of the card said 17 but there was no way for him to see it. Just to make sure I held up another card and covered the # on the back.. "Eleven oranges". I got tingly all over and held up more cards. Sure enough, he called out how many items were on each card. Eerie. So I told the korean teachers and they said, "Yeah, he likes math." I explained that he counted each group in under 2 seconds and they said he might go to the hogwon that shows you pictures with dots and have you memorize the image as a number. The kid hasn't even been on THIS PLANET for 5 years. What the hell?
Then there is my Harvard class, in which the students are 6 or 7 and very good at English. There are only 3 boys in this class. All very unique characters. It's the first class I teach every day, and I usually teach them Science. Here's what starts my smile every day:

(coloring pictures)

Hans: Why you is coloring hair orange?
Me: Some people have orange hair.
Hans: Your hair is yellow.
Me: Yes. In America, people have many different colors of hair.
Hans: And skin. (puts his arm next to mine) why you is this color?
Me: In America, people have many different skin colors too.
Jaime: Yes, some children skin is brown. I read a book!



Me: (reading science book) "Where does water come from?"
Jaime: (mocking me) "Where does water come from?"
I look over and his legs are crossed as he's sitting poised, with his shoe perfectly balanced on his head.
Hans: Where DOES water come from?
Me: Andy, why don't you read it so we can find out.
Andy: "Water comes from rain and snow. It lands in ponds, lakes, rivers, and oceans....."
Me: So Hans, where does water come from?
Hans: rain
Me: And....?
Hans: God.
Hans: God gives me water.