For the students in Lovington and Yamagata
Greetings from Pohang!
I got the first batch of letters to Lovington written, but it will be at least two weeks until I have them all. Some of that is the schedule; 3rd grade has tests next week, 2nd grade has a field trip this week. Some of that is just the hectic schedule of life at a school in Korea.
Classes here start with homeroom at 8:30 am. Students get here by public bus, cars, bicycles, on foot, or by academy bus. Those are also the ways they get home after their last class, most days at 4:30pm.
What's academy? They're sometimes called "cram schools" because they're there to help you cram for the big exams. Test scores are a very serious thing here and have been for hundreds of years. Your exit exam for middle school decides what high school you go to, decides what college you go to, decides what career you can get into. If you only study at school you might do well on it, but parents don't take chances. You go to school after school.
Korea actually had to pass a law that said academies had to be closed by 10pm, because some of them were open later.
All this hard work gives South Korea some of the highest test scores in the world but some of the highest stress in the world. Next entry I will tell you some ways they cope with that stress.
from ROKetship
