Observations

Hi all,

In the event that anybody has noticed that we haven't been posting as recently, I apologize. To the rest of you who didn't realize we were missing, carry on. There's nothing to see here.

It's been pretty hectic lately. We went into the school yesterday (Saturday) for four hours and Justin's entering hour six or seven of work today. The depressing cause of all of this is that our kids just don't seem to be able to write.

It's very odd. Yes, there's the whole ESL barrier problem, but it's more than that. Some kids whose English is just fine are totally incoherent on paper. The concept of "paragraph" does not seem to exist. After a heavily plagiarized assignment on Alexander the Great, I made all the seventh graders keep a research notebook as they worked on a project about Rome, but some of them have submitted a typed version of their notes in place of an essay. We can't figure out if they're honestly confused or if they don't actually think they need to bother.

On that note, I read a disheartening quote from a Korean mother in one of the English-language papers, where she essentially said that she condoned her high-school child buying papers online because homework wasn't as important to getting into college as his exam grades, so she wanted him to buy the papers and focus on studying for the tests. Of course, given some of the test scores we see, they're not doing that either. But can you believe it? I sincerely hope no parent at our school feels that way.

I hesitate to say TOO much about the Korean school system, seeing as everything I know about it is hearsay from our students who have been in it, fellow teachers who went through it, or from deductions based on experiences (students are constantly surprised when I ask them to stay awake in class.). But I guess I will say that American newspapers rhapsodize so much about the glories of the "Asian educational system" and stereotype the kids so heavily that I couldn't have helped but come here and be surprised.