Summer Vacation? Who needs it?!

The first school semester ended on July 15th - a Wednesday - which, were a student in the US, would be cause for celebration. And it was to my Korean students as well - a much deserved vacation! Four long days all to themselves!

Like I've mentioned before, high schoolers in Korea don't really take a break. Ever. Classes resumed the Monday after the end of the semester, albeit on a slightly different schedule. In the morning students attend regular classes with their Korean teachers. In the afternoon, until 6pm, they have "free study" periods, during which they sit silently at their desks and do whatever they can from dying of ennui.

Some students can sign up for "extra classes" in the afternoon, which are offered in the core subjects - English, Korean, Math, Science. First and second graders can go home at 6pm. Third graders (seniors) still stay at school until 10pm.

There was a lot of confusion when it came to my summer teaching schedule. Yoon Soon Young, my main co-teacher, met with all of the English teachers and the Vice Principal over lunch one day to discuss my summer fate. Nothing was decided, and my schedule remained up in the air until the first day of summer classes.

Seventeen students signed up for an extra class with me, to be taught every other day between 2 and 4pm. Expecting them to be advanced students (it was billed as a "conversation class"), I excitedly prepared a 6-session debate course, envisioning lively discussions and heated retorts with spirited students. Alas, it was not meant to be. All seventeen (now 24) students who signed up for my class did so because they thought the study periods were boring. Actually, there was one girl - one - who, when I asked why she signed up for the class, replied "to improve in speaking English." My heart, instantly warmed, fell cold again when I turned around to find that the six boys that joined my class are some of the WORST English students in the school. One kid can barely even say "hello." Seriously.

So I scrapped the debate idea and planned a series of classes on social networking. I've been wanting for some time now to create an excuse to use the store of laptop computers that the English lab possesses. So I signed all of my students up on Facebook, and created my own "teacher" account (Jonny Flimflam) to monitor their behavior. We spent some time friending people, taking pictures and tagging people, editing personal info, and posting links and videos. In 3 days I only had to confiscate two computers! I considered it a success.

Now we're working on a travel agent course, in which they do internet research on a country of their choosing, and develop a travel brochure to present to class. It's not going as well, mainly because many of them DON'T KNOW ENGLISH. Seriously. I gave them a worksheet to find information (population, bordering countries, bodies of water, etc.) and only ONE pair finished it in the hour-and-fifty-minute class (thanks to the girl who actually wanted to learn English). The boys spent time trying to hide from me the fact that they were watching videos or looking up porn or whatever it was they were doing.

Between 4 and 6pm I teach an entire class of first-graders (36 students) for an hour and fifty minutes, without a co-teacher or any guidance or direction at all. We've been doing a movie course :).

All in all it's not a bad gig. Although my teaching hours are the same as during the regular school year (about 20/week), I don't have to come to school until 2. I've been spending the mornings somewhat productively, reading or working out or sleeping. It's pretty grand.

Twelve days to the Philippines!

Korean Driving Guide

Guide to Safe Driving in Korea

If you're planning on driving while you're in Korea - which many people will strongly advise against - you'll need either an International Driving Permit (if someone tries to sell you an "international driving license," don't buy it) or a Korean Driver's License. To get an IDP all you need is a driver's license from your home country that will be valid during the entire year that you want an IDP. You can't get it in Korea, though - you'll have to get it shipped from home.

If you want a KDL, you'll have to pass a 20-question driving test, in less-than-masterful English. It's not easy, though not because the question content is necessarily difficult. Friends have told me that they would have known the answers to all of the questions if they could actually figure out what the question was asking. (If you fail, you'll have to pay to take it again.) To prepare for it, you can buy the "Manual for Safe Driving" by the Korean Road Traffic Safety Authority (for something like 15k won); or you can just use the "Guide to Safe Driving in Korea", based on the KRTSA's manual but prepared by the US Military.

Sex with a Korean Minor - Not a crime

A headline on the second page of the Korea Times today reads: "Sex With Minor Not Crime if Not Forced".

A local high court found a 46-year-old man not guilty of having sex with a runaway teenage girl, saying their liaison was neither forced nor in exchange for money.

The man had invited the 16 year-old girl, who had been homeless for two years, into his home to "offer his house as a shelter to her request." He fed her and gave her pocket money, but "there is no evidence that the offering was in exchange for sex."

In Korea, a person is not guilty of any crime for having sex with a minor aged 13 and over unless it is paid for or forced. Sex with those under the age of 13 is punishable even if it is carried out under mutual consent.

Let's be straight: if sex is forced, it's rape; paid for, it's prostitution - both of which are illegal. So minors between the ages of 13 and 18 are basically adults, with all of the sexual rights and responsibilities afforded them.

Personally I have mixed feelings on this issue.

On one hand

• People develop at different rates - who is to say that this particular 16 year-old girl (after two years on the streets, mind you) isn't more mature than your average 22 year-old (sheltered) college senior? Is it really fair to criminalize the sex of one and let the other share her "love" with whomever she pleases?
• Most human beings hit puberty around 13 - which wasn't an unusual age for a woman to get married about 100 years ago.
• If teenagers are scarred from sexual experiences as youth - with peers or adults - it is not from any shame or guilt inherent in the sexual act. It's foisted upon them from a culture that teaches them to feel shame and guilt. Teenagers can - and should! - be taught to appreciate their sexuality. The more they understand themselves the less likely they are to be taken advantage of.
• Are we really going to say that we trust 16 year-olds in the US to wield one-ton weapons at 65mph but not to make decisions about their own bodies?
  

The other hand:

• "Consent" is not very court-friendly. Rape cases, especially in the event of acquaintance rape, are notoriously difficult to prove. Every country has its own problems with low rape conviction rates. This is particularly pertinent in consideration of point number 2:
  
• Teenagers need to be protected from adults with devious intentions. They are impressionable, and, more often that not, incredibly naive. Be honest, when you were 14 did you really know where your genitals were and what they could do? Yes, you say? Damn. Well alright then, Mrs. "I didn't get pulled out of family life education in middle school!" Rub it in.
  
• Does anyone really NEED to be having sex? OK, for purposes of procreation and perpetuation of our species, YES, of course. But a 14 year-old 7th grader has better things to be doing, like homework, and masturbating.

I guess my opinion falls in between. I'd like to see the legal age of a minor set at 16.

Any thoughts? I'd love to get some feedback.