Since we are now back on the States, having completed our six month sojourn, this blog will go dormant again.
I would have liked to title this post with the Korean word for "good-bye", but as pointed out earlier, that's not as easy as it sounds.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Korean daycare
Deeply woven into the fabric of our six month stay in Korea has been our experience of daycare. Our 3-year-old son Tek has been going essentially full time (9:30 to 4:15 weekdays) for the full time we've been here. We really didn't know what to expect. I recall that before we came here, in my ignorance, I was fearful of two things: that the teachers might hit my son, and that the children would be forced into mechanistic rote activities that would stamp out all creativity and individuality. In short, I was at the mercy of various stereotypes of East Asian education.
About three months in advance of our January arrival, I went to Korea for a conference. So I took the opportunity to come down to Gyeongju to look at a few daycare options with Erma's mother. The first thing I learned is how densely daycare centers are scattered throughout the city. There are at least four within a ten-minute walk of our apartment. The second thing I learned—which shocked me—is that almost all of them have spaces, quite a few spaces. It's shocking because in Seattle it's not unusual to be on waiting lists for months or even years for a decent daycare or pre-school. But that's probably a peculiarity of America (or perhaps only some places in America). The availability of spaces in Korea is of course related to government subsidization, on which more later.
We picked three daycare centers, and got tours of each. Like Goldilocks, I found one too small, one too big, and one just right. It felt good. I liked the head administrator, I liked the clean, colorful, airy feel of the classrooms, and I liked the way the kids seemed to be having a good time. The staff seemed willing to take on the extra work of dealing with a kid who spoke essentially no Korean, and what I guessed would be additional and perhaps complex paperwork to take in a kid with foreign citizenship, even for just a six-month stay.
I wasn't very concerned about curriculum or "educational philosophy". I figured that if the teachers were kind and the environment was safe and nurturing, then Tek would be well taken care of and would learn a good deal of Korean language and culture through immersion.
So we settled on a place called S—, which had the additional advantage (as it later turned out) of being located a mere 2-minutes' walk from the studio apartment that Erma and I rented out as our daytime office.
It's hard to be a foreigner parent
Without Erma's mother to help us, it would have been very difficult to communicate effectively with the staff of the daycare in order to set up his entry into the school. Although Erma and I both speak some Korean, mine is rudimentary and Erma's is a notch or two above that. Neither of us possess the vocabulary or cultural knowledge to talk about educational policy, curriculum, various type of school-related activities, and so on.
Even with Erma's mother's help, we remained baffled about many aspects for a long time. One problem we had was being unable to figure out the difference between polite language and actual content. Did a statement like "Oh, you can drop him off any time" really mean that? Or was there some subtle hint about a preference or even a rule that we were missing?
We had similar problems in conveying information. We didn't know how to ask questions without sounding like we were making requests, and we were always concerned that the staff would think we were making special requests because of Tek's status as an American, or worse that they would treat him differently from the other children by giving him special privileges or excusing him from ordinary obligations.
Two months in we realized that one reason we had been so confused was that Tek had started up toward the end of the school year. The new year began after Lunar New Year in late February. We were issued a big information packet about the school and curriculum, and there was a parents' information night at which everything was further explained. Tek received a free school uniform (to be worn Mondays, Thursdays, and on days with special outings). When the weather turned warm he got a school T-shirt to replace the green sweatshirt.
We were also asked to buy a number of supplies that Tek would use throughout the school year.
Does everyone but me know what "cray-pas" are?
Cost
The major difference between daycare here and in the US is cost. There are two kinds of subsidies: general government subsidies in the form of curricular materials (and probably other material assistance as well), and subsidies paid to individual families. The nominal cost of daycare is a bit over $300 a month, which seems astonishingly cheap compared to the US. But hardly anyone pays that. Parents get a stipend from the government of just under $300 a month for each child in daycare. That makes the cost nearly free for parents, which is one reason that even parents (almost entirely mothers in Korea) who don't work and stay home with the kids still send them to daycare for at least a few hours a day, either to get a break or to expose them to the educational curriculum.
We did not qualify for the government stipend. The head administrator kept apologizing to us for having to pay such an exorbitant amount as $300 a month for daycare. We didn't dare tell her that we were paying approximately six times as much in the US.
What goes back and forth
The school issued Tek a little backpack and a dosirak (a lunch box). Each day he goes off to school with a clean lunch box in his backpack. Each day it comes home dirty, and we wash it. Also going back and forth each day in the backpack is his daily log book, in which attendance is marked. The book also has room for writing messages between parents and teacher, and the teacher would occasionally paste in pictures of Tek taken at school.
Curriculum
The government has developed a really high quality curriculum.
We didn't understand it at first, but as the months wore on and we saw more and more of the materials and saw more direct evidence of what Tek was doing, we came to realize how carefully thought out it was. Each month the various materials that the kids had been using in their science, math, and reading (i.e. learning the alphabet) work were sent home. That's right, the government supplied each kid not only with activity books, but with activities themselves: block sets, art projects, science experiments, hardcover books, all kinds of fun and interesting stuff. And the kids own them. At first we didn't understand what this stuff was that kept getting sent home with Tek, but eventually we realized that all of it was explained in the activity books that also came home with him.
Here are pictures of some of the activity books and activity materials that were used in school and then sent home.
This year the school decided to supplement the regular curriculum ("Habi") with a secondary curriculum called, rather bizarrely, "Serotonin", which is focused on parents and family relations. We would get these amusing booklets at home every few weeks on things like why it's important to chew your food a lot before swallowing; how to be a good neighbor; what you'll see around you as spring comes; etc. etc.
On top of all that were the field trips and special activities: making pizzas at Pizza Hut, visiting a children's science museum, outdoor sketching at a local park, visits from sex education experts (yes, for 3-year-olds), recitation contexts, etc.
Oh yes, those recitation contests. The kids were asked to memorize nearly twenty Korean adages (of the "A stitch in time saves nine" variety) and three classical Korean poems. To our surprise Tek was not only able to do it, but loved it. My first thought about this was: an example of pointless rote memorization; the kids don't know or understand what these mean, and there's no educational benefit. I figured that at least for Tek it has the advantage of having him get more familiar with the sounds and cadences of Korean language. But I've come to rethink my opinion. These early exposures in an environment that makes recitation fun perhaps can lay the groundwork for a lifelong interest. Tek still insists on reciting poems during meals.
How do they have time for it?
Unlike in the US, where the caregiver-children ratios are quite high, here there is only one teacher for each classroom. In Seattle, our daycare asked all kids to be present by 9:00. Here it's much looser. Some kids show up at 10:00. Some leave at 2:00. Each time a kid shows up or leaves, a teacher has to come to the front door to greet or say farewell, which includes helping them on and off with their backpacks, shoes, coats, etc. (It took them a long time to realize that Tek was both able and willing to put on and take off his own clothes. They kept trying to do it for him, which would inevitably lead to cries of protest and an insistence on starting over on his own.)
The director herself drives the bus (nearly all kids take the bus, but we walked), accompanied by one teacher. They do at least three trips each morning and each afternoon, collecting kids at different locations on different schedules. So during a lot of the day, two teachers and the director are unavailable for actual in-class daycare duties.
And if a kid needed to poo, a teacher would accompany him/her to the bathroom. We just couldn't figure out how the teacher ended up spending any time at all with the kids. Or whether the kids were left alone for long stretches. The numbers didn't seem to add up; yet it was clear that the kids were doing an enormous amount of work and an activity-filled curriculum each day. How could this be? We have never solved this mystery.
What they don't do
No daily walk (which would be too dangerous anyway), so not enough exercise. No detailed daily individualized notes ("What my child did today"). But they do keep a blog and post pictures, they do have a parents' information night.
Another thing they don't do is maintain an electronics-free or commercial-brand-free environment like our Seattle daycare. Indeed, the head of our Seattle daycare has recently been sending out email reminders to parents that the building is a "sacred space" so cell phones should be off whenever a parent is in the building. In Korea, the teachers communicated with each other constantly through text messaging. And the kids did all sorts of video watching and interactive video exercises.
Miscellaneous
And then there's ...
The crazy show put on every January, which I blogged about several months ago. We were sure Tek could not possibly have participated in such a thing. Now, we've changed our minds. We're sure that Tek could have done it, and would have enjoyed it.
About three months in advance of our January arrival, I went to Korea for a conference. So I took the opportunity to come down to Gyeongju to look at a few daycare options with Erma's mother. The first thing I learned is how densely daycare centers are scattered throughout the city. There are at least four within a ten-minute walk of our apartment. The second thing I learned—which shocked me—is that almost all of them have spaces, quite a few spaces. It's shocking because in Seattle it's not unusual to be on waiting lists for months or even years for a decent daycare or pre-school. But that's probably a peculiarity of America (or perhaps only some places in America). The availability of spaces in Korea is of course related to government subsidization, on which more later.
We picked three daycare centers, and got tours of each. Like Goldilocks, I found one too small, one too big, and one just right. It felt good. I liked the head administrator, I liked the clean, colorful, airy feel of the classrooms, and I liked the way the kids seemed to be having a good time. The staff seemed willing to take on the extra work of dealing with a kid who spoke essentially no Korean, and what I guessed would be additional and perhaps complex paperwork to take in a kid with foreign citizenship, even for just a six-month stay.
I wasn't very concerned about curriculum or "educational philosophy". I figured that if the teachers were kind and the environment was safe and nurturing, then Tek would be well taken care of and would learn a good deal of Korean language and culture through immersion.
So we settled on a place called S—, which had the additional advantage (as it later turned out) of being located a mere 2-minutes' walk from the studio apartment that Erma and I rented out as our daytime office.
 |
| The play area, just inside the front door |
 |
| Tek's classroom |
 |
| On the left, the kids' cubbies, where their backpacks are stored; on the right, storage for toothbrushes and toothbrushing cups |
 |
| Kids' towels |
It's hard to be a foreigner parent
Without Erma's mother to help us, it would have been very difficult to communicate effectively with the staff of the daycare in order to set up his entry into the school. Although Erma and I both speak some Korean, mine is rudimentary and Erma's is a notch or two above that. Neither of us possess the vocabulary or cultural knowledge to talk about educational policy, curriculum, various type of school-related activities, and so on.
Even with Erma's mother's help, we remained baffled about many aspects for a long time. One problem we had was being unable to figure out the difference between polite language and actual content. Did a statement like "Oh, you can drop him off any time" really mean that? Or was there some subtle hint about a preference or even a rule that we were missing?
We had similar problems in conveying information. We didn't know how to ask questions without sounding like we were making requests, and we were always concerned that the staff would think we were making special requests because of Tek's status as an American, or worse that they would treat him differently from the other children by giving him special privileges or excusing him from ordinary obligations.
Two months in we realized that one reason we had been so confused was that Tek had started up toward the end of the school year. The new year began after Lunar New Year in late February. We were issued a big information packet about the school and curriculum, and there was a parents' information night at which everything was further explained. Tek received a free school uniform (to be worn Mondays, Thursdays, and on days with special outings). When the weather turned warm he got a school T-shirt to replace the green sweatshirt.
 |
| School uniform (to be worn twice a week) |
 |
| List of supplies (and my notes in English) |
 |
| Some of the supplies, which we purchased at a local stationery store. The owner of the store knew exactly what to get when we weren't quite sure. |
Cost
The major difference between daycare here and in the US is cost. There are two kinds of subsidies: general government subsidies in the form of curricular materials (and probably other material assistance as well), and subsidies paid to individual families. The nominal cost of daycare is a bit over $300 a month, which seems astonishingly cheap compared to the US. But hardly anyone pays that. Parents get a stipend from the government of just under $300 a month for each child in daycare. That makes the cost nearly free for parents, which is one reason that even parents (almost entirely mothers in Korea) who don't work and stay home with the kids still send them to daycare for at least a few hours a day, either to get a break or to expose them to the educational curriculum.
We did not qualify for the government stipend. The head administrator kept apologizing to us for having to pay such an exorbitant amount as $300 a month for daycare. We didn't dare tell her that we were paying approximately six times as much in the US.
What goes back and forth
The school issued Tek a little backpack and a dosirak (a lunch box). Each day he goes off to school with a clean lunch box in his backpack. Each day it comes home dirty, and we wash it. Also going back and forth each day in the backpack is his daily log book, in which attendance is marked. The book also has room for writing messages between parents and teacher, and the teacher would occasionally paste in pictures of Tek taken at school.
 |
| Off to school, wearing school-issued backpack |
 |
| Tek's dosirak |
 |
| Food menu for February. A morning snack, lunch, and afternoon snack are listed for each day. The blue circle marks the three-day Lunar New Year holiday. There is kimchi for lunch every day. |
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| Tek's sucheop, or school record book. |
Curriculum
The government has developed a really high quality curriculum.
 |
| March curriculum (one column for each week) |
We didn't understand it at first, but as the months wore on and we saw more and more of the materials and saw more direct evidence of what Tek was doing, we came to realize how carefully thought out it was. Each month the various materials that the kids had been using in their science, math, and reading (i.e. learning the alphabet) work were sent home. That's right, the government supplied each kid not only with activity books, but with activities themselves: block sets, art projects, science experiments, hardcover books, all kinds of fun and interesting stuff. And the kids own them. At first we didn't understand what this stuff was that kept getting sent home with Tek, but eventually we realized that all of it was explained in the activity books that also came home with him.
Here are pictures of some of the activity books and activity materials that were used in school and then sent home.
 |
| The Habi activity books. (The relationship between Habi and "angelpres" is unclear to me.) |
 |
| A look inside. I have no idea if these are useful exercises for Korean three-year-olds, but for Tek they were great vocabulary builders as he acquired Korean language. And yes, that is a picture of Dvořák on the left. |
 |
| One of the math toys that came home with Tek. |
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| A science toy that came home with Tek. |
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| Another math toy. |
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| One of the more interesting activities ... become the protagonist of Munch's "The Scream"! This was part of a lesson on facial expressions and emotions. |
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| Another science project that came home: a balance bird, along with the relevant pages of the activity book. |
 |
| I'm in love with the balance bird. It's freaky. |
This year the school decided to supplement the regular curriculum ("Habi") with a secondary curriculum called, rather bizarrely, "Serotonin", which is focused on parents and family relations. We would get these amusing booklets at home every few weeks on things like why it's important to chew your food a lot before swallowing; how to be a good neighbor; what you'll see around you as spring comes; etc. etc.
 |
| Some "Serotonin Parents" booklets: on chewing well, taking constitutionals, and speaking nicely. |
 |
| "We're a Serotonin family!" |
 |
| Guide to daily yoga. |
On top of all that were the field trips and special activities: making pizzas at Pizza Hut, visiting a children's science museum, outdoor sketching at a local park, visits from sex education experts (yes, for 3-year-olds), recitation contexts, etc.
 |
| Sex education class by visiting expert, with anatomically correct doll. |
Oh yes, those recitation contests. The kids were asked to memorize nearly twenty Korean adages (of the "A stitch in time saves nine" variety) and three classical Korean poems. To our surprise Tek was not only able to do it, but loved it. My first thought about this was: an example of pointless rote memorization; the kids don't know or understand what these mean, and there's no educational benefit. I figured that at least for Tek it has the advantage of having him get more familiar with the sounds and cadences of Korean language. But I've come to rethink my opinion. These early exposures in an environment that makes recitation fun perhaps can lay the groundwork for a lifelong interest. Tek still insists on reciting poems during meals.
 |
| The list of adages to be memorized for recitation. I learned some good adages studying these with Tek. |
How do they have time for it?
Unlike in the US, where the caregiver-children ratios are quite high, here there is only one teacher for each classroom. In Seattle, our daycare asked all kids to be present by 9:00. Here it's much looser. Some kids show up at 10:00. Some leave at 2:00. Each time a kid shows up or leaves, a teacher has to come to the front door to greet or say farewell, which includes helping them on and off with their backpacks, shoes, coats, etc. (It took them a long time to realize that Tek was both able and willing to put on and take off his own clothes. They kept trying to do it for him, which would inevitably lead to cries of protest and an insistence on starting over on his own.)
The director herself drives the bus (nearly all kids take the bus, but we walked), accompanied by one teacher. They do at least three trips each morning and each afternoon, collecting kids at different locations on different schedules. So during a lot of the day, two teachers and the director are unavailable for actual in-class daycare duties.
And if a kid needed to poo, a teacher would accompany him/her to the bathroom. We just couldn't figure out how the teacher ended up spending any time at all with the kids. Or whether the kids were left alone for long stretches. The numbers didn't seem to add up; yet it was clear that the kids were doing an enormous amount of work and an activity-filled curriculum each day. How could this be? We have never solved this mystery.
 |
| The daily schedule ("Hello Kitty" themed) |
What they don't do
No daily walk (which would be too dangerous anyway), so not enough exercise. No detailed daily individualized notes ("What my child did today"). But they do keep a blog and post pictures, they do have a parents' information night.
Another thing they don't do is maintain an electronics-free or commercial-brand-free environment like our Seattle daycare. Indeed, the head of our Seattle daycare has recently been sending out email reminders to parents that the building is a "sacred space" so cell phones should be off whenever a parent is in the building. In Korea, the teachers communicated with each other constantly through text messaging. And the kids did all sorts of video watching and interactive video exercises.
Miscellaneous
 |
| Everyone was asked to carry out a little eye test with their kids and send back the results. This is part of the government's program to catch kids with poor vision early so that they can get help if needed. It was administering this test that made me realized that Tek knew all the Korean vocabulary for the silhouetted items: car, duck, airplane, etc. |
 |
| I'm pretty sure our school in Seattle would not issue a gun (even a harmless water pistol) as a prize. |
And then there's ...
The crazy show put on every January, which I blogged about several months ago. We were sure Tek could not possibly have participated in such a thing. Now, we've changed our minds. We're sure that Tek could have done it, and would have enjoyed it.
Mobile library
The city library in Gyeongju operates a mobile library bus that visits our apartment complex for an hour every Friday afternoon. This was our main source of supply for Korean-language books for Tek. The bus has rows of bookshelves on each side, and two seats in the back. Just as in any non-mobile full-size library, the seats were occupied by children sitting and reading books.
I'm grateful for this wonderful, convenient, free resource that the city made available to us. We found a few fantastic books here that we have decided to buy.
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| "Gyeongju City Mobile Library" |
I'm grateful for this wonderful, convenient, free resource that the city made available to us. We found a few fantastic books here that we have decided to buy.
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