Lately, work has been ramping up quite a bit. I think that December may be, on average, the most difficult month for foreign ESL teachers working in Korea (except, perhaps, university-level teachers, where the academic calendar is much more generous with time off). Unlike in the US, schools don’t typically start vacation until after Christmas day – in fact, for many Koreans Christmas is little more than a holiday similar to, say, St Patrick’s day in the US – it’s an excuse to go shopping or for a party or some kind of “ethnic” (i.e. Western) experience, not really more than that. So December is full of the end-of-academic-year stuff, and you have to be preparing for the winter classes (which are like summer school classes, in the US).
I really don’t like how much emphasis is placed on what they call 예비 [yebi = preparation] in Korean schools and hagwon – the process whereby immense amounts of classroom time, including entire special sessions, is dedicated to “prepping” for things – next levels, next tests, etc. It’s what they call “cram schools” in Japan. Why not just teach the stuff in the first place? If you teach the stuff that’s going to be on the test reliably and consistently in your regular curriculum, you wouldn’t need to stop everything and cram once every 3 months. But that would require a better designed testing system, too – so until that happens, the yebi remains. Grumble. I’m talking about it now because it’s ended – resuming the regular curriculum always feels like trying to start a new school year, but once every few months rather than once a year.
It was three years ago tomorrow that I finished my 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat – essentially living like a Buddhist monk. In retrospect, some of the lessons I learned during that experience have stuck with me, but my meditation practice has lapsed into disrepair.
I feel a little bit gloomy about that.
