Learning about Education in Korea

I was talking to a Korean intern this week about the differences between elementary school in Korea and elementary school here in my school. It was very interesting and informative. The schools in Korea are very similar to here. They have the same basic subjects; language, reading, spelling, math, science, social studies. We are similar in teaching styles. They have lessons that are similar and discipline plans that a similar.

But there are a few things that are different. They do go to school Monday-Saturday, but Wednesday is a half day and Saturdays are every other week. We go Monday-Friday with Friday being a half day. So they do go to school for more hours than we do. Korean schools also break their school day up a little different. They have 45 minute classes and a 10 minute break for bathroom, drinks, and making sure they are ready for the next subject. They whole day is broken up this way. Korean students also have after school study at home for a few hours in elementary school, most of the evening in middle schools, and all night in high school and college. These practices are not school related, but home-driven. Parents set these times or programs up. Parents drive the learning and study after school. The schools benefit from what parents do.

One big difference is art. There is an art class that is taken as seriously as we take language and math. Art is an important part of school, but making sure that we take 3 hours in the morning for language, an hour and a half for math and an hour for science or social studies only leaves most classes with a half hour for PE, art, music, or other activities. This is a big difference in our education systems. Music is also taught. an instrument is taught in elementary school to each child.

Another difference is moral studies. There is a class for moral studies in Korea. We have a healthy lifestyles classes and it is included with the PE classes. One more class that is taught is a basic home economics class. Students learn to basics in cooking, being respectful, and basic economics. There are a few subjects we have legislated out of our schools. Our art programs suffer. More time is taken from the arts and given to the three "R's". I look at this and I can see why we have a difference in our education.

Some of these differences are societal and not educational. When we have legislators that write bills about mandatory after school programs for children and not having them participate in extracurricular activities that we love in America, then we will be able to compete in the education race with the Asian countries. As for right now, teachers are doing what they are asked to do from lawmakers.Socially we are different countries. Educationally we have different methods and ideas. We are trying to keep up with countries that voluntarily study for hours after school has ended, from elementary school to college. Unless we are willing to do this, we are going to have a hard time legislating these ideals. We can say change is needed, but until we are willing to give extra after school, we will always need change. We can and are change more. New ideas are always coming we are finding them and using them. Some good, some not. We are moving and so are the children. They expect more, they want more, they need more. We tell them not to com pre themselves to others and dinky compete with themselves, but here they are comparing us to the world. We need a global view on everything and we need to compete globally.

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I Resolve... to Collaborate...

Tis the time of year to resolve to do better in our lives. I have a few resolutions I want to put down so I have to look at them through the year to remind me that I need to do better. So here I go.
—I will have my students do more collaborative work in class. They are doing lots of cooperative projects, but the collaborative projects have eluded me. I need to teach them how to collaborate and listen to each other to get the best answers and take a piece to make the project better. I also need to read more about collaborating. Which brings me to my next resolution.
—I will read more articles about collaboration and cooperating for my students. I will also research better ways to use technology to help my students learn. I want to get better with these strategies in my class.
—I will not jump on the bandwagon of every new tech idea that comes out. I am getting tired of all the new programs that are out there that everyone tells me I need to use. I will take time to evaluate every new idea to see if it will make the learning better or easier than what I am already doing, or see if the program will take the place of something I am using. It does need to make a big difference to get me to change. There are so many fun apps out there, but they all do the same basic thing. Revolutionary. That is what I am looking for.
—I will work better as a team member in my grade level team. I take over sometimes and I need to learn the collaborative idea to get the best ideas for the students. When we collaborate, we have the best plans and best actinides for our students.
I don't want to go more than a few resolutions. I want to concentrate more on a few items that are similar rather than many different items that may get bogged down while I am teaching. It gets hard to do so many things through the year, but if I focus on one idea and look at some of the aspects of that idea, I can work on and build upon that idea.
I think I will be putting together new years resolutions at the beginning of the school year in August as well as mid-year in January. This give me two times a year to put goals together and check how I am doing on the ones I have set.
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Text vs. Skype vs. Email vs. Chat vs. Face to Face

I love technology. I love technology in school. I think students need to use a know the different technology that is out there so they can design, write, or engineer the new technology for the world. I like the options that it provides for students to use in school. New homework options instead of just pencil and paper. New ways to communicate with other students and teachers.

But communication can get lost the tech. The one thing that technology needs to be careful of is communication. We have so many different ways to communicate that the most important one of all might get lost in the shuffle. Face to face communication. We like to text or email our friends, chat or Skype our family. We use tech to communicate our thought and sometimes we just need to stand in front of our friends or family and talk. We need to focus on what is in front of us and not let out tech break the focus to text someone or take the call.

Technology is great, but the personal relationships we make with those in front of us will build us up. Using technology in school should include the lesson about communicating with those sitting right next to us. 1:1 computers gives us a path to using technology and prepare them for what might come later, but so will communication. Collaboration with partners and teams should become more important in a technology laden classroom. We need to be careful not to assign too many individual projects and work on more cooperative and collaborative assignments using technology. Brainstorming, discussing, revising, discussing, solving, discussing, completing, communicating.

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When We Understand Computers

Time Bandits was the visor of choice today. Some funny quotes about technology came up.

Evil: If I were creating the world I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o'clock, Day One!
[zaps one of his minions accidentally, minion screams]
Evil: Sorry.

Evil: God isn't interested in technology. He cares nothing for the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time, forty-three species of parrots! Nipples for men!
Robert: Slugs.
Evil: Slugs! HE created slugs! They can't hear. They can't speak. They can't operate machinery. Are we not in the hands of a lunatic?

Evil: When I have the map, I will be free, and the world will be different, because I have understanding.
Robert: Uh, understanding of what, Master?
Evil: Digital watches. And soon I shall have understanding of video cassette recorders and car telephones. And when I have understanding of them, I shall have understanding of computers. And when I have understanding of computers, I shall be the Supreme Being!

Evil: I have the map! I have the map! And the day after tomorrow... The world!

Evil: Oh, Benson... Dear Benson, you are so mercifully free of the ravages of intelligence.
Benson: Oh, you say such nice things, Master.
Evil: Yes I know, I'm sorry!

Evil: Suddenly, I feel very, very good.
Robert: Oh, I'm sorry, Master.
Evil: No, it'll pass, it'll pass.

Supreme Being: I should do something very extroverted and vengeful to you. Honestly, I'm too tired. So, I think I'll transfer you to the undergrowth department, brackens, more shrubs, that sort of thing... with a 19% cut in salary, backdated to the beginning of time.
Randall: Oh, thank you, sir.
Supreme Being: Yes, well, I am the nice one.

We I'll all be Supreme Beings one day, once we understand computers.

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Too Much Tech On My Hands

I have been looking for great technology to use with my students for many years now. I have found some great software and websites that have enhanced my teaching and student learning. Some apps has made it easier for the students and more work for me, and I have found some apps have made it easier for students and less work for me.

What I have also found is the amount of products that are out there and how I have been trapped in the notion that I need to use as many as I can for the students. I don't think this is the case. We don't have to use as many programs that we can. We just need to use the ones that will enhance the student learning. There are so many different apps out there to use and many of them do the same thing. I heard about Spicynodes a few days ago and I started playing on it. It is a fun program. After I made a project on it I found that it is the same as using Xmind. My students use Xmind when mind mapping. It is easy and not web based, yet we can post the finished products on the web. It is also similar to Mind42, which is also a beautiful mind mapping program. What we use is what is best for us.

We do need to keep our eyes open for useful programs that can be used in our classrooms, but do we need everything we can get? I don't think so.

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What Did He Say?

I have been following the tweets of Bill Ferriter the past few weeks. He was at a conference listening to Andy Hargreaves speak and was tweeting some of Andy's sayings. I was struck by these sayings and feel I need to put them here for me to remember and for others to read.

•As a leader when we say it can't be done, your job is to get in the and show them it can be done.
•As a leader are you willing to go into the dirty, dangerous places where others are willing to go?
•Going into the dirty, dangerous places as a leader show others where change begins.
•Organizations that perform beyond expectations aspire to improbable, collectively held dreams that a bold than any plans.
•We are who we learn from.
•First fit the curriculum to the child, then monitor, track, and measure. Not the other way around.
•Never make demands on people that you don't have a relationship with.
•Late spikes in improvement are a sign of meaningful change.
•Friendly rivalry—on field competition combined with off field collaboration—leads to growth for all.
•The first method of estimating the intelligence of a man is to look at who he has around him.
Andy Hargreaves

These are sayings I will be thinking about for a while.


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Survey Says...

My students started using a Student Response System in my class a couple weeks ago. We have had a set in our library that was unused last year. I decided to get it out and see what I could do with it this year and our Title 1 Department bought each Title 1 school a set of each classroom. So I dove in and found it to be a very useful tool.

We did a few yes/no questions and then started to text in answers. The students payed more attention to what I was doing. Then came the accountability. They found that they could not look to others for answers. They had to come up with it themselves. He answers became more varied and thoughtful.

We brainstormed a fictional narrative the class was starting to write. The ideas came out about a theme. We learned about different Cinderella stories last week and so that became the theme. The setting was Christmas time in the North Pole. We discussed the events that should happen because of the framework of a Cinderella story. They came up with the framework. They came up with names. They came up with a few events. All ideas came from the students texting in their ideas with the SRS. Another tool in the long list of great tools to use in the classroom.

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Does a PLC reach across school boundaries?

We had a principal from another school visit us on a Learning Walk. There is a purpose for the Learning Walk and I think it is for the people coming to our school to learn about some of the things we are doing. I think this mint have been lost on this walk. When it was finished, we heard back about all the wrong things we were doing in our school. How we were not following the strict guidelines on the district on the curriculum map and how we we not using the right materials to teach.

First off, the guidelines are guidelines right? See How To Stay Up With The Curriculum on the editions website. We do the best we can, but we still teach kids. We are taught not to teach to the test, and yet, we are to teach the curriculum at the exact time everyone else is. It is great to have a map and a guideline of what and when to teach it, but some kids need a little more time here and a little less time there. That is the teachers guide to how fast to teach. Am I wrong here?

But the main point of this, for me, is the PLC aspect of it. If we are going to have a Professional Learning Community, we should find the best in the schools and spread it around. Each school should work at getting better by building a collaborative atmosphere and the district should follow suit by building a collaborative atmosphere among the schools. How can we collaborate with people that tear us down? Is competition good among schools academically or should we be working to raise everyone's skill level.

So how do we do this? How do we stop finding the bad in other schools and find the things that a good and try to incorporate them into our school?

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How Do You Spell Assessment?

We are using a "Words Their Way" type of spelling program. It is more of a "Words Their Way" lite. My question is how do we grade? Do we grade the pretest because it tells us what they know? Do we grade them on the Friday test after they have gone over the words and practiced them all week? Does the Friday test show students know the words and can use them in their writing, or does is show they can study words for a week and spell them on Friday and nothing changes in their writing?

"Words Their Way" is a great program that concentrates on patterns in the words. We are told to grade the last few tests, yet each test concentrates on a whole different set of patterns. Students may get an easy pattern on the last few weeks and hard ones throughout the weeks. This is not a true picture of how they are doing with spelling. So do we even grade the weekly tests? Our team is always trying to show what the students truly know on the reports we send to parents. I am not sure if we are there yet with spelling.

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The Major Award

Our school received a major award this week. We have become a Distinguished Title I School. This is a culmination of what our school has been working on for the last few years. The staff did not know about this award and we were not looking to get it, but there it is, right at our doorstep. All the innovation we have been doing, all the research, all the practices we have put into place have given us the opportunity to be recognized for our hard work. All teachers are hard workers and deserve to be recognized. The students performed to our expectations.

We teach and teach, we research and change our teaching styles, we practice and replace ideas, we read about others ideas and write down our own, and we worry about the things we did not do. We are being recognized for the hard work we have done over the last few years of changing our culture and attitudes about students and learning. We are thankful for the award. We have not desired it. We did not even know it was there for schools to earn. We were just doing our jobs to help students learn and be prepared for the world when they enter into it as an adult. We want them to be ready for whatever comes their way. We are not sure what we will see in ten years when those fifth graders are in college or entering the workforce. What we do know is that it is changing and we need them to be prepared for whatever comes their way.

We accept the award on behalf of all the teachers, professional development teachers, conference speakers, district support, and others that have had a hand in making our school a wonderful place to teach and to be taught. Our job now is to keep our standards and expectations high and to keep our students learning. We can do it.

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