Getting to Know Your International Contacts- Part 2

I have gained a few new insights about South Korea from Dr. Yurica.  Nearly 100% of students take the bus to and from school.  The military schools have free shuttles to bus their children home, but the Koreans also have to pay for their bus transportation like their education.  On average, this costs $1000 for a year.  It seems like the Koreans go to school year round because they only have a month off for summer vacation and about two months for winter vacation.  The reason for such a long winter vacation is because of Lunar New Year.  This is one of the most important holidays here which is similar to our New Year’s.  It is a time to go home and visit family, so many fly to other countries to travel with their family.  The most popular destination of course is America.  Another interesting tidbit is that the Korean workday and school day is different.  Most Americans are at work and school by 8am, but in Korea, somewhere between 9-10am is a good time to start their day! 

Equity and excellence are important all around in this country.  Evidence that is displayed is the technology in the country.  This country is really striving to be westernized as possible.  This country values Education so much that they want to be on top globally.  It was mentioned not too long ago on the News that South Korea came in second in Academics.  A lot of pressure is placed on children to excel.  You will not find a teenager working, but you will see them studying hard as well as perfecting an instrument or talent.  The only problem is that not everyone has access to education.  I mentioned last time education is free until third grade.   There are numerous excellent schools available, but they come with a price tag. 

Accessibility is the biggest problem with equity and excellence in education here.  Most of the country is farm land, so families usually move close to Seoul to send their children to school.  It is looked down upon and rarely heard of students who cannot go to school.  Parents are willingly to sacrifice anything including themselves for the chance to send their child to school.  I had the previous conception that they went to work with the families if they could not afford education, but that was dispelled this week.    There are child labor laws in place that encourage parents to send their children to school.  I agree with the comments left on my last post that said that America should do the same!  I think that would eliminate so many issues today if we did charge a fee for school.

Sharing Web Resources: PreK Now - Part 2

PreK Now- Part 2

The entire site so far has given me some professional development.  My area of expertise lies in Pre-K and Kindergarten.  I have been reading the daily newsletters and watching a couple of the videos online.  So far, there has not been a day that has past that hasn’t included budget cuts in education within the newsletter.  It breaks my heart to read about this because Education should not be the first place to start cutting funding.  There is a section that is just for Educators which is what I have been focusing my attention on.  It includes classroom tours, state profiles for Pre-K, resources for the classroom, and video clips to help educate teachers just to name a few. 

            The most covered topic in the newsletters regard funding cuts starting with preschool programs and Pre-K.  I am not a policy maker, but I am definitely a child advocate.  I have been reflecting on ways that could eliminate the need to cut funding.  I mentioned this week in discussion that families should be charged by income.  That means that everyone can pay even if they are in poverty, and their bill will be very small.  The military does this for childcare as well, and every child gets to go.  They also offer incentives for people who want to do in home child-care, and this is another example of what states could do. 

            We have been examining the role of economists, scientists, and politicians this week.  All areas were covered.  The funding cuts mentioned involved the economists.  There is a section that tells you to Vote which encourages political views.  There is also mention of governors who are battling these funding cuts.  The science realm comes in with the research part of the site.  It is very evident to everyone that our early childhood programs like Pre-K must stay and come with more advantages than disadvantages.  There are current articles to read to suffice this.

            My new insight about issues and trends this week came from the online video I watched through PreK Now.  I took the virtual classroom tour.  It included pictures of a high quality Pre-K classroom and program.  Some things that were mentioned include the following:

Teachers ask students probing questions

A well organized and resourceful classroom with pictures everywhere

Family involvement

Health screenings

Positive Teacher

Teacher acknowledging all students work

All of these mentioned are issues that we have already covered in our program so far.  This is a good site to recomment to fellow colleagues who are not aware of what is going on the education realm with current issues and trends.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 1

I have been conversing back and forth with Dr. Yurica who is the Principal at Seoul American Elementary School.  Her husband is retired military, and she has four children which she homeschooled all of them K-12.  I really found this intriguing that she is a Principal with teaching experience, yet she homeschooled all her children.  When I asked about this, she told me that she felt that her children really learned best one-on-one.  This is her first year as Principal, and she is really enjoying life abroad.

The school is unique in that it is on a military installation.  Active duty personnel dependents have priority to attend this school, and then civilians mostly Koreans have to pay $20,000 a year to come here.  All children in South Korea must pay for their education after third grade.   The average School year costs a minimum of $10,000 a school year for children in preschool and above. For those children who cannot afford school, they help their parents at work.  The whole country of South Korea does value education.  It is not uncommon for the fathers to move to America to work, so they can send money back home for their children.  There are also quite a few fortunate people that live in South Korea, but they send their kids to America to live and go to school.  This was an eye-opening issue that made me really appreciate our free education thanks to the American taxpayers. 

There are three social classes here in South Korea: rich, middle-class, and poor.  You can even tell what class a person is by the car they drive.  Black cars are a sign of wealth and are for the rich people.  Grey cars are for the middle-class people.  If the poor have enough money to buy a car, it is white.   People also believe that they must work until they die including both men and women.  In America, it is somewhat rare to see a car on the road that is older than 10 years, and our elder are retired and do not work.

Poverty is a big issue here in South Korea.  There are no homeless shelters, but there are orphanages.  The poor people make their living by selling things they made in the markets, cleaning, or cooking food in the streets.  There are quite a few homeless men that hang out in the subways and beg for money.  It is a very sad situation that nothing is really being done about this issue of poverty.  Dr. Yurica or I have never seen a Korean child in poverty, but that may be that we live in a huge city.  In America, we do have a lot of shelters for the homeless. So far, it has been a great two weeks communicating with Dr. Yurica, and I look forward to any other input she has to offer.

Sharing Web Resources: Pre[K] Now

http://www.preknow.org/ 

            I have chosen to follow the Pre-K Now Organization.  It reaches out to teachers, parents, policy makers and the entire community.  There is a plethora of resources available for everyone as well as up-to-date news regarding Pre-K programs all across the county. This week I viewed a couple of videos.  One was a virtual tour of a Pre-K classroom, and the other was a video covering five children in a high quality program over the course of a year. Everything we have covered in our graduate program so far was mentioned in the videos like involving parents and utilizing age appropriate curriculum.  The focus of this organization is to keep everyone informed of how important Pre-K is and relay useful resources for the community.

            I subscribed to this organization’s daily newsletter.  It has kept me posted of current events around the country that involve Pre-K.  One topic discussed this week was about Pre-K in Georgia.  The governor was about to change their full-day Pre-K program to part-Day.  The teachers, parents and people all across the state spoke up and let their voice be heard.  Pre-K is now going to continue to be full-day.  On the Yahoo main page this week, there was another article about Texas cutting back education funding.  The article mentioned that if this goes through as planned, Pre-K will be completely eliminated from the state.  It is very sad to read about two Governors trying to eliminate debt starting with our children's education first. 

            We have been discussing demographics and diversity this week.  In the videos that I watched this week on the Pre-K Now site, each one encouraged diversity in the classroom.  There were examples of parents from other cultures volunteering in the classroom, and they showed curriculum that encourage all students to appreciate culture.  These were very good examples of implementing demographics and diversity in the classroom.  I also noticed that some of the resources available were written in Spanish.  This week we have been mentioning how Latinos are about to be the majority soon in our country.  The Pre-K Organization is aware of this diversity and has accommodated these people by having resources available in their language.

Getting Ready-Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

Establishing Professional Contacts

 I decided to look into the Global Alliance of NAEYC which was listed under our blog references for this week.  I skimmed the list of countries, and decided that I would contact a professional from Spain.  I emailed Juan Sanchez on Monday, and I have not heard back from him.  I am assuming that he is not interested. 

I went back and skimmed the list again and decided to pick China.  I once taught ESL there in the summer of 2005.  I emailed Dr. Betty Chon Po-King, and I am awaiting a response.  I really hope she emails me back.

 I do live in South Korea and have some former colleagues that I can ask to be my professional pen pal.  If I do not hear back from Dr. Po-King, I will ask the Elementary school principal, Dr. Yurica.  We will actually be able to meet in person. 

I’m very excited about this assignment because I love learning about different cultures.  I was a bit nervous about emailing people I did not know, but that part is over with! 

Expanding Resources

            I decided to study the Pre [K] Now Organization.  My experience teaching was in Pre-Kindergarten.  I noticed that this site is linked to twitter, so I have set up a Twitter account to follow this organization.  I was amused when I saw this because I thought only teenagers used Twitter.  I also joined the News clip email list. This organization will send me daily clips to keep me informed about what is going on in the education community.   It has been three days now, and I have not received any emails, so I think I have to go check my spam folder.  I’m also excited to learn more about this organization because my passion does lie with Pre-Kindergartners!  These little ones are so excited to go to school every day, and I want to be able to keep this passion alive for future years.