Classrooms

One thing to remember, is, similar to Japan, in Korea, you don't move around the classrooms – you stay in one room and the teachers move to you. Therefore, you stay at your desk all day every day apart from breaks and lunch, so your desk becomes something that is very personal to you. They are individual wooden desks where the tabletop lifts up to show an empty space that can be used for storage. Most kids fill this with snacks, school supplies, notes, hair-bands and other little things that they cannot be bothered to carry with them. Often times the kids empty their bags into this space at the start of the day (their notebooks, etc.) for easy access. Teenagers also doodle on the top of their desks and stick stickers on them, although this is almost never allowed.

Forget electronic writing boards or even whiteboards, the hottest thing in Korean classrooms always has been and still is the blackboard with good old-fashioned chalk. It is the students' job in between lessons to erase this board for the next teacher. The format of most lessons is the teacher talking at you (not to you) in a lecture-style, giving you bare facts. They give you lots and lots of these facts, which they write up on the board, and you will copy down as much as you can into your notebook, which you will look at and read again and again to revise.

Korean classes often have 40-50 people in them. There are noticeboards and display boards along the walls. It is often the job of the classes to make these displays look good, and show what they have learnt to visitors. It is also the responsibility of these classes to keep extra-curricular clubs, holidays, special days, exams and other things on the calendar which will inevitably be pinned on to one of the noticeboards.

There are often pegs at the back of the room for coats, scarves and other things that the student will not need/wear during the school day. Like I said, once you are in that classroom it is pretty much a permanent thing for the day so people try and get themselves all sorted out and organised so that it's not a huge hassle in between lessons and they can take a break.

Testing is on FACTS ONLY. For Korean History for example, it won't be what life was like, but dates and times and things that EVERYONE can know. This is meant to make it completely equal so that naturally creative students can't fluff up their answers to get a good mark (but naturally gifted students can study more facts...) and nobody can LIE. Although this does make it slightly easier to cheat, cheating is a very serious thing to do.

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