In Korean public school systems exists a phenomenon called 'open class.' It is well known to all native Korean teachers and foreign teachers alike, as everyone must participate throughout the school year. Open class is basically when people are invited to come observe a teacher 'teach' a class. Sometimes the visitors are the vice principal, principal and coworkers from the teacher's own school. Other times they are parents of the students in the class or teachers from other schools. But on occasion the people that come to watch the class are people in high-up positions at the Office of Education.
Open class is basically a Korean teacher's worst fear. The nerves that build up over weeks of preparation are enough to break a person down. When a Korean teacher finds out the date and time of her open class she will spend weeks planning and preparing. Unlike in the U.S. this is not a time when the principal comes in, sits in the corner unnoticed by students and takes a few quick notes on what the teacher is doing. It is far from that. Instead, the teacher creates an extremely elaborate illusion of what their class would look like in a perfect world where the teacher has an infinite number of hours to plan and prepare for their classes. And this is what it is expected to be. It is no secret.
Let me give you an example. Three days ago one of my fourth grade classes was cancelled due to the fact that our head teacher, who is a P.E. teacher, was going to have an open class the next day. The head teacher and his class needed to 'practice' the lesson the day before so they would be prepared for when the important people from the Office of Education would come the next day to observe. Yes, they actually practiced the exact class that they would be having the next day and held their students out of my class to do it. The next day I walk up to school having completely forgot about the head teacher's open class, but am quickly reminded of it the second I step foot on school grounds. Groups of students are scurrying around with little brooms and dustpans sweeping up all the fallen leaves and dirt off the driveway. The dirt field in front of the school, which is used for P.E. classes and sports, is completely covered in sports equipment. Let me just tell you that I have NEVER seen anything on this field besides the two permanent soccer nets that it houses and elementary schoolers playing various sports. On this day the students would have the greatest P.E. class of their lives. They would get to participate in an cornucopia of sports ranging from badminton to bowling to balance beaming. On the field were various types and sizes of nets, mats, stools, big, wood things that looked like a bean bag toss without a hole in the middle and special equipment at each station. Someone had even gotten out chalk they use on baseball fields to designate each area. I too had to sacrifice for this class. My coteacher and I were asked to haul our oversized dry-erase board down three flights of stairs out to the field. Who uses a dry-erase board in the middle of a dirt field? When the decorating was finished all I could really do was laugh at the ridiculousness of the whole affair. But I was the only one laughing.
To make matters even more extreme, the school apparently bought over 20 two-foot potted flowers. As we were lugging the dry-erase board outside the vice principal would stop every 10-feet to indicate where the students should place each pot. It was someone's genius idea to place these directly in the middle of the hallway, as if it was totally natural to have barriers in the middle of the hallway of an elementary school where students are constantly running, jumping, sliding, hitting, kicking and participating in outrageous activities I've never even seen before. There is no way that on a normal day these flowers would have lasted 10 minutes without getting knocked over and destroyed. At the end of the line of flowers there was a table set up with various books, binders and student creations all on the subject of P.E. The Office of Educationites could explore the wealth of knowledge belonging to our beautiful, perfect school, students and staff.
And the next day the beautiful illusion ceased to exist. (How'd you like that one sentence paragraph, Jay?)
The school's field on a normal day.
Unfortunately I didn't have my camera on open class day but you can imagine.
Now I'll briefly tell you about my own open class, which I have yet to do. Well, originally I was supposed to do it on the 6th of October. Then it changed to the 13th, then the 12th of November and now it is scheduled for November 19th. Since it was originally supposed to be the 6th of October my coteacher and I will naturally be teaching the lesson that we would have taught would it have been that day, 4th grade Chapter 11 Part 2. Instead, when we actually teach our class, our students will be on Chapter 14 Part 1. Oh, and did I mention that November 19th is a Friday and I don't even teach 4th graders on Friday? Yes, we will be having a class that day that doesn't actually exist. We will be teaching a lesson that the students learned a month and a half before and that we already practiced with them. I'm sure we will practice it for a second time the day before. For this class my coteacher spent hours creating the lesson and laminating and cutting out paper and I pretty much did nothing. This is not because I am lazy or don't care. It is because Korean teachers take this so damn seriously and get so stressed out over it that they won't let their coteachers do anything because they could screw it up. If they screwed it up then what would happen? Probably nothing.
I just have to mention again the fact that EVERYBODY knows that this happens and it is expected. If a teacher's open class lesson didn't look so overtly outrageous the people at the Office of Education, and everyone else, would have a fit. I'm sure the whole school would learn about it as soon as it happened (or before) and everyone would be talking about it. Maybe my criticism is too harsh because I come from a different culture and am used to things a different way, but I really have thought long and hard about this trying to think of the reasoning and I just don't believe it is the best way to evaluate a teacher's ability and success as an educator. It also causes so much stress on the teacher and takes time away from the students' learning, as they have to practice the same lesson multiple times in an unnatural fashion.
On the plus-side, students will be so well behaved there will be no corporal punishment in the classroom the entire period.
The next day the flowers (this is only half) had been moved to a more practical location.
Maybe I'll get to take one home with me.
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