Elementary Schools in New York

This is from J.Lee. She is an elementary school teacher in NewYork.

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- Your name J. Lee
- Where you live new york
- Your Position/Title teacher
- Years of experiences as an educator 1 1/2 yrs.
- The grade or level, subject you are teaching or taught 3rd grade

- How are schools divided in your country?
in Korea - elementary-middle-high school
in the US - pre-K, K-5 , or K-8 PS/IS, high school

- The differences between the reasons for public schools and the reasons for private schools?
providing variety extracurricular activities, low teacher-student ratio , flexibility in expenditure and curriculum planning, more parent involvement?

- What are extracurricular activities in your school?
chorus, music(band), ballroom dancing, chess, fitness club, gymnastics, baton twirlers, book clubs, etc must be more that I don't know.


- What kinds of subjects do your students learn in school? How many?
reading, writing, math, art, computers, studio in a school (art based on social studies curriculum), NY philharmonic(music), gym, etc


Tell us anything else about curricula in your country/state.

- Funding for schools?
dunno-we're an empowerment school- have flexibility in budget planning and expenditure.

- The social and economic status of teachers/professors in your school area?
mostly middle class.

- How is the foreign language/bilingual education managed in schools?
ESL

- How important is teaching foreign languages? How many languages are
taught in schools?
none

- How supportive the principal and parents in your school district?
extremely supportive.

The Crisis of the Korean Public Education

Korean has higher education fever than any other nations. It is a social atmosphere and gradually increasing. About 90% of secondary school students take out-of-school lessons such as English, math, science, and other subjects for preparations of school classes. Young elementary school students are also in the same situation. After school they study in each institute or with tutors to get good GPA. The tuition is not cheap. Therefore, much of a family income is spent in private education for their children. (In Korea, the regular school education including public and private schools is called the public education, and individual out-of-school lessons such as tutoring or private institutes are called the private education.)

However, the private education fever has caused the collapse of public education. Students who already studied the curricula feel bored by the school classes. Some of them stealthily study other materials in the classroom. Several students even sleep or doze in class because they take out-of-school lessons until late night so are tired. Many students think that they don’t need to concentrate in class because they already know the classwork. As a result, teachers’ job satisfaction is decreasing, and the will to teach is also weakening. Most teachers feel that their professional teaching ability is not respected by their students. The most serious problem is that these students cannot study by themselves. They tend to depend on lectures of instructors out of school, so that young students cannot make their own study plan and do not even know how to study by themselves.

How about your country's public schools? Do you have any problems similar to South Korean schools?