School Festival

Today was the school festival. Wow... What a production. The festival consisted of numerous performances including dance, martial arts, instruments, plays, etc. The show lasted right at 3 hours. The costumes, decorations, lighting and special effects reminded me more of a broadway performance instead of a preschool/kindergarten play. It's unbelievable that those kids have the attention span for that, let alone can memorize all that. I was getting antsy in my chair after an hour and I wasn't even the one having to perform!

Some of performances gave such a beautiful insight into the culture here. It made me laugh when they busted out Gangnam Style. I had to film this for all my friends back home who either love or hate the song.

Many of my students have been in school all day long and then come to the hagwon for hours after school to learn English. Most of them are great students, but a number of them are burned out and have no interest in being there.

I recently found out that the educational system here is a lot different than in the US. Kids here actually have to test to get into certain high schools (good or bad). Whereas in the US, kids just go to the school in their district. If a kid gets placed into a bad school in Korea, it can have a negative affect on their future opportunities (college, careers, etc.). 

I took a ton of videos, but they're slow to upload. I'll upload them to my YouTube Channel later. Here are some pictures instead:

This is an interesting article about hagwons (private schools) in Korea: 

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2094427,00.html