Andrea CP#4

This was my first meeting with Keunhwa as a conversation partner. I was excited to meet with her because I think that in order to apply for EPIK, I need to learn more about the host culture. Meeting with her helped me feel more at ease about going to South Korea, I think. We talked about our personal lives, and I learned why she is in Tallahassee and what kind of experience she has a teacher. I was also very curious about the idea of hagwons and what kind of effect she thinks they have on student performance. I had been under the delusion that hagwons were the only way that South Korean students had of supplementing their school education, but Keunhwa explained that they are more like status symbols, rather than the be-all-end-all of education. Apparently, public schools also offer after-school programs and her opinion is that they are often better than hagwons. This was something that surprised me, but it was a pleasant surprise. As a social worker I'm always concerned about the effects that privilege and money have on kids, and I thought that families with no money for hagwons would have no choice for giving their children extra educational help. I like that there is a system that can help the less fortunate, even if it means not having the status symbol of attending a popular hagwon.