Today I should record a little about things at school. The exams are over now, and for a while I don't have much to do. I'll go to school and fill my classes, but they aren't very intense classes, so they probably won't be hard. So I think I'll start writing a little again.
1. School organizational life
The first time I properly experienced organizational life at a school was my life at Jodo Middle School, where I went early this year. A school organization is a place with several characteristics. To lightly borrow knowledge I learned in education studies, it goes like this.
1) Loosely coupled organizational characteristics; in simpler terms, loose coupling
- There are various other organizational theories, but if asked to pick the two that fit best, the first I'd pick is this 'loosely coupled organization.' As with every school, Jodo Middle School, where I was, had many loosely-coupled characteristics. There wasn't something you could call a shared goal, yet the principal, vice-principal, and ordinary teachers like me weren't merely loosely connected either; there were feelings of appropriate closeness. Also, on certain guidance matters — for example, arrival time or how to begin class — the administrators talked about whether the school should have uniformity. I wasn't the type to announce to students that I begin class in some special way, but the vice-principal asked teachers to at least exchange greetings and signal the start of class in a consistent form. Even so, I remember not greeting differently afterward. The way the realization of curriculum or teaching methods appears variously for each person like this is called loosely-coupled organizational characteristics.
2) A learning community of its own; a free discussion culture
- I think the smaller the school, the better it can run if the relationships among teachers are tight and cooperative. On that point, that island-village school was fairly close to a successful school. To give a few examples, we held free discussions about lessons constantly. Because it was a small school, our subjects couldn't help but all be different, but the situations in which we felt hardship or a sense of achievement were generally similar. There were many memories of sharing how a student who struggled to participate in class came to participate well, and sometimes I heard worthwhile stories even though they were about other subjects. On the guidance side that runs through lessons, there seemed to be a lot of sharing too, since most participation struggles appeared for a few common reasons, and the methods to solve them needn't be confined to a subject. Continuous experiences of success at learning sometimes led students into participation, and presenting fun learning tasks was one method too. The point was that if a lesson is fun, students naturally participate well, so I think I gained a lot of help by talking as often as possible about how to make things fun and what they've taken an interest in lately. And with the teachers who lived next door and downstairs, I was able to talk a great deal and reflect a lot on how we might link our disciplines. Things I probably couldn't have done if not for the staff residences — from everyday talk to various talk that could be tied to learning, to talk about students' life guidance — I think we frequently discussed, debated, and shared our thoughts. There wasn't a 'common goal' like the one I mentioned in 1), but the continuous conversation was enough to make us feel we were a 'community.'
3) But still, to some degree, bureaucracy; the limits remain
- School democratization is one task the education world wants to achieve these days. But I think most teachers have never properly contemplated this 'school democratization' and have never properly practiced democratic decision-making. Because most people, who have only experienced voting as 'democratic decision-making,' have until now never experienced something as grand as a 'democratic decision-making community,' and yet are in a position of having to build and achieve it.
- To give one example, after-school programs. After-school programs in island regions seemed an awkward problem because of their geographic peculiarity. The place I worked had no academies nearby. It was a region without academies, but that didn't mean students had no interest in studies — that wasn't the case either. As a result, it was a point where the school had to substitute for the role of academies in Korean society. Teachers including me thus taught late one or two days a week. Through after-school classes, we did study-that-wasn't-quite-study with students even after regular hours. Of course that study wasn't 100%-focused study, but to some degree we used it as time to review concepts missed in regular class, and sometimes as time to build closeness with students. But I think this time was essentially, to some degree, a burden for both students and teachers. Because I'd never thought middle schoolers should have a life of studying all day. And because making them study all day didn't raise their grades either. Yet I couldn't shake the feeling that the administrators' demands and the parents' demands had made the school take on a surrogate-childcare function.
- According to another teacher who'd been at the school, that school used to have students go home at 5 and teachers leave then too, but now there's night self-study and after-school programs — it's changed from the past, which they found regrettable. That teacher had been assigned to that school as their first post and
4) Volleyball; hard but good
- I've never learned volleyball. Why do I bother saying 'never learned'? Because there's not been a single time I was immediately good at sports I hadn't learned. Apart from table tennis, skating, and swimming — sports I could do because I learned them — I had no sport I was good at, from my experience. Volleyball was the same. Volleyball really needed a lot of practice. There's no sport like volleyball where you have to receive the incoming ball well. The problem was it took me a long time to figure out where to make contact so the ball would bounce back properly, so I think I only adapted to volleyball right before leaving the school.
- One reason I came to think 'volleyball' was good is that through volleyball we built the 'driving force' that can make a team one. A school organization, by its nature, can't help but bring together people of various personalities. As a result, there are often times when, when teamwork is needed, that teamwork isn't well exercised. So in that volleyball builds that teamwork, I felt volleyball was a decent activity. In our own way we cooperated, showed consideration, and since one person doing too poorly is a bit of a burden to the team, we practiced too. Of course there were teachers who said that whole volleyball process itself was a burden, but I think it was largely because the school organization had no means of feeling a sense of 'unity.' And I think volleyball was recognized as one of the most effective ways to feel that unity.
2. The informal organization (though it's too small a school to call it that, and a combined middle-high school)
- In Korean society, a combined school wouldn't exist unless in a very special environment. That island was such a special case. From a personal view, the advantage gained as a combined school lay in securing teachers. Being a combined school, there were more subject teachers able to teach various subjects than in other island regions. Apart from Korean, English, math, social studies, and science, it's hard for one teacher to handle the rest — ethics, art, music, P.E., home economics, technology, information, etc. — but being a combined school, this was solved by sharing these teachers.
- And on the other hand, the once-a-week social gathering was a place to boost staff morale and, for me, a decent drinking occasion. Of course, I do feel my body took a toll because of these drinking sessions, but it was fun. Having a place to talk continuously like this, the sense of a 'community' that continuously converses and shares thoughts about school-related matters felt good.
- Of course, for teachers who find company dinners a bit uncomfortable and value their private life, this kind of group living would be enormously hard. In any case, at such a school it's true there's almost nothing you could call my private life. But for teachers who feel satisfaction in this, there's no informal organization quite like it.
3. In closing.
It so happened that I ended this piece by organizing the good memories of that school. Well, beyond such things, I think the most important thing is the members. I think I could receive these feelings because, at the time I was at that school, the members of the organization were all young and a foundation of trust and a cooperative attitude toward one another was in place. If that hadn't been done well, life at that school would have been really very uncomfortable. It just wasn't. Luckily, it was possible because every teacher was a partner for conversation, a partner for debate and discussion, and someone who gave cooperation and help.
At the big school I'm at now, it seems hard to get this so-called 'like family' feeling. Maybe that's why the image of my old school comes to mind relatively often.
#staffresidence #islandresidence #islandvillageteacher #islandregionteacher #learningcommunity #schoolorganizationreview #residencelife
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