Teaching in Rural Korea (And Why "One School" Sometimes Means "Three")

Before I left the USA, the one thing I was the most excited about was getting my placement.  I was constantly online searching all over Jeollanamdo (전라남도), trying to see what regions and cities there were, and what life was like there.  When I finally received my packet from Canadian Connections, I had been placed in my second choice: Boseong county (보성군)!

In hindsight, I'm actually very, very glad I ended up here and not Yeosu (여수), which was my first choice on my application.  Yeosu is a beautiful, larger costal town about a 75min drive from me, but nothing quite has the beauty and charm of a rural town in the Korean countryside.  Boseong county has a population of about 63,000, but the town of Boseong itself is only around 9,000-10,000.  It's actually around the same size as my hometown of Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

Swung by the tea fields on a rainy day...You can imagine what it looks like on a sunny one!  Stunning.

In total, those 63,000 people are spread out over 256mi^2, or (663km^2), which means once you leave the towns, it's relatively sparse.  Children have to be bused all over the region to attend school, and as a result, many schools have a very small number of students.  For us teachers, this often means teaching at more than one school.  This both cuts costs for the schools, since they split the cost of an English teacher among themselves, and makes it easier to ensure all students in the region are receiving English education with a native speaker.