Supplementary Classes

My uncle David was kind enough to write a note in the comments asking for more information about the Korean school year.  His exact quote:

"What kind of classes do they take during the supplemental periods?"

Good question, David!  The students take English, Math, and Korean.  Those three classes are the most important for future testing.  I'm not exactly sure what the students do for studying.  I guess just learn new vocab words or review stuff.  For my class we mostly just hung out every day for four weeks and spoke English.  Pretty easy stuff.  

This is probably a good time to point out that nearly every Korean high school student takes supplementary classes all year.  The school day goes from 8:00am-4:20pm but students have classes in the evening.  After 4:20pm students can leave school but they have to have permission.  Reasons for leaving school can include anything from going to buy a birthday gift for your mother to going to taekwondo class to going to work at your part time job.  But you better have a reason.  

For students who stay at school, they stay until 10:00pm, studying.  Some might have extra classes on some nights, like for English or Math or something (I don't know all of the evening night classes) but many nights they just sit in classrooms together studying away.  If they are 3rd year students who will graduate this year, they stay until 11:00pm to study.  Different teachers rotate who stays late with the students every night but most teachers stay until around 10:00pm on a nightly basis.  Not the most fun of working conditions, that's for sure.