FARMINGTON — School in America is different from school in Korea, according to two Korean students who are in Davis County this month to both learn and to teach.

As the first-grade students in the class he was visiting paraded around the room for an alphabet game, Jeesuk Kim, of Seoul, said children in America have more freedom and like to go to school more.

Teachers make learning enjoyable for the kids, he said, and use a lot of materials and supplies to do so.

In Korea, students sit at the table and learn math through lectures, he said.

YouJung Kang, who is studying at Gongju National University of Education in Gongju, Korea, noticed the same thing. Students have more supplies to work with and teachers provide more learning-oriented activities.

Kang has also noticed that students here are more polite.

“I am very impressed,” she said. “Most of the students here wait to speak out until they have permission. In Korea, most just speak their opinions.”

As she is learning from her experiences in her first visit to America, Kang hopes the fifth graders she’s working with are learning from her.

“I just wonder how they think about me because I’m a foreigner,” she said. “They are young and they don’t know about Koreans or Asians.”

Each week, Kang and her fellow university students present a few classes on Korean culture as well as math and English.

“This is an opportunity for schools to have extra exposure to another culture,” said John Sheffield, director of elementary education for Davis School District.

He said the visiting students come from the top 10 percent of their university classes and their English has to be “really good.”

While here, 3,000 to 4,000 students will have exposure to the international visitors, who are teaching, tutoring, or otherwise assisting in four of the five year-round schools operating in Davis County. Schools participating include Foxboro, Antelope, Lincoln and Bluffridge elementaries.

For more information check out August 2 edition of Davis Clipper.