A few days ago, my director mentioned that the school would be “remodeled” at the end of the week. If this was anywhere else in the world, that would mean that the school would be closed and when we returned from the remodeling the school would look shiny and new.This is not how Korea works.
Every school I’ve worked at has done remodeling sometime during my stay there. My first school cut holes in the walls of classrooms and didn’t even bother to clean up the dust from the drywall. The floor was littered with particle board and building scraps.
My second school had kindergarten students getting dizzy from paint fumes as they remodeled. Workers with hammers, knocking down walls, and people and painting without proper ventilation. It was so bad they actually called in a half day when all the staff got migraine headaches.
My third school would paint the interior from time to time on weekends, then run fans when they opened the school on Monday. This was probably the best, as it didn’t interfere with us in class directly. We just weren’t allowed to touch the walls for a few days just in case they needed to do retouches.
Now this school. So it goes.
She informed us that they wouldn’t be using any paint, and wouldn’t be going into classrooms. Good. What were they going to be doing then that would qualify as remodeling?
When I went into work today, one wall to a classroom had been cut out. I guess they’ll be adding glass there. There were several gruff looking worker types going around with what looked like futuristic gigantic wallpaper stickers. They’d peel off a roll of the sticker on a base board, then flatten out the air holes. Then they’d cut the shape to fit the board. No cleaning the walls. Just stick the stuff on top of the old paint. It was even textured to make it look like fake wood. Classy.
All of the doors had been removed from their frames. The worker’s tools were stacked in one of the old classrooms. They didn’t need drop cloth or paint buckets, but instead used rulers and razors. They had tons of rolls of the sticker paper. The people worked quickly and quietly, moving and covering everything in a dull silver and gray color scheme that looked more suitable for a dentist office than a school.
The chaos and confusion of students on a normal day is fairly loud. Subtract doors, add some workers, and a “work in progress” remodeling, and it was really hard to teach today. The students didn’t seem to mind winding in and out of the path of the workers. They were trained that construction zones were places to walk long ago with the lazy safety commitments made by every single construction site in Korea ever. The number of people killed by falling items from cranes must be enormous in this country.
My director didn’t seem particularly worried that workers with razors slashing around young curious students was any concern. The remodeling work would continue through the weekend, and we’d have a newly decorated school by Monday. Hurrah.
