There are 3 Gandhi Schools in Korea and where I was is located in Sanchung near Jinju. It is in the middle of the mountain called Dunchul
Mountain. Others are in Gumsan, Jechun. Sanchung and Gumsan G.S. are high school but Jechun G.S. is 5-year system that includes middle and high school. Students are elected through paper and interview except Jechun G.S. In Jechun G.S., they choose students ramdomly by drawing cut. Students come from all over the cities inKorea, including Jeju Island.

Once students start their life in G.S. they experience very unique culture. First of all, in G.S. all students are friends and they don’t speak in polite language even though they have different age. Relationship between students is really open and since they live together in the dormitory it’s common to see very deep friendship. The relationship between students and teachers is also very open that students easily talk and play with teachers.

Secondly, there are a lot of clubs in G.S. from dancing club to history study club. Since club activity is one of requirements to students, all students join at least one club.  In my case, I have joined 4 clubs – dancing, Korean traditional drumming, history study club and singing club – and it was really happy to do club activities. You might think joining 4 clubs is too much but I was the average and it’s not hard as you think because the students can’t do any other activities in G.S. For example, they can’t watch TV(there isn’t any TV) , they don’t do computer games (it is not allowed) and they don’t use Internet after 6 pm. Students can make club if there are at least 3 participants and if they find one teacher who will help them they can register their club as a official club which can receive financial support from the school.

In Gandhi school, thirdly, students and teachers are having meeting once a week to discuss about problems in the school. Everyone should attend this meeting and every problem should go through this meeting. For example, if there were fighting involving violence they discuss about that here and decide punishment for the students who used violence. They decide by majority. Through this process they learn democracy and the students, especially, learn how to accept and understand other’s different opinion. Of course, it’s hard to arrive at an arrangement and sometimes the argument grows to fighting. However, knowing that there are different ideas and opinions itself is very important and the students learn a lot from that.