Camp, what happened?

So, Korean camps are far from fun. That is my conclusion.

Here's the big story from today.
It starts yesterday, really. I was doing some activities, the kids were supposed to create their own characters, and describe them, and write an introduction for them. Anyways, I could tell I was losing some of them, because everytime I looked away, they pulled out their hagwon homework and started doing that instead.
These three girls, who actually attend Samho Middle School (Jessie's school where this camp is) were having a lot of trouble following. They are extremely low level, and as horrible as it is to say, have no place at an extracurricular camp aimed at advanced students. Especially when they have so little english that they can't be disciplined when there is no coteacher. I mean, nevermind that they have no idea what is happening to begin with.
Anyways, one girl sat with her head down all morning. For three and a half hours. Her friend talked all day. And when I told her to be quiet, she said "Sorry!" and gave me the cute innocent face, which I HATE! And then when I gave her a look, she'd shut up for about five seconds before starting to talk loudly in Korean again. She also spent the whole class sketching little doodles on a huge sketch pad. About four pages of size 2' by 2.5'. Anyways, I got pretty peeved, but I had a group activity coming up, so I figured I would just wait. When I finally told them what the assignment was about creating a character, everyone started to work, except for these two and their friends, because of course, they had no idea what they were supposed to be doing.
I tried to explain to them, but they hadn't been listening, and they did not get it. They were so level, they had no idea at all what they were supposed to be doing, and had no idea. I tried to get another student to explain it to them, and finally they got it. YES! Well, sort of. They actually started drawing dozens of small pictures, copied from a textbook, rather than anything original. I said "No, new character!" but they did not get it. And then, getting them to write descriptive sentences was really hard too.
Today the one girl sat again with her head down all first period, and the other chatted up a storm. Such a great storm, in fact, that at break, I told her that if her and her friends could not stop talking, that they should probably not be at a voluntary camp. She didn't understand (I was obviously using much simpler english than that), so I said "Be quiet or go home". Apparently all she understood was "Go home", because she and her friends never came back from break. I asked the others where they were, and they said thye had gone home. One girl added "I'm glad. I hate them". It was actually kind of funny, she obviously didn't mean hate, but it was clear that the rest of the class was really irritated by them too.

I called Jessie's coteacher when I got home to tell her what had happened. Her response was "Yes, I had been worried about those girls since they signed up". Well, if you were worried about them being at this camp, why were they allowed to sign up? If they can't hack it/won't take it seriously, why are they allowed to ruin a voluntary camp for other students?! I was told not to worry about getting in trouble for them going home early, because they wer trouble-makers, and would probably not tell their parents, because they would get in trouble anyways.

There are so many problems with the organization of these camps. We were not given any clear goals, we were given no resources, when there were not enough volunteers, it was not seen as an opportunity for more individualized attention, but instead more students were forced to attend the camps to round out the numbers. Now, we have un-motivated students who do not want to be there, so no wonder it's like pulling teeth to get participation.
Also, when school "vacation" starts, kids have more classes at hagwon. SO extra english camps are not exactly a priority, since the kids who go to hagwons tend to be the bets in english class, and thus are the ones who get dragged into camp. So, when I say it is time for a break, they start doing their hagwon homework.
Here's a tip Korea. Let your kids play. No wonder they sleep at school, studying is their life, and they stand to learn more at a hagwon than at school. They'll have more energy at school, and maybe not so much energy to drive me crazy! God!