You've been taughten

I realize it’s been a while since I last made a post. You see, a group of us have gotten hooked on The Office. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the sitcom, it’s like The Drew Carey Show only funny.

After doing some blog reflecting I’ve realized that I have written very little on my teaching experience thus far, which is very disproportionate seeing that it occupies about 45 hours of my week. You may be interested to know that the traditional Korean word for teacher, pronounced geyosa, originates from the hangeul language and roughly translates to, photocopying strumpet. In the teacher’s lounge I find myself always rushing to the photocopier and making a dozen xeroxes here and there. I feel like all I ever do is make copies. To ensure it doesn't become a boring task I always try and use the photocopier with the Korean touchpad, just incase some stranger is looking over my shoulder and getting very impressed with my understanding of the language (I’ve memorized all the buttons... shhhhh!).

Recently things have been going much better in the classroom. I still wish I didn’t have to spend so much time worrying about classroom management with the younger kids, but I suppose I too was obstreperous at that age. The worst is when you’re in a class with 10 unruly students and you have to get their attention. You ask for everyone to focus and that doesn’t work, so you start by saying the names of each student individually: “Jenny eyes up front please, Sarah paying attention okay?, Dylan, James, Edward can you stop that, Michael, Leslie, Olivia, Jessica sitting in your seat please, Annie, good.” And by the time you’ve said “Annie,” Jenny has now become distracted by her pencil case, Dylan is picking his nose and the name game is afoot all over again. But for all of the bad things there are an equal number of good things (that's so Buddhist). One of my favourite things about the younger classes occurs when I mention the word "partners."
“Okay, so now we’re going to get into partners and practice our speaking.” At this point, all the girls are waving across their desks and pointing back and forth at each other like they’ve got an unabating palsy. They're so excited they can no longer speak in sentences, all that stutters out of their mouths is "me, you, me, you, me, you, you, me, me." The girls are not to be outdone by the boys though. Many of the young lads have strong bonds with their partners as well. They'll turn to their friend and give them a bear hug so tight you’d need the jaws of life to pry them apart. It just might be the most adorable thing in the world. So sometimes, when I am feeling a little low because of classroom management problems, I like to announce that we will be getting into partners so I can observe this precious ritual. “Oh, actually no, we don’t need partners just yet, sorry everyone.” (But really I am not sorry....shhhh.)

I also have older students and the other day, in arguably the most advanced class in the school, I almost broke out in tears. I was checking their homework; they had to use the conjunctions (conjunkie-what-tees?), "but", "though", "where", "because", and "so", and make their own complex sentences. All of the students in this class have spent a year living in the United States and travelling the world (all six of these 12 year-olds have been to at least 4 different countries in the world, and they’ve all been to New York City, The Grand Canyon and California). One girl in this class tries so hard to complete her homework, and spends many more hours studying than her counterparts so that she can match her other classmates. She’s a lamb of a student, and is so polite and respectful. If she didn't worry so much about the self-imposed burden she put on herself, she'd be answering questions all of the time and reading so much more strongly. Anyway, I was reading through her conjunction homework and came across the following sentences, “I try so hard, but it never enough,” and then two sentences later, “I can’t run very fast because I am heavy.” I almost broke down in front of the class. I didn't feel like teaching for the rest of the day because I was so despondent. I was also upset at the utter cruelty and insanity of a world that makes someone – a 12 year old no less – feel this way. While this is a sad account, it does demonstrate my favourite part of the job. I love having aproximately 60 students with whom I get to slowly learn new traits and characteristics about each and everyday. It’s a great thing walking into the classroom, and challenging yourself to try to connect with each one of them and gain greater insights into who they are, and then trying to use that knowledge to make them better people and educate them.

Below are some photos of my recent weekend travels. Some of the pics were taken in Seoul and some are from a lantern festival in a town called Jinju, about four hours southeast of Seoul.



Silkworm larvae. A Korean delicacy that no one who isn't playing Survivor should ever think about eating.


It's always Survivor time for Horse. 24-7


The Korean way to leave your mark and say, "Mike was here." or "Sarah and Tony 4 ever."


What would happen if David Suzuki quit his day job.

Licentiously,

Me