Being bitten by the snake

Summer is still very much underway here in the big K. The humidity just broke for the first time in months, although anything I leave out for even the shortest amounts of time stills molds, including laundry, fruit, or bread.

And then there's the work stuff. So on Monday night, I had a difficult time sleeping and I realized that I hadn't gotten my contract for my extension worked out yet and it's kind of coming down to the wire. Several months ago (methinks April?) I approached my boss about extending for a couple months. I really wanted to because it would work out in a carefully-timed scheme so that I could potentially work at a public school in February without resubmitting my very expensive, very time consuming documents. That was problem numero uno--framing this extension as a need of mine, when really, I should have framed it as a need of hers, the dragon lady aka my boss.

Well after a sleepless night on Monday, I came in on Tuesday and asked my boss if I could talk to her about contracting the extension. At which point she says, "Ummmm....yeah... I've been meaning to talk to you about that for awhile but I just really didn't want to. Yeah...well, see. The thing is...we have had 30 kids drop out this month....and you know...we have nine teachers here...that is like less than 20 kids per teacher...and so yeah... we won't be able to have you extend."

I was absolutely floored. FLOORED. First of all, out of the nine teachers, four are foreign staff and five are Koreans, three of which with limited English proficiency. AT AN ENGLISH ACADEMY. Second of all, she has personally told half of those parents to take a hike because she just isn't willing to compromise with parents concerned about their child's education. And to top it all off, she's known for WEEKS and hasn't bothered to say anything?!?!

So I was beyond upset and asked when my final day would be. I went from a "definite" November 1, with a potential few extra weeks tossed in to a final October 4. From 10 weeks left here to less than six in a swift moment. Although this realization was shocking, it was not as shocking as my boss' utter neglect of any consideration for me, whatsoever. If I hadn't approached her on Tuesday, when would she have talked to me? When would she have done her due diligence by me and INFORMED me of what was going on???

When we talked about it again today, I stood up for myself. I ensured that I would be paid entirely at a certain date, that I could stay in my apartment a few extra days to move and was assured of the work that would be required of me before I left. Of course, I will not rest assured until there has been a contract signed to the effect of all of this because she's a lying, conniving snake and a whole bunch of other words I can't write on a forum that my mother reads.

But still I couldn't resist getting my digs in. So I asked about the American, who is leaving for a week after my new end date. "So you're just going to have three English teachers at an English academy?" She assured me that I was correct. So I just whistled (which she hates) and said "Wow then I am glad I won't be working here by then."

Nothing Gold Can Stay

I've already passed the 11-month mark here in Korea. It is so surreal to go from being that wide-eyed new kid on the block meeting all these savvy foreigners who can spit out what sounds like gobbledegook and help you navigate your way around Korean streets, food, and culture to being the person who seemed to know so much--without really knowing anything at all!

Yes, a lot has changed.

I think about leaving my students and I get horribly sad. I don't want to think about it for a second. I have to start training the Loud American to be me. And it's so hard. I don't want to think about my kindy's loving on another teacher, holding their hand and trying to monopolize their attention. That's MY job. I'm already mourning the loss of them and I'm not even leaving for another three and a half months.

I'm sure you think I'm exaggerating, but even on their worst days, I just love hanging out with these silly five year olds.

Even when they spit on me because they were holding water in their mouths and then they started laughing.
Or cough in my face.
Or break my shoe.
Or steal my food.
Or seven of them are calling "teacherrrrr!" at the exact same time.
Or they bawl their eyes out.
Or they cling to me and try to rip off my arms.
Or play with glitter all over the table and make a huge mess.

There are just as many times they come to sit on my lap for no reason at all.
And come to the teacher's room to tell me a story about something that happened during lunch.
Or shout "See you tomorrow!"/"Goodnight!"/"See you in 300 million years!"
Or make jokes about the air conditioning sounding like a coffee maker. "Teacher wants coffee?"
Or draw cute pictures of us together.
Or clean up my classroom for me.
Or tell people how much they love me.

I'm really savoring these moments now because I know I'm going to blink, and then they'll be gone. :(

Bad Days Are Bad

Today was one of those rough days at work.

For the last couple months, ever since she bought two new hagwons and merged them with hers, she's been out of our hair. This has been positive for everyone involved. Her being happy = us being happy = the students being happy. It's a win-win-win.

But inevitably, the students from the acquired hagwons start dropping out and my boss starts losing money and she starts getting pissy. Nope, not at her own poor business and interpersonal skills. But she assumes it must be the teachers. It must be us driving these students away, not the vastly different curriculum, testing, and homework at our hagwon compared to their old schools or her own inability to adapt to the parents' expectations. So it is easy to tell when my boss is losing money because of how involved in our daily classes she becomes. And from how "involved" my boss has become as of late, she must be bleeding cash like a stuck pig.

This wouldn't be a problem if she offered helpful teaching tools or extra training. Her brand of involvement largely relies upon shouting interchangeably in Korean and English, publicly embarrassing students, and criticizing our teaching skills in front of our classes. Needless to say, it's not exactly a positive work environment.

Today was presentation day. This means that the paragraph my students have been memorizing all month is performed in front of a camera to be uploaded to the website for their parents to see later. Normally, they do this performance in front of me and another, gentler Korean teacher. Today, they performed for me, the gentle Korean teacher, my boss and her mini-me. Luckily, I've been drilling my students all month on their presentation so they were near perfect, even despite their nerves. Regardless, they still made two of them re-do their performances.

But for the other class that is a level below mine that followed us--urgh. They were shamed for not being smart enough, for not being as good as my class. And then after lunch, both classes were made to practice over and over and over. She pulled individuals up to the front and embarrassed them. Poor Raye didn't know if she should laugh or cry and I kept having to wordlessly coach her from the back of the room. When she was told she could sit down, she came and hugged my leg.

It was heartbreaking to see these kids who were so proud of themselves a few hours earlier torn to shreds and looking so unsure. Aren't we supposed to be building these kids up, telling them they can do these things, maybe so they will WANT to do them? Shouldn't we be making it impossible for them to fail so they have the confidence to succeed? I suppose I understand the need for "perfection" later on, but they are five. Like, can't we try not to damage them so young, creating a nearly irreversible aversion to learning English?

Raye

I feel like I could write an entire blog post about this girl...so I will. Yes, she's the dong/waste girl. Yes, she's the cutest little future car model you've ever seen. She's Raye.

Story Number 1:
All of our kindy kids have memo books that we (their teachers) write in every day. It's usually something small, like "Please help so-and-so practice their presentation tonight" or "So-and-so did really well in math today." So every day after I finish my memo books, I put them in my kids' backpack. But one day, Raye ran off and wasn't with the rest of the students. I found her in the bathroom, talking through the stall to one of the other teachers. I dragged her out of the bathroom to give the other teacher some privacy. She wanted to talk to me, so she was facing me, forcing me to lean over her to put her memo book in her backpack. She chooses this moment to reach up and put her hands on my chest, tapping out a little rhythm. "It's like a drum!" she squealed.

Story Number 2: Raye and another (adorable) boy at the school have a semi-romance going on. They're always sitting together, holding hands, just generally being adorable. So one week, Raye leaves to go to the Phillipines. Wouldn't you know it, but the same week, Jin Seo (her lovah) left for the Phillipines, too. It was the running joke at school that they left for a romantic getaway, just the two of them.

Story Number 3: Raye was acting really goofy in class one day. She was making weird noises, jumping all over the place. It was to the point that one of my other students turned to me and (quite seriously) said, "Samantha teacher, what was in Raye's food??"

Story Number 4: Raye and her mother got me a very, very nice gift for teacher's day, and actually hand-delivered it to me several days early because Raye was so excited about it. However, on the actual teacher's day, I think Raye was a little jealous seeing all the students give their gifts and not having anything to give. So she came up and semi-creepily whispered in my ear, "Samantha teacher, if you come to my house, I have a gift for you."

Raye seems to have a penchant for the creepy whisper, as this has happened on several other occasions, as well. When a few other students were whispering "secrets" to each other (they're obsessed with this), Raye came up to me and whispered in my ear while panting breathily, "If you come to my house, I have candy. Don't tell anyone else."

Although all of my kids are stinkin' adorable, I love this one the most. So sue me.

Favorite Students

Imagine the pride I felt on our field trip last week when I heard one of my kindergartners actually applying something she learned in conversational English. Can I just pause to gasp right now? *GASP*

So, here's what happened. Background: a couple weeks ago, I taught my kids about the human body--nervous system, arteries, veins--everything. We even went over the digestive system and the process of food being broken down by acid and being turned into waste. If that seems pretty heavy for a seven-ish-year-old to handle, imagine breaking that down for seven-ish-year-old to understand. It ended up being one of those things I had to shrug my shoulders and just hope they gleaned some useful information. It's not like they're taking the MCATs tomorrow or anything.

Fast-forward to our field trip. We were told we were going to see a "musical performance." It ended up being really fun for the kids (and really boring for the teachers, as everything was in Korean). They even passed out dough for the kids to roll and play with. The "cooks" had them roll it out into a long string, and then coil it in their hands until it looked like....a pile of crap. No joke, all the kids are shouting "dong! dong!" (the Korean word for poo).

So then one of the foreign teachers asked my student Raye, "Is that poop?" But Raye responded with "No! It's waste!"

Immediately upgraded to favorite student status.

Lately

Oof, I've been a bad girl. Always neglecting the ol' blog. When it rains, it pours, so lucky you. Time to catch you all up on my life.

--I have officially decided to pursue my masters degree, starting June 3, 2013. I know I vacillated significantly regarding all my options, so thank you for hanging in there with me. I decided to completely disregard my prior musings of concentrating on a Masters in Development. Although that is still something I am interested in, I couldn't fathom getting into that kind of debt without any guarantees for employment.

All things considered, I decided that I will be pursuing my Masters of Education in Curriculum and Instruction with a specialization in ESL online. This option will allow me to continue teaching abroad and will make finding gainful (oh, let's be real: lucrative) employment wherever I choose to go in the next few years. In addition, since my future career goals definitely include youth services, this further education will still improve my chances towards that end. Finally, I've been feeling the need to seek more professional development in my current position. As such, I think this option is best for me financially and professionally. 

--I've officially been in Korea for eight months. As always, it feels like the time has absolutely flown by. I can't believe there is only one season left to go before my contract is up! As a small side-note, real-world-spring (as opposed to Arizona-spring), is the worst. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. What a tease. Bring on summer.

--I've been making a conscious effort to keep in contact with people back home in more ways than one. I have been enjoying sending snail mail to friends and family back home. I'm having so much fun picking out all kinds of cute stationery.

--I'm really loving teaching my kindergarten class. They are such hard workers and every one of them are adorable and brilliant in their own way. It's a surprise to me, too, that they have ended up being my favorite class, and I will definitely be sad when the time comes to leave them.

--I've got so many exciting opportunities coming up. In two weeks, we have a four-day weekend. I'm hoping to go out of town, maybe see Busan, or some other new city. Next month, we have another four-day weekend, which I'm hoping to use to go to Japan. At the end of July, we have a five-day weekend (that is partially causing me inward groans because two day week? Seriously???) that has yet to be determined. Be excited, folks. The possibilities are endless!

That's all for now!

Creative Discipline

I know I've written a lot about my attempts at controlling my classroom, but I haven't really talked about specific discipline methods. You know, the kind that would get me fired from any school in North America.

When I first got here, I remember being told that having a student stand up, face a wall, and/or leave the class was perfectly acceptable a lot by my superiors. I remember thinking that, although atypical of the discipline methods I had seen in classrooms up to that point, they weren't such outliers as to be completely useless tactics for me.

And then I started hearing more stories of...creative discipline, as used by my co-workers. And I figured some of it didn't sound half bad. This, combined with the additional stress of teaching three new classes, having to prove myself as a capable teacher in control of a classroom, has led to some interesting methods in the last couple weeks. Which is how I accidentally fell into this situation:

THAT TIME I USED CORPORAL PUNISHMENT AND EVERYONE LAUGHED ABOUT IT

I googled "corporal punishment hands in the air" just to check that what I did to my poor student, Tom, was really corporal punishment. All the search results were about Korea. There you go. I'd originally heard of my boss doing this to a student from another teacher, but at the time, I thought it disgusting. But then I actually started teaching.

So the story goes like this. In my smart, boss'-favorite-class PK1, I have this student Tom, who is a real joker. He is a very respectful boy, usually, but he is definitely getting to that age where kids start thinking "Why should I do what you tell me to do?"

So he was speaking in Korean non-stop during class, while other students were reading. I told him to cut it out. After about ten seconds, his chatter started up again. "Tom," I told him. "I need you to stop speaking in Korean. If you can't quit it, you can stand against the wall." In typical prepubescent boy way, he tested me by speaking in Korean, so I made him stand up. Things were pretty congenial at this point. He didn't get moody and pissy, he stood up with that goofy grin on his face, just wondering how far he could push me. So still, the Korean wouldn't stop flowing from his trap. So I said, "That's it, hands in the air." At this point, the whole class (all four of us) is laughing, including Tom. So then I make Tom read from the book sitting on the desk, with his hands in the air. It was all we could do to get through the paragraph.

After that, I let him sit down and I've never had Tom, or any of the rest of the class, test me again. We are buds and it was all in good fun. Of course, it's not exactly a story I would want to rehash with a future employer in youth services.

 And then there was that time:

TEACHER THREATENS CLASS WITH PEEING OUTSIDE

Yeah, it happened, okay? My kindy kids were running around like crazy people during our bathroom break, so I said "Excuse me! My class is acting like animals!" Which only led to all eight of them hopping around making animals noises. So I leaned in real close and told them, "Animals can't go to the bathroom inside. Do you need to go to the bathroom outside?" They all nodded vigorously, still acting like loons. So I called up the elevator. Which is about the time one girl started crying about how she didn't want to go to the bathroom outside. So sue me.

But honestly, I have been trying to think of more creative discipline ideas, things closely tied into the crime, but I'm coming up with nothing here. Ideas are welcomed! I think my class even appreciates it.

Cultural Differences

After the change to my classes, I am really starting to love one of my classes -- PK4B. They are in the 2nd or 3rd grade and they all speak English pretty well. We've been reading the story "Fireman Bill and the Dragon" this week and I can only cover five pages a day in eighty minutes, so we spend a lot of our time talking about things peripheral to the story.

During one such peripheral conversation today, I asked my students if they had ever seen a fire before. Of course, they all said they had seen one on TV or on the gas range, but one girl, Jackie, raised her hand to tell us a story. Her younger brother, at two (now three), set his grandparents' bed aflame with a lighter! Of course, I had to share the one from when I was two and I set the toaster on fire with a wooden spoon.

Later, we talked about "revenge" and "getting even." I gave them a bunch of examples. I said "If James puts a mouse in Jackie's backpack, what should Jackie do to him?" Everyone was shouting about punching James in the face and stealing his homework. Don't worry, I tried to reign the conversation back into building good people by asking if getting James back was okay, a good thing for Jackie to do. But I think I really lost them here because everyone is shouting yes! One girl, Molly, said "My mom told me if someone hits me, I should hit them back two times."

Uhhhh...cultural differences?

You Can't Take It With You

Things are changing around school again. We lost the Canadian and on Sunday night, received the Canadian 2.0, a nice girl who can rival my height. Last week was a hard week, teaching 23 hours in brand-new classes in three days after coming off my Vietnam high. There may have been some tears. There may have been some resentment. But as soon as all that reared its ugly head, life got better again.

Now, I'm teaching Kindergarten again. I forgot how utterly obnoxious 6-year-old children can be. Is it bad to be saying that? Well, I'm not even a little bit sorry. There is a bonus: the student The Canadian #1 had issues with (Jack), already has a relationship with me after all the hours he spent in the teacher's room not being in her classroom, and has been remarkably easy to teach as a result. But despite how undeniably sweet they can all be in their innocence and ignorance of the world around them, sometimes I have to ask them to all put their heads down for a moment to give myself one sweet second to just breathe.

I upgraded my Basic English class for PK4B (Post Kindergarten). The kids are in the 2nd/3rd grade and I am in LOVE. It's a good thing, too, because I see them five times a week. They speak well, have very definite personalities and opinions, and are disciplined enough to not have to be directed back to their work every four seconds. A welcome relief. We also get to read fun stories and write real sentences and goof around with each other, so it's kind of like my playtime.

I'm still teaching IE2B (Intermediate English), but I lost my four favorite students because they were just too dang smart to stay in my class. Unsurprisingly, they are all girls. So now I'm just left with five stinky and annoying boys (+2 great girls). I'm only half kidding--things can get pretty rank after 80 minutes shut in a classroom together. It's also much more energy-consuming to teach a class primarily made up of boys. You have to make sure they aren't bullying. You have to get them to stop shouting in excitement. You have to ensure they aren't drawing or playing games under the table or whispering in Korean. It's exhausting. When the girls ruled the roost, it was different. I am desperately missing them.

But it seems they are missing me, too. Linda (Teacher sucks! girl), an avid reader, comes to the teacher's room during my prep to ask me to help her pick out "good" books, even though she's read almost all the books we have to offer. She peers into our classroom during the few minutes of overlap while she waits for her new class to begin. I think she misses us. But she's too smart for us, now.

I also received my boss's pet class--PK1--a class of students that have been at our school the longest. They are supposed to be our best students, but I find my PK4B surpasses them (if only because they get supplemental English instruction daily instead of twice a week) in every area except writing. We'll work on that, though. I also find it quite difficult to build a relationship with students that I only see two times a week, like we don't really know each other, that I am only a momentary mentor to be traded in for the next with ease. Which is true, but I don't like feeling that way.

After coming back from Vietnam and being thrown into this new schedule, I am coming to the conclusion that it is not only the Korean students whose life is made up of school, but their parents' lives are made up of work. There is no work-life balance. In Vietnam, there was enjoyment, color, more. But here, this is it. Yes, the Koreans play hard, but if only to anesthetize themselves to the experience of totaling their existence in the hours worked, the opinions about them held by their peers or colleagues, or achievement.

I have always known I wanted my life to be more than that, than achieving what the world expects of me, than being successful, than being someone important. Those things are important to me, as they are generally important to people, but mostly, I want to enjoy my life. I want to savor foods. I want to find beauty in silence, in small moments observed or experienced. I want to make friends with and learn from ten-year-olds instead of merely being their disciplinarian and teacher. I want to enjoy laying in bed all day or traveling to a new country totally alone or exploring some new-to-me corner. I want to make money, if only to enjoy not making money for months on end, using up my savings and merely enjoying the breeze in leaves. I want all these things that you can't get from work, that can't be bought, because these are things that aren't things at all, that you can take with you in the end.

That Time I Taught My Students the Word "Sucks"

I have this class if wonderful, brilliant 4-graders. And I love me some 4-graders. They haven't yet got a chip on their shoulder, they're desperate to please, thoughtful gifts mean something to them, they can carry on intelligent conversation, and this particular class is completely full of students clamoring to answer my every question before I've even asked it.

On the particular day in question, I was asking my students about how much homework they had over the weekend, and not surprisingly, it was an insane amount. "That sucks!" I said without thinking.

"Teacher, what is 'sucks'?" asked Linda, one of the brightest students in the class.

So then I was "forced" into explaining. I told them how it's just something you say if something is not good. And I gave them several examples. But still, I wasn't so sure they understood. So I just left it at that, seeing as I would prefer if this lesson didn't get back to their parents.

As class was commencing, I told my students that they would, unfortunately, have to do an extra assignment for homework that evening. And Linda, sweet Linda, says "Teacher sucks!"

At least she applied what she learned?

New Students

Things have been crazy hectic at work lately. My director just bought a new hagwon and we have been going through the process of combining the new school's students into our current classes and making new classes.

I used to have this absurdly long prep time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Actually, out of my eight-hour work day, I was only teaching 80 minutes. That's the stuff dreams are made of.

No more. Dreams are dashed. Gone are the days of feeling prepared walking into a class. Now, I am lucky if I know what I am supposed to be teaching before I walk into the classroom. If I don't have to waste the first ten minutes of class looking for a book to copy, making enough copies for all of the students, and only then finding out I don't have the accompanying listening CD, well, then it's been a great day. Oh, and dinner! If I get to eat my dinner before seven, it's a blessing!

What happened to my life? Work has been not so enjoyable lately. All of the teachers, we are pinched for time and feeling stressed. We've all been pretty snippy at each other lately. And it doesn't seem like there will be any reprieve soon. We are losing The Canadian in a week! (Nothing serious, just decided to go home early). Her replacement won't be here until January, and really we need two or three in order to make the workload bearable.

These are the joys of working for a hagwon, a private business where the end goal is making money. That's a harsh criticism, but I am actually pretty lucky. Others I know have had it worse--losing students (i.e. profit) meant getting fired, a slow decline of going out of business where there monthly salary payments kept coming later and later and then not at all. It could definitely be worse.

Through it all, there has been a silver-lining--new students! I am enjoying my new students, even if they mean that I am strapped for time. A few, in particular, stand out to me.

I had been warned by the teacher at the former hagwon that one of my new classes were killer to keep on task and were total monsters. Well, I went and had an awesome class and was flying high on good teacher vibes. I was so pleased! After I taught them, the Sou'frican taught them a different subject. Five minutes into her teaching period, she barges in on my class shouting "Grapes?? Cake? Toad? Bread? Tiger?!?" Apparently the class had told her fake almost-real names. Grace became Grapes, Kate became Cake, Todd became Toad, Brad became Bread and Tiger, well, Tiger stayed Tiger.

Of course, nothing gold can stay. My schedule changes again right before Christmas. Since the Canadian is leaving, I have been asked to take on her schedule, with the addition of at least two new classes. This means I will be teaching a full block without any planning whatsoever as well as teaching and developing a rapport with 35 new students. I fear the coming months.

Getting in the Holiday Spirit

I know it's been forever since I last updated, and for that I am truly, deeply, eternally sorry. I have so much to update on and I am hoping to catch up on all that in the coming weeks. Although, if I'm being honest, things really only get busier from here.

Anyways, I definitely wanted to show all of you in bloglines the adorable classroom decorations I made to celebrate Christmas! They're 100% recycled from my students old tests. Everyone here thinks I'm like, crazy creative or something. Isn't that a hoot?

Stumbling.

I probably give at least one of my classes a little too much blog time. So today I am going to talk about one of my classes that I very rarely speak about - my Basic English 3 (BE3, formerly BE2) class.

It's right there in the name, but in case you couldn't figure it out, they are definitely the lowest-level English speakers I have. I have had my fair share of frustrations with this group, and every other teacher that teaches on this level experiences something similar.

When I first started teaching them, they did not understand these basic phrases:

• Hello, what is your name? (check)
• How old are you? (check)
• How are you? (check)
• How was your weekend? (in progress)
• What are you doing this weekend? (in progress)

So you might be wondering: how does someone who doesn't speak any Korean teach someone who doesn't speak any English?

Well, Korea's answer is simple repetition, which I've found works for some of the kids who have been indoctrinated into the system. My boys are quite brilliant - James can understand about half of what I'm saying and translate for the others; Steve, one of my more mischievous students, can tease other students properly in English; Andy, my devil child, is bored because he understands so much more than the rest and so does his best to disrupt class; and June, my newest boy, is a pro at reading and is really falling into the routine.

But about three of my twelve students are generally alienated by that kind of learning process and they're all girls. When they don't understand what's going on, or why they are repeating a certain phrase, they distract themselves with something else. My biggest frustration - Lina, a smaller girl and one who has been at LCI for ages now, doesn't even know how to spell her own name. She can't, or refuses, to read even basic sight words like "I," "and," "to" or "of." Regularly when we are working with our sticker books, I will give them a name of an object, which they are then meant to place the sticker in the appropriate place. Lina will just stick all the stickers on her face. I'll admit, I had kind of written Lina off as lazy with a possible attention disorder.

But today, I was trying to prep my student board (pictures to come), making it look all pretty for the BIG PRESENTATION tomorrow that all the admin at the school are freaking about and so I had each of my classes draw a picture of what they are learning about so I could display some student work.

We are learning about Spain, so most of the students chose to draw the Spanish flag, with a giant squiggle in the center for the crown and pillars. Andy took the time to carefully draw the coat of arms. Lina chose to do a replica of the Pablo Picasso painting in our story book. Both of them were, for the first time, actually interested in what we were doing, proudly writing the title of their works on their papers accompanied by their names.

I was really happy to see them actually intrigued by what we were learning and it gave me some idea as to how to reach and teach them. Honestly, I know I'm by no means a great teacher - I have no training and the wrong temperament for this kind of work. But stumbling upon a way to draw on my students' talents in order to teach them better, that's an amazing feeling.

Halloween 2012

Halloween this year was very different from the norm. Usually I would celebrate the weekend preceding the day, head to the house of a friend who was throwing a party, and spend an evening just hanging out with friends.

This year, I spent it with these lovely people.

Scaring the living daylights out of these cuties:

That's Miss Raye in the top photo, Paige (the most adorable Snow White ever), and Cindy. We had a haunted house that we worked very hard to put together. We used black plastic to hang on the walls and create "walls." We had these lanterns that made the room look spooky. We stuffed some costumes and gave them skull-heads, sat them up in desks and forced the kids to walk through our spooky classroom. What a hoot!

I was leading a group of Kindys through the haunted house and Jack, the biggest handful of a five-year-old there ever was, turns to me with tears in his eyes, refusing to go any further. I had to carry him through the rest of the haunted house! Of course, as soon as we returned to the well-lit hallway, he was pushing me away and off antagonizing some four-year-olds.

The older kids were much harder to scare. One of them even slapped me! Why does this kind of thing always seem to happen to me? The more fun games for the older crowd was our highly disgusting and competitive game of bobbing. Since apples are really expensive, they were bobbing for snickers and for oranges, but still good fun!

That's my student, Jimmy, whom I like to call Charlie Brown because it seems like nothing ever goes his way.

And finally, the picture you've all been waiting for--my Halloween costume!

You can't see it in this pic, but I made a tail out of a loofa! Perhaps the easiest/cutest costume I've ever had.

Three Little Pigs musical

Although it pains me to look at these pictures and to think of these little sweeties, I really must document this experience. My first musical at LCI, my first time seeing all my kids dressed up in their adorable costumes, my last day with my class--so many memories, wrapped up in a single experience. Enjoy the photos!

I hope you didn't overdose on cute! Next up, I have some Halloween photos that will make your teeth hurt.

Changes

Since I lost my Kindys *sob* my job has necessitated some changes. Now, instead of being primarily a kindergarten teacher (3 hours a day, five days a week), I am now teaching a wider variety of students. I am choosing to look at this as a positive thing--it diversifies my experience level, making me a more versatile employee. It also gives me the opportunity to teach writing, which is really my jam, if you know me at all.

Before, my schedule looked like this:

And now it looks likes this:

A few, slight changes.

• My math class became a reading class with the same students. This is a relief because although I enjoyed teaching math, I really didn't feel like my students were learning English.
• I get more planning time! What a relief! I don't think I will be scrambling as much to get my lesson plans done.
• I am officially teaching high school students. Korea keeps trying to tell me they are middle school students, but they are 16 so I refuse to accept that they are still in middle school.
• I am also teaching writing--this means I get to teach elements of writing, like topic sentences, identifying parts of sentences, brainstorming, outlining, proper construction of an essay, etc. This is all the stuff I live for!

Although I actually had to hold back a sob today when one of the kindergartners asked me where my students were today and then cruelly started shouting their names through the hallway, I think this will be good for me. I don't have the patient personality of The Canadian. And I haven't worked with high school students in a long time. And I'll get to sleep in later and since winter is coming, I want to spend as much time under the covers as possible. So I will keep telling myself this is a good thing, even if I am quite anxious about this change. The only thing I can do is try, right?

Losing My Kindys

Weeks ago, The SouFrican told me "Just wait until you lose your first kid [to another hagwon]; you'll be so upset."

I imagined at the time how sad I would be to lose any one of my kindergartners. What would my little class of five be like without Stella giggling? Or Amy's foghorn-like singing and shouting? Or Matthew's intelligence? Even at the time it didn't seem like a possibility, something I had pushed out of my brain as impossible until they were seven.

But today I found out that it isn't impossible and it is happening. But I'm not losing one. I'm losing four. I'm losing these four wonderful, beautiful kids that are my reason for coming to work every day. They make facing the day possible and now they won't be there to make me smile or sing songs with me.

I've been told it isn't because of me, that mommy drama is to blame. But there's still a part of me that thinks "if only I had made them love me more..." or something.

November is looking very bleak, indeed.

Nervous Tics

I've been vacillating about sharing this with the interwebs at large but the decision finally came down on the side of verbal diarrhea. Lucky you.

I have this kid, Brandon, in my class, a very sweet boy with a bit of an attention span problem and a nervous tick. He does this thing where he will scrunch up his whole face for no real reason and without any real trigger. Some days I think I've got it pegged--it's when he is put on the spot. And then the next day, I could put him on the spot all day long and nothing will happen.

I need to pause here for a couple updates, so you can understand the entirety of the issue.

• We have been working on our musical, The Three Little Pigs, and Brandon is one of three Big Bad Wolves, meaning they share the part by saying all the same lines at the same time. Of the three, Brandon is the best. One of the kids has walked out of every rehearsal we've ever had. The other one watches Brandon the whole time and mumbles, except when he's off in the corner, twirling in circles by himself--which is a majority of the time.
• Korea is a very appearance-oriented country. Coffee shops are all designed in a way that is aesthetically appealing because the design, not the coffee, is what matters. Plastic surgery is a casual thing here, as well. Anything that you could ever want nipped or tucked has already been and can be nipped and tucked here.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, back to Brandon and his scrunchy face. I've been exchanging memos with his mother for weeks now about the issue, updating her on the frequency of the ticks and whatnot.

On Friday, yeah two days before the musical, I find out that Brandon's parents are pulling him from it because they don't want the other parents to see. Not only does that stick us with not two, but one Big Bad Wolf who doesn't know jack-squat (the other student dropped out), but that's just not fair to Brandon.

He worked really hard. And not only is he missing an opportunity to increase his self-esteem by proudly showing what he's got, but he's also going to be confused until he figures out why he didn't get to perform. And when he understands, then that's when a few moments of his parents' embarrassment can turn to personal shame.

In my teens years, I developed scoliosis, but I never developed the self-consciousness that usually accompanies such a condition for two reasons: my mom and my dad. They never made me aware of how crooked I looked from the back or how my clothes fit weird. They noticed, to be sure, but they never made me feel like there was anything wrong with me. And because of them, there wasn't. I had this abnormally healthy and un-adolescent perspective solely because I wasn't aware. I was lucky.

Currently.

Hello, blog land! I don't have any specific thing to update everyone on, but I want to share what's going on 'round these parts these days.

• School: The days seems to melt into weeks, and now it's the end of October and my second month in Korea is already coming to a close. I already feel like it is going by too quickly. I just want to press pause so I can savor every delicious food, enjoy hanging out with new-found friends, hugging on my students, and learning about a new culture. Even my sixth-graders gave me a reprieve on Friday. I was recapping everything they've learned (snorefest) and telling them about birds of prey in Arizona and Trailer Park Boy's pet tarantula and snake and they were actually listening. They were actually interested! Success!
• Friends: I'm making friends. This is big, people. Now, adventuring solo is a choice, not a mandate. And for a geek with social issues, this is big news.
• Phone: Can't stop playing with it. It's a love/hate thing right now. Mostly totally in love. 

Today, I am going to go to Itaewon, the foreigner quarter of Seoul, hit up a South African restaurant and check out What The Book. Life is good.

Teaching has its up and its downs. And its rock bottoms.

Remember last week's slightly dramatic, woe-is-me post about my 6th-graders? Well, I figure it's time to update you all on the situation a bit and to reflect.

After I posted last week, I talked to my head teacher to come up with some solutions. I'm new at this whole teaching thing and he relates to those boys on a different level than I do. I wanted a game plan for the next time I saw those boys and I really wanted to engage them so there wasn't any room for the usual nonsense.

But such is not the Korean way. Instead of engagement strategies, I was given a golf club. He said "This will get their attention." First, I'm really hoping he was referencing Roosevelt's Big Stick theory. And second, since I have a sneaking suspicion that he was not, I do not like being a traditional disciplinarian. I fully believe that when you start yelling in a kid's face, s/he tunes you out and you've lost them.

So I basically went into my next class feeling dejected with no clue as to how to reach the boys except to engage them with the assigned topic, one I personally find really interesting: space. And it was a disaster.

My students gave me the finger. They swore at me. They blatantly ignored my requests that they speak in English. They mocked me in Korean. They carried on conversations for five minutes at a time (quite the time-suck in 40 minute class). And they didn't even care that I had two really cool experiments and an interactive lesson (that went beyond the textbook that they are always complaining about) that was student-driven. It was your proverbial ace-in-the-hole lesson and they didn't even give me a chance.

I left the class and went immediately to my head teacher. I asked him how much longer I would be teaching this class. And then I burst into tears.

Straight-up ugly cried.

I'm not proud of this moment. But it led to some changes. And some more bad discipline advice. But mostly to some changes.

Head Teacher immediately went to find out what happened from the students, since I couldn't really speak to most of it since it was 90% in Korean. The girls (oh, my angelic girls) said that the boys were making fun of me, making fun of each other, the lesson and doing or saying anything to get a laugh. And then he reamed them out. And now, the owner of the school is teaching the other half of the class.

But even more important are the changes I'm making in myself and the way I teach the class. When I started, I was basically handed a textbook and told to teach the same lesson two days in a row. Once November begins, I have more control of the material, their homework and their tests. Uhhh, like, they're actually having homework and tests now. I am getting creative. I've been googling on my off time.

The one thing that has made me feel better throughout all of this is when our foreign head teacher said "Oh, those boys? I feel sorry for whoever has to teach them. They're awful!" And he's been here almost a year. That's my booby prize.