I didn't recognize any of the kids in 1-1, 1-2 B, to the extent that I wondered if I was in the wrong classroom. But we had some shining moments, despite hardly any of them being up to the task of paying attention to anything I said.
Met a crazy kid called Seongmin who is the first child to openly question my...sanity? Intelligence? Hearing? When I couldn't understand him speaking in Korean, he said, "Seonsaengnim...." and gestured toward his ear/head in a swirling motion. I gave him a bit of a glare, and Co-Teacher let him have it for saying whatever it was he said.
But Rude-Seongmin got all kinds of invested in English class when I tried out the new Connect 4 "Would You Rather?" game I got to liven up class. Seongmin was the only child on his team producing clear, fully realized sentences after every question, and at the end he asked me, through Co-Teacher, "What is the best way to win this game?" He wanted an advantage, because his team was losing Connect 4 since they'd fallen behind early in the game when they didn't want to try. I gave Seongmin's team an extra turn, but the bell rang.
The class went better than the last one. Even if the boys weren't paying attention, I connected with a couple of them and didn't bore them.
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Random bits:
After finishing my 1st grade class, a 1st grade boy I don't know appeared in the doorway while I was erasing and said, "Cute Sem! Cute, cute, Sem is so cute!" I ducked my head in utter embarrassment and he laughed. Gosh, I loved being called Sem. It's the friendliest thing a student can call you.
I saw Sanghwa sitting on a bench outside the nurse's office, and I asked in Korean if he was hurt. He said yes, and I asked in Korean if it was his head. He said no, his stomach. I sat beside him and dug a coffee-flavored candy out of my purse to give to him. I patted his back and left. Just one moment in the day, but Sanghwa is my boy and I couldn't walk past and see him hurting without making an effort to help.
------------------------------------------------2-3, 2-4 A was awesome.
This is what my Word Document of Kids says about who's in there: Sunbin and Hyun (afterschool), Joon and Jeongmin (afterschool), Yoonjae (Tall), Minwoo (introduced me to BY), BY (Fluent), Shinhyuk (necktie), Inha (Hyungjae’s friend).
So I know a lot of these boys. And what's more, I like them. I tried a few different things with the lesson today, and they worked out pretty well. I had candy rewards for the game winners, and that was popular as always. I don't want classtime to be a work-for-candy interaction, but they look so happy when they get something nice.
Then after class, Fluent-BY pulls out a deck of cards and asks if I want to see a card trick. Of course I do! I was all the more interested because Grumpmaster-Jiwoong and Peter-Pan-Taehoon had come into the empty room, even though they weren't scheduled for class there. They hung around, watching me watch BY's card tricks. I was insanely glad to have my boys around, proving that we could spend time together even after a craaaazy day on Monday.
So Taehoon and Jiwoong sat on desks while I was being totally charmed by BY's antics. He introduced each card trick in English, getting the patter down perfectly. It was very professional.
He said, "Cut the deck and choose a card please. Don't let me see it." Then we put the card back in and cut the deck several more times. He said, "Now I'm going to choose your card. Send me a mental picture of it." Okay, that was darling. I'm really enjoying his whole production, here...he's selling the magic of it, making me believe in the trick through the way he sets it up.
Then he said, "Okay, keep thinking about your card. Now hold my hands. Now look into my eyes." I kept obeying, because this is part of the magic act, following the magician's instructions. He let go of my hands, flipped through the desk and said, "Was this your card?" Yep, sure enough, BY had picked the right one. It was awesome. Jiwoong and Taehoon were impressed, but they seemed most impressed by the fact that BY was doing the whole act in flawless English.
We played it two more times, and at the end he showed me how he did one of the tricks. Then BY says, "Actually, I use these card tricks to attract people. To get girls. I used to have a girlfriend." I asked, "And this is how you won her over? With card tricks?" -"Yeah. Pretty much." I told him that girls also love when you play acoustic guitar, but he said he's bad with music.
We spent 10 minutes on these tricks and he was going to do more before I thought to ask, "Wait, don't you have class?" -"Yes, I do, but it doesn't matter." -"No, BY, we're stopping. You've got to go to class." He reluctantly left, and I gave candy to Jiwoong and Taehoon, to show them I loved them. It was important for me to re-establish to them that they are special.
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1 PM And it is now post-lunch and I only have one class left before afterschool! 2-9, 2-10 B has Afterschool-Jinseop in it, as well as Huge-Eyes-Jeonghee, a real sweetheart. Again, they wouldn't hardly do anything, but they loved the minecraft game.
And it only occurred to me after the BY Show was over that showing off the card tricks was never the point of the exercise--flirting was the point of the exercise. Even after he told me that he uses this act to get girls, I wasn't making the connection that I was a girl. And I went right along with everything, laughing at his jokes and being appropriately impressed with his coolness while 2 other students watched. He is the first boy at school to hold my hand (well, both hands, actually), and I did. not. notice. it was happening.
I thought I was humoring him, giving a student a chance to be important, to encourage them in their hobbies and build up their self-esteem. But the kid was three steps ahead of me! I better watch this kid.
I'm putting together an incident that I think happened on Monday. One of the autistic students, Joonseong, strangled a teacher. I didn't see it, but O-Teacher told me that he put his hands around the nutrition teacher's throat and shook and squeezed. For no reason. She had not upset him at all. But O-Teacher told me that Joonseong's friends had been hitting him before class, and maybe his hurt feelings or his aggressive impulses were still on the surface.
I didn't know who the nutrition teacher was. But it occurred to me that perhaps it was our Lunch Co-Ordinator. She has a special, official title that I can never recall, and I wondered if perhaps she actually teaches nutrition as a class. I remembered that she always feeds me extra food, but on Monday when I said I was full, she backed off unlike her normal self and didn't insist on feeding me.
Today, I walked into the lunchroom and she guided me into the lunch line, pushing aside boys so I could get food. She explained each food item to me, then tugged me toward a table. She was wearing a conspicuous scarf around her neck, and then I knew it was her.
I left my lunch tray and ran down the hall to my cubicle, where I had a couple of chocolate bars, bought this morning in case I needed to give someone something special. I wrote her a note saying, "Thank you for being so nice to me. You are the best!" Then I said thank you in Korean and signed my name in Korean and English. I added pink and sky-blue crayon drawings, then attached a butterfly sticker to the note and taped the note to the chocolate bar. When I went back to the lunch room, I presented it to her with two hands, like you're supposed to, and she looked perfectly proud of me.
You never know when someone needs a little love.
At lunch, JY-Teacher asked me if I wanted to go walking with her, and I jumped at the chance. We walked a couple of laps around the giant soccer field where the boys were having P.E., and we chatted and had fun. I love JY-Teacher because she's thoughtful and cool. She's big sister material, if I could adopt a big sister.
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5:30 PM Final 3rd-grade class was awful. I changed the lesson up a lot, to make it better for them, and they were made of concrete, immovable in their indifference. I had my first kid, Super-Loud-Joonki, tell me that English was boring. Thanks, sugar. And Mr. B wasn't there for the first 15 minutes of class, so the boys were less than less than invested. But Yoonseop tried. How I remember Yoonseop is...he looks like Sooncheon, but he's not Sooncheon. This is how far my memorizing ability has degraded by final period.
I ended class with 2 funny Youtube videos and a 10 Questions game where they could win chocolate. Ugh. 29-million percent bad teaching. But they would not do the regular "learning past participle phrases" part of the lesson.
And I have something called an "Open Class" on Friday...where parents of the students can come in and watch me teach a 3rd-grade class. And Mr. B will not be there. And both variations of the lesson I've tried have not worked. And it's a triple-class, full of more loud, hormonal 15/16-year-olds than the usual class.
But...
But....at least they can't fire me? Performance reviews can't affect my salary, and I can't be fired unless I commit a crime or stop coming to work or something. So. It'll just be 45 very very very difficult minutes, then I can rest for the weekend. I'm going to not stress about the lesson. It is what it is--I can't change the open class or change the fact that I'll be teaching it solo without the disciplinary help of Mr. B.
The walk home was full of love. Literally full of 3rd-graders shouting, "I love you every day! I need you!" and variants thereof as I walked by. Funny how loving me does not translate into paying attention in class. But I love you too, guys. You temperamental weirdos. I had a nice conversation in mostly-Korean with Japanese-Soccer-Kid and America...don't know America's name yet, but when we meet he shouts "America!" America asked if I lived at _____apartments, and I said no. He inquired further, but I told him that where I lived was a secret, which seemed to delight him, 'cause secrets are awesome.
Teddybear-Deokryeong came by my cubicle to chitchat in mostly-Korean about how tired we both were. I told him that I had an open class on Friday, and he made sympathetic noises. I gave him candy. His arm is sometimes in a soft cast and sometimes not, but today it was in an actual sling. Is this boy ever going to heal? Not if he keeps getting in fights, that's for sure.
JY-Teacher invited me to her house for dinner. That's one home I feel comfortable going to.
From the Korean-American couple I met at church last week, I got the number of a female professor who goes to an English church nearby. I called her and I'll be going to church with her, her husband, and her three kids on Sunday. Whee!
My Vice-Principal continues to teach me Korean. Today, it was "how is the weather today?" I knew enough to comprehend the question, but not enough to say that it was cool and windy. Then he asked me how my "hakgyo saenghwal" was going, my "school life". I told him honestly that I was very happy here, but he saw enough to say that he guessed my life here must be difficult. He said that it must be hard for me because the school structure is so loose, and the boys are so rude. I told him that I have some hard classes, but I am mostly happy and I will keep trying my hardest. My Vice-Principal is a good man. He's one of my favorite people at school.
I didn't have afterschool because of...something with the parents. I think we're having open classes all this week, so the school is rather bustling with taking care of that. I was glad for the break, but I missed my afterschool boys. I really wanted to see Jiwoong today (of all people), and I wanted to write a letter for Byeonghyun to tell him that I appreciate all his goodness and his efforts to help me, while I'm far off, tending to the prodigals in the back of the room, not engaging him like I should.
But I can write his letter tomorrow, because I teach him in regular class. And I should probably write one for HH too, since HH's in the same class and will probably not take it kindly if Byeonghyun gets yet another in-class personalized letter while he doesn't.
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At lunch, JY-Teacher asked me if I wanted to go walking with her, and I jumped at the chance. We walked a couple of laps around the giant soccer field where the boys were having P.E., and we chatted and had fun. I love JY-Teacher because she's thoughtful and cool. She's big sister material, if I could adopt a big sister.
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5:30 PM Final 3rd-grade class was awful. I changed the lesson up a lot, to make it better for them, and they were made of concrete, immovable in their indifference. I had my first kid, Super-Loud-Joonki, tell me that English was boring. Thanks, sugar. And Mr. B wasn't there for the first 15 minutes of class, so the boys were less than less than invested. But Yoonseop tried. How I remember Yoonseop is...he looks like Sooncheon, but he's not Sooncheon. This is how far my memorizing ability has degraded by final period.
I ended class with 2 funny Youtube videos and a 10 Questions game where they could win chocolate. Ugh. 29-million percent bad teaching. But they would not do the regular "learning past participle phrases" part of the lesson.
And I have something called an "Open Class" on Friday...where parents of the students can come in and watch me teach a 3rd-grade class. And Mr. B will not be there. And both variations of the lesson I've tried have not worked. And it's a triple-class, full of more loud, hormonal 15/16-year-olds than the usual class.
But...
But....at least they can't fire me? Performance reviews can't affect my salary, and I can't be fired unless I commit a crime or stop coming to work or something. So. It'll just be 45 very very very difficult minutes, then I can rest for the weekend. I'm going to not stress about the lesson. It is what it is--I can't change the open class or change the fact that I'll be teaching it solo without the disciplinary help of Mr. B.
The walk home was full of love. Literally full of 3rd-graders shouting, "I love you every day! I need you!" and variants thereof as I walked by. Funny how loving me does not translate into paying attention in class. But I love you too, guys. You temperamental weirdos. I had a nice conversation in mostly-Korean with Japanese-Soccer-Kid and America...don't know America's name yet, but when we meet he shouts "America!" America asked if I lived at _____apartments, and I said no. He inquired further, but I told him that where I lived was a secret, which seemed to delight him, 'cause secrets are awesome.
Teddybear-Deokryeong came by my cubicle to chitchat in mostly-Korean about how tired we both were. I told him that I had an open class on Friday, and he made sympathetic noises. I gave him candy. His arm is sometimes in a soft cast and sometimes not, but today it was in an actual sling. Is this boy ever going to heal? Not if he keeps getting in fights, that's for sure.
JY-Teacher invited me to her house for dinner. That's one home I feel comfortable going to.
From the Korean-American couple I met at church last week, I got the number of a female professor who goes to an English church nearby. I called her and I'll be going to church with her, her husband, and her three kids on Sunday. Whee!
My Vice-Principal continues to teach me Korean. Today, it was "how is the weather today?" I knew enough to comprehend the question, but not enough to say that it was cool and windy. Then he asked me how my "hakgyo saenghwal" was going, my "school life". I told him honestly that I was very happy here, but he saw enough to say that he guessed my life here must be difficult. He said that it must be hard for me because the school structure is so loose, and the boys are so rude. I told him that I have some hard classes, but I am mostly happy and I will keep trying my hardest. My Vice-Principal is a good man. He's one of my favorite people at school.
I didn't have afterschool because of...something with the parents. I think we're having open classes all this week, so the school is rather bustling with taking care of that. I was glad for the break, but I missed my afterschool boys. I really wanted to see Jiwoong today (of all people), and I wanted to write a letter for Byeonghyun to tell him that I appreciate all his goodness and his efforts to help me, while I'm far off, tending to the prodigals in the back of the room, not engaging him like I should.
But I can write his letter tomorrow, because I teach him in regular class. And I should probably write one for HH too, since HH's in the same class and will probably not take it kindly if Byeonghyun gets yet another in-class personalized letter while he doesn't.
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