9:00 AM- I taught Deukhee, the banana milkshake boy, yesterday--he's essentially the only calm kid in 1-9, 1-10B. And this morning he greeted me on the way to school and we exchanged good-morning-hello-how-are-yous. He's another budding favorite.
Today, I teach a 1st grade B, two 2nd-grade A-classes, and a 3rd grade that I can't remember whether it's B or A. All I remember is that I sat in on B-Teacher's class with them last week, and they were loud as a stadium of rugby fans.
Also, B-Teacher (American) and Mr.B (Korean) are not the same person--initials can get confusing, but I decided long ago that the only names I want to share are the first names of the students. Talking too much about the adults feels rude and nosy, but talking about the kids feels like my way of committing them to memory, of reminding myself of how important they are. They're worth writing about.
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12:00 PM-- The 1-3, 1-4 B group was deceptively quiet at first, then super rowdy and rubber-band-shooty after the 20 minute mark. But I like them. They had trouble with the 10 Questions "I'm Thinking of an Animal" game when I tried it, but I was glad to have given it a go, anyway, so that they could experience it and so that Main Co-Teacher could see me trying out new stuff.
But I have to watch that impulse--if I start doing certain things with my lessons primarily in order to appear diligent and impressive to the other adults, I'll be on the wrong track.I have to do what is good and right, not what I think will earn me brownie points with the people who watch me. However, I'm over-stating the pressure to look cool for the adults--the older English teachers have really supported me in my first week, and they let me stumble and make my own mistakes. I've landed in a good place.
2-1, 2-2 A was a trip. They're so high-level, they breezed through all the activities I had planned, plus the extra activities I had added just for them. And there was not another teacher in the room because I didn't actually need a translator. Oy. But this class is teeming with my favorite boys, so that's an upside. Joker-Seongmo and Letter-BH from my afterschool are in there, as is HH the Poet. I met a boy with a broken hand whose name is Kyeongbae, but B-Teacher always calls him "Kimchi Power".
The boys in the hallways have started quizzing me on their names, now. "What is my name, Teacher?" -"Yunho." -"Yes! Good job!" Then before lunch, Seongjae walked up with another boy who greets me all the time, but whose name I don't recall. Seongjae nudges him and the boy asks me if I know his name. When I don't, he tells me it's Yeonghyo. Seongjae smarmily says, "What's my name?"knowing that I've known him since day 1 and he's one of the first names I learned. It gives him street cred with the other kids, or something. 30 seconds later, they came back again and reiterated their names, so now I have the word "Yeonghyo" written on my palm, because I will forget otherwise.
I left a tiny present of purple nail polish at KBR-Teacher's desk, because I was out at a bunch of cute make-up shops last night and wanted to get her something. Also, her Korean name means "purple" so I wrote her a note saying that the polish was pretty and "purple," like her. :-) Love me some Korean-English wordplay.
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1 PM: Hahaha,one of my students is twins. I thought this one 1st-grader had snuck into a second of my classes for some unknown reason because I could have sworn I taught a Seungho on Monday, but then the boy shows up again as Seungjo on Wednesday. I did a double take in the hallway when I saw them together, today. -"Twins?" "Neh (yes)." The more you know!
Also, Mr.B says he will not be there for my final class of the day--the triple-class (3-7,-3-8, 3-9) with those 3rd-graders who are so loud. And so big. But I am very loud and semi-big, myself, so maybe we'll get on.
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5:50 PM-- Writing "Yeonghyo" on my hand proved to be a good move, because Yeonghyo came by again, checking to see if I'd learned him. I said his name and flipped open my hand so he could see it written--he beamed from ear to ear. Later, he dragged another kid over to me and said, "Hand! Teacher!" I showed the other kid the name, and now Yeonghyo has street cred, too. Maybe I'll do this hand-writing thing with other kids whose names I forget.
2-3, 2-4 A was great. This class has Jeongmin and Joon, the non-participators from my afterschool. But Jeongmin couldn't keep himself from offering up a half-dozen answers in the 10 Questions game, and Joon smiled a lot when I worked with him on his list of liked activities, and I found that Joon has been on vacation to America--to Boston, specifically.
And now Joon's tugging at my heartstrings, too. I barely paid him any attention in the last afterschool because I was focusing on Taehoon. But Joon seems like he could open up and bloom a bit if treated with enough patience. How can I draw Joon out when I have to approach him step by tiny step, like he's a bird I don't want to frighten away? I'm starting to really appreciate the easy kids who do their work without nudging, because it feels like a monumental task, trying to get to the ones who need a mom/sister/mentor rather than an instructor.
3-7, 3-8, 3-9 B went fine. Oddly enough, the older boys, who I'd think would be more rowdy, are gentler for me than the 1st-graders. These guys were pretty awesome, though their English was next door to not there at all. They looooved the 10 Questions game, though, and died laughing when we couldn't understand each other. In their defense, the word "squirrel" is really hard to pronounce.
The trouble with 3-7, 3-8, 3-9 B is this: they clearly have a student who is "wangdda" (왕따) or singled out for isolation. Now, all schools have power hierarchies and even the wonderful private Christian school I used to work for had verbal bullying issues, but this is the first time I'm getting to see some slightly more obvious things up-close. And this wasn't even that bad, comparatively--I gave a small prize (a packet of mocha coffee) to the isolated student for winning a game, and the class leader took it from him.
*sigh* And I like the class leader, too. He's a charmer. Why do the charismatic ones have to be so bad? This was my first class where kids were actually trying to sleep, too, but I was FINE with that because it's the last class of the day on Friday, we're all tired, and there's 30 kids in there, so the more are sleeping, the less are choking folks or punching each other in the gut. And I still got to talk to most of them and work with them on their writing. Most of the sleepers were just looking for attention, too--they wanted me to come over and push their shoulder until they "woke up," then after a very dramatic, blinky, Sleeping-Beauty awakening, they would magically be ready to work on their English. Welcome to class, princess. Would it please your highness to review your vocabulary?
It's hilarious to me how if an American student tried to sleep in my class, I would have been totally affronted/insulted and maybe flat-out angry, but here I'm 100% understanding because some of them have a massive schoolwork load, and the others are just trying to get attention through their actions, because the language gap means they can't use their words. I was not discouraged by any of it--this is my life, now. I live in the Land of Sleepyheads and Attention-Seekers, and I'm cool with it.
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