10-10-13 Worried About Seongwon, Chatting, and Chill Afterschool

11 AM: Got to school today and there were a jillion technical difficulties. My computer wouldn't print and it wouldn't connect to the internet. I had to print things off of B-Teacher's computer and I was 7 minutes late for my first class because I did not have their materials on hand. Oy vey.

But it went well! 2-1, 2-2 A are among my favorite groups because they have Letter-Byeonghyun, Joker-Seongmo, Poet-HH, Artist-Joohyun, Kimchi Power Kyeongbae, Glasses Seohyung, Red Sweater-Keundeok, Perpetually Sick-Byeongmin. They're awesome.

We played Scattergories, where I'd say they had to name "Countries that Start with V," which was hard (only Venezuela and Vietnam) or "Foods that Start with B," (they named 20 foods easily) or "Things You Wear Which Start With P". P was perhaps not the best letter to pick for clothes, so I learned my lesson there.

After class, those that didn't win candy could come up to me and say what they wanted to be when they grew up, to get candy. HH says he wants to be a grown-up when he grows up. He's smart enough to understand that I meant an actual profession, but whatever. And darling Red-Sweater Keundeok who rarely pays attention in afterschool winningly said, "When I grow up I want to be a teacher, just like you." Who knew that Keundeok could bring out the charm like that? Cutiepie Artist-Joohyun says he wants to be a "drawer" when he grows up.

1-9-10 B is a favorite class of mine, though their sound equipment was malfunctioning and we could only play videos without the audio, which makes for a dead class. It's another class chock-full of favorites: Laryngitis Seonghoon, Teddybear Deokryung, 8-bit Glasses-Seonghyun, Wide-Eyed Joonpil, Tan Skin-Sanggyu(Deukhee, BFFs), Baby Deukhee. Crazy-Hair Daejeong, Sits-by-Deukhee-Yoosuk. 

They loooooved Scattergories. "Clothes that Start With S" was a really creative topic for them, and they moved past "shirt" and "sweater" into adjective-noun pairings like "skinny jeans" and "short pants". They didn't want to stop playing Scattergories, but I had to move on.

After class, the kids crowded around for candy, and I told them they had to say different professions--if one kid said they wanted to be a doctor, no one else could say it. I got some great answers like, "I want to be a professional soccer player," "I want to be a model," and "I want to design computer games." Good job, boys.

But I have a huge concern, right now. About Seongwon.

After my second class, I realized I left my energy drink can upstairs. When I got to the room it was gone, so I've undoubtedly given one or more sneaky 1st-graders a massive caffeine high that they will be riding for the rest of the day. Mission: Retrieve Energy Drink was a wash.

But when I left class, I saw Seongwon in the hallway; the C-class 2nd-grade boy who hangs out in the special needs room, the boy who hit my shoulder too hard on Tuesday.

About 10 boys were standing around him and his friend Inha had his arms pinned in place, but no one was hitting him or touching him. Still, Seongwon was crying. And I mean he was seriously crying. No tough middle-school boy would let you see him like this unless he was hurt. I yelled at Inha in Korean and he let Seongwon go.

Seongwon drifted to a corner and the other kids kind of stood around, some still trying to talk to him. I stood in front of Seongwon, protecting him, even though I couldn't tell what he needed to be protected from, exactly. I held his hand and tried to pull him along with me, maybe downstairs to the teacher's office where we could get some help, but he wanted to go upstairs to his next class.

I let him go. I told KBR-Teacher about seeing him cry, and I also told O-Teacher and Co-Teacher, just so I have a chance at taking care of Seongwon's trouble, whatever it is.
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1:30 PM Seongwon's fine! Some 3rd-grader had punched him hard in the collarbone, and Inha was just sort of holding him up while the other boys watched him cry. They were being a little callous, observing his pain, but at least he wasn't being ganged up on. And though I kind of want to find that 3rd-grader and flatten him, I won't.

I passed Seongwon in the hall after my third class and I gave him a piece of candy. He looked fine. Just before lunch, he walked past me and patted my shoulder, the way I taught him was okay. He's gonna be all right, at least for now. It's a relief to know Inha wasn't a culprit.

After lunch, I walked around with JY-Teacher and then she gave me her phone number. She says I'm to call her if I ever get in a difficult situation or I need advice. At last I have an unnie(big sister)!

Post-walk, I went to sit with the special-needs boys Jaehyung and Byeongsu, outside their locked classroom. We sat on the bench and I used all the Korean I had to ask about how they liked lunch and what they did for the holiday. Byeongsu actually has a fair understanding of English because while he couldn't say much to me, he could translate to Jaehyung most of I was saying.

Daesung gave me a soccer poster of an American player. It's his move toward cultural connection. He likes soccer and I like America, so he thinks it's a good combination of interests. Daesung, Inha, and Seongwon came over to chat while I was talking with Jaehyung and Byeongsu, whereupon Seongwon said that Daesung is my boyfriend and we must marry. Then Inha said Seongwon's girlfriend was Park Geun Hye, the current president of Korea, and everyone had a good round of teasing everyone else.

I really liked practicing Korean with the boys because I'm constantly pushed to try more words. Plus, the special needs boys and my group of favorite students don't care about language mistakes--they fumble through English and I fumble through Korean, and we all have a pleasant time sharing in the linguistically flawed conversation. I tried out several verb forms I learned only yesterday.
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8 PM: Afterschool was fine! I just let them chill. We watched Star Wars and those of them that wanted to do some English practice with me got the chance to, but I didn't try to lead the entire class in any academic endeavors.

I wish I could say I felt guilty for not giving them some serious schooling, but the longer I do afterschool, the more it seems like a free period where I chaperon the boys and make sure they don't get hurt, but where they don't have the energy or the inclination to do anything resembling a real class. So until I hear otherwise, I'm going to let go of the death-grip with which I'd been trying to control the class and just let them sit calmly.

I played word-games with the boys who seemed to need it. Letter-Byeonghyun wrote words in English while I struggled to match them with Korean words. We had some great conversation, too--about how he wants to be a composer of piano music when he grows up, and how the Korean word for "kitchen" is hard to spell. He says it's good that I'm learning Korean because many Koreans are scared of talking to foreigners because English is stressful. I told him that's why I use so many Korean words in class--so the students can hear me making mistakes, so they won't be scared. Talks like this are among the many reasons that Byeonghyun's one of my favorites.

After Byeonghyun, I sat by Jinseop and played the game with him. He's B-class, but he always tries his best and he's a darling boy. He got really tickled when he stumped me on words like "pet". I welcome chances to make Jinseop feel special, because he is. I gravitate toward the flashy kids, and Jinseop's the last kid in the group to stand out in any way, but he's still important.

Next, I saw poor Afterschool-Jeongmin laying with his head on the table, dead bored. Afterschool-Jeongmin is one of my unfavorites, not because he's a bad kid but because he never wants to do much of anything. I would smile at him and get a vacant expression back, so I started not even trying to connect with Jeongmin. But I walked over to him and took the chance that he'd want to play the word game, and sure enough, he was cracking up over the mistakes we both made in our spelling. I don't think I've ever seen this particular Jeongmin smile so sincerely.

I gave Jeongmin candy when class let out, and I asked Sanghwa if he wanted some. Of course he did, and he was eager to tell me that he wanted to be a businessman when he grew up, in exchange for an orange candy drop.

It was a lovely, lovely, lovely day. Good classes, stress-free kids, and lots of connections made. The Lord sure blesses big sometimes.
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