11 AM: Okay first classes! Whassup? Alright alright alright alright alright.
2-1, 2-2 was with New Guy Teacher and I got to show him the game I'd spent so long designing for the kids. He liked the game and the class went okay, all told.
Next class was 2-5, 2-6 with H-Sol Teacher, and it was even better in a lot of ways. Lots of dull-dull-dull speaking practice, but they loved the code-breaking activity and at the end we played Flappy Bird for 2 minutes. H-Sol thanked me for the note and candy I'd left for her yesterday. Just me trying to connect and make friends.
Walk-to-School Mingi trotted in when class was over and he said hi--he's been demoted to C-ban, so I only ever see him in the hallways. I told him in Korean to come see me in the 2nd-floor teacher's office so I could give him candy, but he didn't quite understand. However, I heard Layrngitis-Seonghoon translating my Korean for him, and soon little Mingi was hopping down the stairs after me. I gave him a caramel.
Then Seonghoon, his buddy Tall-Minshik, and Chess-Yeongju from A-ban came down to my floor and returned my pencil case, which they found. I gave chocolate to them as well. Chess-Yeongju is the one who waved to me so beautifully two weeks ago when he saw me at dinner. It's a brave kid who will wave to the foreign teacher who doesn't even teach him, then excitedly point her out to his parents.
1st-grade babies continue to be deathly cute. I was in the hallway, passing two of them who were turned away from me, when I heard one of them say, "엘사쌤 알아?" (Elsa-Sem ara?) or "do you know Elsa-Teacher?" I walked past and repeated them, which made them laugh and bend double with embarrassment. I actually think they were talking about me without knowing I was there, behind them.
One of my afterschool boys, Leader-Jaehoon stopped me in the hall to ask, "Teacher, Teacher, what are we doing in afterschool today?" Bless his bones, he's excited about afterschool and the possibilities that lie therein. We are doing peanut butter, sweetheart. PB&J sandwiches for my favorite cutie-pies. Lets hope we don't make a mess of the whole room!
----------------------------------------------
1:40 PM: Final 1st-grade class before lunch was good. They were darlings and Leader-Jaehoon was in this bunch. It took us 10 minutes to get into class because there's now only one copy of the English Room key in the entire school and the only person with access to it is JY-Teacher, who we could not find. Mr. B ended up getting one of the groundskeepers to unlock it with a master.
SN-Teacher is another new co-teacher of mine and she wanted me to use a particular kind of handout for the kids, which was the best handout ever, but I was still a little clumsy in directing them to use it because I hadn't seen it before. They loved the powerpoint game, though, and we all high-fived as they left.
Was greeted by William-Student in the hall--I ruffled his hair.
I also just signed a nondisclosure agreement that all the teachers filled out, saying we won't give out the students' phone numbers or addresses or personal information. Of course, in my writing I talk about the students all the time and in much detail, but I don't use their family names. Essentially, you would have to be employed by my school to have any idea who I'm talking about.
Even then you might not know, because KBR and I sometimes spend whole minutes trying to describe 3rd-grade students we both ought to know, only to come up with no recognition. We finally realize that she really doesn't know Joohyun no matter how accurately I describe him, and I really don't know Gunmo, even though she can tell me everything about him.
Anyhoodle-poodle, the kids are great. I talk about them as a way to remember my days here and as a way to record the past and learn from it, but I won't be discussing their numbers and addresses, etc.
I came back to my desk after lunch to find a big tin of chocolates with no note. Inside, there's a huge variety of really quality chocolate, plus a bag of jellybeans, and little lollipops. No note. I checked--the other teachers didn't get one, so it wasn't a present-for-everybody kind of thing. I puzzled over who it was from for a while, then Jeongmin found me and let me know they were from him.
Of course they were. I should know that big gestures like this are Jeongmin's sole province. He said it was because he didn't get me a big enough present on White Day. Whoa. He did give me a piece of candy on White Day, so I had no idea he was feeling Insufficiency Guilt. He said it was also because I'd given him that chocolate orange at Christmas, which I'd forgotten about. I thanked him profusely and we went to play Monopoly with another round of 10 2nd-graders.
----------------------------------------------------
2:45 PM: 5th-period class was cancelled because of a school violence assembly. I watched from a window as all the kids crowded out on the front lawn and listened to speeches on violence. The class presidents stood in front of the lines. Daehoon is a president. Seohyung is a president. Byeonghyun was four kids back in one line, behind a class-leader kid who is nice I'm sure, but who is not Byeonghyun's equal.
I knew Byeonghyun. Byeonghyun was a friend of mine. You sir, are no Byeonghyun.
Me and KBR had been rooting for our boy to make class president, but it was not meant to be. He would have been a great benefit to KBR, too.
Also, Jeongmin's chocolates are so good, I keep eyeing the tin, thinking that just one more won't hurt. Must ignore reallygood chocolates. Must. Ignore.
---------------------------------------------------
6PM: Okay, the student I was calling "William" is really named Jiyoon and I really do love him now, despite him being an undeniable twerp. Afterschool brought us closer together.
I went into afterschool armed with twenty extra-size slices of bread, plus tins of peanut butter and strawberry jelly. I had brought a knife, a spoon, paper towels and baby wipes and a garbage bag for cleanup.
I played the kids a short powerpoint about "instructions" and how we describe how to make things. Then I sat down in the front of the class and made PB&J sandwiches while they performed increasingly complicated rock-paper-scissors contests to see who would go first.
They were loud enough to bring down the stars from the sky, but they all got a bit of sandwich in the end. Then I gave them papers and told them that they had to write "instructions" on how to make a sandwich if they wanted a second one. Every single kid wrote detailed English instructions for PB&J sandwiches and I made them all one more.
As I was cleaning up, William-Jiyoon came up to me and asked, "dowa julkeyo?" or "May I help you?" I gave him some wipes and he and I wiped bread crumbs off the tables while I asked him what he was good at--not soccer, not basketball, but he likes swimming.
I was especially glad to have good moments with him because of an earlier incident. I didn't see it happen directly, but I suspect that he broke Kyeong-Something's ruler. I heard a loud noise, then looked to the back of the room where a green plastic ruler was shattered on the floor, Kyeong-Something looked like he was about to cry, and William-Jiyoon looked guilty as sin and not sorry at all.
I couldn't prove Jiyoon had done it, and I wasn't sure how to properly punish him, so I moved Kyeong-Something to another seat, far away. I also gave Jiyoon a talking-to and explained that he could not treat people that way. I called him "sweetheart" and that seemed to have an effect on him, once I translated what it meant.
Later, Leader-Jaehoon told me Kyeong-Something was crying in the corner, but I couldn't do anything about it because I was surrounded by 10 expectant kids, all waiting for more peanut butter. At the end of class, I told him to come see me tomorrow and I'd give him candy. It's nowhere near enough to make things up to a very sad child, but it was the most I could manage.
Anyways, when class was over, Leader Jaehoon, who has quite good English, was overcome to the extent that he forgot all his vocab words: "Teacher class was...was...GOOD. It was good." We did a fist-bump and I thanked him for the compliment. Jaehoon keeps telling me that I'm kind, and he's on my side, 100%. I'm on his side, too.
------------------------------------
