8:30 AM: Will living wonders never cease? This morning I was walking down the hall and I heard "Teacher, Teacher!" I turned around and it was Minchan calling me!
Minchan is a big kid, a 3rd-grader who I taught in B-ban last year. He never smiled and he usually slept in class. I made a point of learning his name and calling him by it. I noticed that he's always hanging out downstairs by himself, just outside the bogonshil--the nurse's office. Either he gets sick or hurt all the time, or that's just his hangout place. Maybe he doesn't have buddies.
Anywhoville, in December, Minchan burst out with a lot of English at once, asking me for candy I had promised him. And looking back over my posts, there a two other occasions when Minchan was unexpectedly sweet for such a taciturn person. This week, I smiled really big and greeted him a few times, and was rewarded with giant smiles.
When I turned around today, he caught up with me and asked, "Teacher...what is your name?" I told him what it was and spelled my name in the air in hangul. He said thank you and we parted ways. It was the sweetest thing. That quiet hermit Minchan, after all this time, should decide that he needed to get to know me.
On the walk to school today, I was on the phone with my mom when I heard a little bicycle bell behind me. I turned around and there was Cheolho, one of my new afterschool boys, ringing his bell to get my attention and say hi. Goshhh, precious. And the kids were really going out of their way to greet me on the walk this morning. Gyuseong (2nd grade, lunchtime games) said hi, a small flock of 1st-graders said "Hello, Amanda Seyfried Teacher!" (referring to yet another actress they think I resemble).
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2 PM: Cuteness with Minchan continued. I got back to my office after one class to find Minchan waiting inside. I thought he was waiting for another teacher, but he was there for me! He said, "Teacher, I...uh, 뭐지...(mwoji=what is it)...yesterday...you give candy. Today, I..." And he handed me a lollipop. *heart melt* I completely forgot about giving him candy yesterday, but he remembered it and decided to make his way to the office and give me something back. How thoughtful.
1st-grade class went great. They do their listen-and-speak exercises very well and they had fun with the game. The 3rd-grade class was good, but the boys were quite shocked/rattled that we weren't doing a game and that I was actually having them practice speaking in front of everyone. They didn't come to the front, but they did stand up in their seats. A good time was had by all.
After lunch, Jeongminnie came to get me and to tell me exactly which chocolates to eat next, and in which order I should try them. I told him he was bossy, which is true. We were going up the stairs when Seonwoo, Joonseok and and Minjoon, just waiting to ambush and ask for chocolate. I actually really like the way the candy thing is working out these days--I never take it to class, so it's not a reward. But the kids who want something can hop over to the 2nd-floor office and ask me in person. It's extra speaking practice for them and extra facetime for me, interacting with them, so everyone's happy-ish.
After dispensing candy to the big boys, I went upstairs to play UNO with the medium-sized boys. The 2nd-graders have grown to expect me in Sa-ban (class 4), now. We had 5-7 people playing several rounds of UNO and I learned a few new names. Seongho, a boy I've taught before but whose name totally eluded me, played with us and begged for us to do the games again tomorrow. Little Yongmoon wanted it, too, as did Gyuseong, so it looks like we've got a standing UNO appointment.
And! Wooseok came by the office! He did his best attempt at looking angelic and asked for candy. I gave him one. He asked for more and I kept turning him down, but he began to reach for another when I was distracted by some other kid. We did a bit of back-and-forth before I let him have two, ultimately. There was never a question of whether he was getting two, just a matter of how long it took. I'm so glad he decided to come back around. I miss you, you little tumbleweed of craziness.
I'm wearing a pink jacket today and I had a big mostly-Korean conversation with one of the older ladies about it. She says pink is my color, and I was so tickled by her comment, I must have blushed bright red after that. Compliments from grown ladies are the best, because they usually know what they're talking about.
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6PM: Writing from home while eating a sucker from Computer Jongmin. Earlier today, he came into the office and I asked how he was doing. He said, "Not well." Later he came back and when I asked the same question, he had Cardharp Minsu translate for him, "Mental breakdown. Teacher, he have mental break." I gave Jongmin a piece of peanut butter candy.
When I ran into Jongmin on the staircase as school was ending, he slipped a sucker into my hand instantly, so I can only assume that he was walking around with candy at the ready, just waiting for the moment when we crossed paths. It's really cute. I feel like I have a standard candy-exchange set up with Jongmin.
Minhwe, a kid in my A-level 3rd-grade class has also decided that he is going to come to me for candy every day. When I told him he could only get one piece of candy per day, he announced "I will be back tomorrow." He and I are joking a lot more, recently, and I'm glad he's becoming my kid.
In other candy-related bits, I had a hilarious run-in with Byeongjo and Twin-Seungho when I turned them away for candy because I was really only going to give one to Minjae. Byeongjo and Seungho left the room, closed the door, then came back in with Byeongjo piggybacking the much smaller Seongho. Byeongjo said, "I'm the mommy. Candy, please?" I laughed so hard at their ingenuity at getting sympathy, and I coughed up the candy.
My final 3rd-grade class of the day went well. I knew from last week (when we played board games after I lost my voice) that the boys in the back of the room were going to go crazy. These are the former Demon-Class young'uns and as soon as role was taken, I got them to move up to seats closer to the front of the room.
It worked like a charm. The crazy wrestling and rolly-chair-rolling was non-existent. We had to do some dull work with the book and the CD, but I made it better by joking about things. I'd point out how artificially the speakers were talking, so the boys got huge laughs out of that, knowing that I was fully aware how silly the text was.
And yet we learned it all. We listened, we chose the right answer, we spoke and responded. Boo-yah. I had to be careful to make sure that the whole class didn't become one long dialogue between me and HH because he's my only perfectly fluent student in there and he wants to be acknowledged.
Last year, HH sat in the back (BH was the front-sitter in that class), but now he has parked himself in front of my lectern, three feet away, where maximum conversation is possible. I'm used to being completely not-understood by kids in class, but with HH it's almost the opposite problem--beyond understanding everything I say, he wants to know what I'm thinking. "You just sighed. Why did you sigh?" Because Gimin is hitting Seunghwan instead of practicing his dialogue, that's why. But I can't say that.
Jiwoong is in this class, and while I feel like his English ability has not gone up from last year and has possibly even taken a nosedive, but he did his part in class and I was so glad to see him. I made a point of saying goodbye to him when he left school.
In afterschool, we just watched a movie, a file of Frozen I had. The kids were pretty good except for Little Glasses, who snuck out of class to make a phone call, who wouldn't leave his phone alone and who tried to climb out the first-floor window. Finally, I had to bring both him and his accomplice William-Jiyoon to sit by me while I played UNO with Jaehoon, Yoseop, Taehyun, Kyeongho, and Yechan.
I even had to take Little Glasses' phone battery. Because this year I'm at least going to try to see if we can run a phone-free class. We're going to have fun, but you can at least be present and invested in the fun.
When class was over, Leader-Jaehoon was again so overcome with emotion, he couldn't find any English words to say how happy he was and settled for "Sonsaengnm, sugohashyeossoyo!" or "Teacher, you did really great work!" in very, very formal language. This baby is soooo thrilled to be part of the inner circle and to be with a teacher who likes him and who is trying to make class a good place.
Ha! I forgot that Byeongjo nearly scared me to death. When I gave him and Seungho their peanut-butter candies he asked what kind they were, popped his candy in his mouth, then said "Peanut allergy". My eyes bugged out of my head, then I said "Spit it out!" I held out my hand as if I expected him to spit it there, then he told me he was only joking.
He said he had seen a cartoon where someone with an allergy had eaten peanuts, then swelled up like a balloon. I smacked his arm--not too hard--and told him that he'd really made me worry. That's the truth; he terrified me for just a second. Don't joke about your health, sweetheart! Nooo!
On the walk home, one particularly brave 1st-grader patted my arm, then ran along. 3rd-grade Byeongji and Jonghoon rang their bicycle bells to let me know they were coming up behind, then they checked my memory to see if I remembered them.
Had the best co-teaching ever with SG2-Teacher. She's special-special-special and so nice. I really feel like we connect on a friends level, and we share so many of the same opinions and struggles. She's a 1st-grade homeroom teacher and thinks the little ones are angels, like I do. Eee, I hope I get to hang with SG2 more in the future. Having another girl around is awesome.
Saw Byeonghyun in the office. I told him I missed him. I see him frequently and I'll see him in class tomorrow, but it's hard not to just miss Byeonghyun in general. I feel like I'm even pre-missing him for the future, when he graduates! Though in many ways, my afterschool boy Jaehoon feels like a new Byeonghyun, some folks just don't have replacements.
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