First class went fine. We did our bingo and all did speaking, so that was good. And Taehyun, a belligerent kid from my afterschool last year, began warming up to me. He asked me for help on another English worksheet he was doing, so I did help him even though we probably should have been concentrating on what we were doing in class. I was just so happy to have grumpy-gloom Taehyun treating me like a teacher who could help him.
I just realized...I haven't taught Peter-Pan Taehoon yet. I think he dropped to B-ban, like Jeongwook. And I haven't taught little Byeongji, so he must have dropped, too.
In my class with H-Sol teacher, things went fine, the boys spoke a lot and we got through our game okay. There was one little incident with Laryngitis Seonghoon and his friend Giwoong, though. They thought I didn't notice, but while I was doing speaking practice with their friend, they were distinctly looking somewhere lower than my face. When class was over, I talked to Seonghoon about it and he insisted that he was innocent of any such thing and that it was all his friend's fault. Little boys. Oy.
I put forth a pretty intense effort to dress modestly and I always look fine to myself when I walk out the door, but then I get to school some days and go "what was I thinking?" because now everybody can see me from 360-degrees all around, in shadow and in sunlight, up view and down view on the staircase. If there is a hint of anything remotely interesting, the students will notice. And then I will mentally berate myself the rest of the day for not doing a better job at dressing for maximum non-interest.
Nothing to do but keep trying and not give up the fight. And to also understand that sometimes the kids are just going to be grown-uppy-minded like that, even though they still look like tiny babies.
Joonsung came to visit this morning. I let him commandeer my chair while I stacked papers for the next class' bingo activity. Joonsung sang to himself a lot while looking in the mirror and I had to stop Haneul from making fun of him. Haneul didn't mean any harm, but still, we can't be mocking autistic students.
Next class is sweet 1st-graders, then lunch. Whee!
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2:45 PM: So tired, but quite happy.
First-graders were good, and again the front row always seemed on the verge of fainting from teacher-emotions. The feeeelings rolling off these little ones. Pretty intense. They weren't as into singing "My Favorite Things," but they did learn it.
At lunch, I went walking outside the school gates with JY-Teacher. We came across YSR and SG1, and we sort of traded walking partners until I was with SG1. She and I made conversation work, talking about our favorite movies, our views on the weather, and our ages (she's one year younger, so that makes me the unnie, she says!). I had a great time hanging out with her.
At lunch, JY-Teacher made a point of asking me easy Korean questions in front of the other teachers, so they would know that I could speak a bit. That was very thoughtful of her, because I think it might have earned me a little more goodwill among the others.
When coming back from the lunchtime walk, I found Hyunho waiting for me in the office and Gyuseong on the stairs, both wanting to know why I was so late. I hopped upstairs to play UNO, where Twin-Eungyo was yelling (in polite, formal Korean), wanting to know why I was so late.
We played and Jeongmin rolled in late because he had some kind of special book-delivering responsibility today. He joined the game and Hyunho spent most of the time yelling at him and the others. Hyunho's really shouty lately, but he's still very sweet to me and I try to encourage him to be calm and kind. When the games were over, he told me he'd text me sometime and I asked how he had my number. He showed me a paper where he had it written down. He'd gotten it off the list of teacher-numbers on my desk, which is visible but only if you know where to look. Oh well. Hyunho ought to have that number, anyway.
I got gum from a 2nd-grader I don't even know, a student who watched me play UNO then quietly came up to give me a stick of gum where the other kids couldn't see. C-Jeongmin also gave me gum and a sucker today. He's big on multi-gifting. When I was giving out candy to other boys, C-Jeongmin just came up and cutely nudged my arm, like a puppy might do, until I gave him some too.
Final class of the day was good. Got through 2-9, 2-10, 2-11 okay. I'm finding ways to streamline the class and maximize speaking. They don't need nearly as much practice as I think they do. And the final bingo game worked well. No one in class seems rebellious anymore. They're just fun kids and some sleepy-headachy kids, who I let sleep.
Seongwonnie is still practicing the piano. I heard him doing a creditable version of "Balloons" by TVXQ today. But he won't play for me. He just practices, gets good, then pretends he can't do anything when I walk in.
I still see Yeongchang everywhere. I don't write about it, but everyday he bumps into me and I pat his arm. He tells me good morning, etc. We're always in communication.
Baby Minho has grown. I told him so the other day. Peter-Pan Taehoon came by to tell me that he had, in fact dropped a class ranking, but I told him that he was still smart and he has a handsome face, so it all evens out. Taehoon seemed to agree with my assessment.
Went to the first-grade wing, just to visit. They swarmed out, and there was much kiss-blowing and high-fiving until Jeongmook showed up, wrapped my arm around him and announced I was his girlfriend. Then he held my hand all the way up the stairs until I made him go to class. He lost no time in cementing his status as a favorite.
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9 PM: Artist-Joohyun, who dropped a level to B so I don't teach him anymore, asked for my number as I was leaving the school and I gave it to him. I'd love to hear more from him--he's always been a tender soul and ever since I remembered his birthday with a present, he's been my kid.
Minchan texted "thank you for everyday" and I think he means for the conversation, because every day he comes by my desk and I give him candy and he stays to talk for a few minutes; really talk about what he's thinking. Today, he said he was going to exercise right after school because he wants to lose weight. He's a bigger kid and I know how much it bothers the other rounder kids--they can't escape the teasing, so they sometimes take drastic measures. I told him I knew he'd be successful.
Afterschool was great. I had plain cookies, nutella, peanut butter and colored sprinkles, the exact snack from Saturday class, to do for my boys. I made them all a cookie, then if they wanted a second, they could fill out their worksheet and read it to me.
The last snack days, I sat at a table in front while the kids stayed in the back, but that seemed ineffective, so I pushed together a few tables up front then called Jinhyuk up to help me. Well you can't call one trouble-dude without the others. William-Jiyoon, Dongjoon and Wonhye all came up, too, setting up shop around me.
Soon, they were all there. It was a very "kumbaya-all-is-well" kind of class for a half hour. My favorite good-boys had to be dissauded from cookie-snatching, though. They may be smart and good, but they're still sneaky. You think you can trust the good ones not to disobey but they're too full of mischief to just let opportunities pass.
I'd put together a really good worksheet--a gap-fill where they had to choose verbs, nouns and adjectives from a word bank and put together sentences like: "we spread the nutella on the cookie. The cookie is round and crunchy. The nutella is creamy and sweet. We put the sprinkles on the nutella. The sprinkles are small and colorful. The cookie is tan, the nutella is dark brown."
And after every English word in the word bank, I had looked up the Korean equivalent so they didn't have to guess what the new words meant--the translation was right there. I really want them to learn descriptive words, because that's what my tutor is teaching me right now. Then instead of just handing it in, the boys brought them up and read them out loud to me, for extra speaking practice and to make sure they got the vocabulary meanings down pat. I checked pronunciation, too--they were great.
I did get exasperated when the trouble-dudes finally got back to mingling around the room while I listened to kids read their worksheets. I was in the middle of a crowd of ten kids, then I look over to find three boys lifting Dongjoon into the air while he sat on a broom, and doing it in such a violent manner that it could impede his plans for having a family in the future (can't count the times I've stopped kids from damaging each other in similar ways via punching, kicking, umbrella-swords, etc, but this was the first broom-elevation incident).
And Dongjoon was laughing, too. He's not a bullied baby; he's a top dog. Chances are, the whole thing was his idea. But I don't want them hurting each other for fun, even if the person getting hurt also thinks it's funny. I settled them down, then got back to listening to the half-dozen little voices wanting to read me their papers, and the half-dozen other little hands grabbing for cookies. 21 children is rather a lot.
But it didn't stop there. Dongjoon and Jinhyuk ran out of the room and I yelled at them in Korean to come back in. I got to my feet and told them to come to the front. Yechan asked if I was angry, seeming awed at the possibility. I said yes I was. Not furious, but right tired of their antics when they are well and away old enough to not run out of a classroom just because they're not getting attention every second.
I left the quiet boys watching the cookies while I talked with Jinhyuk and Dongjoon. I was calm then, talking to them like adults. I told them the I was their teacher--I was like their mother or their sister. I gestured to the room and said that this, this was difficult. Teaching is hard. I need them to help me. They grinned a little because getting a serious talking-to is kind of amusing, but I think they understood.
Jinhyuk and Dongjoon, more than most of the others, feel like small men. They seem to have a strong core of underlying good sense beneath their ridiculous shenanigans, which makes it all the most frustrating when they do nonsensical little-kid things. Because you know they've got good logic and are capable of way better behavior than they currently produce. Anyhoodle, I love them both and they should know it. I think they do.
Leader-Jaehoon told me before I left, "Teacher, thank you. For teaching every day, thank you." My heart can't take it. It's too kind, too precious. Jaehoon has some capacity to know how much thought I put into their class, and he expresses his appreciation verbally. Thank you, beautiful little person. You are welcome.
Also, pictures of me from today! Bit tired in the first one, but I managed a smile later.
