Hello today!
Since there were so many comments about my flurry of posts within my first week, I decided to take a bit of a break … give you all some time to catch up before I give you something new. Hopefully this has been enough … otherwise, suck it up! haha. Actually, I've been keeping very busy, and right now I'm vacation (this whole week; woo hoo!), so I'm trying to get a little caught up with some writing that I've been wanting to do.
Quite a few people asked more questions about school, so today I want to write about that specifically. Now that I've got a week under my belt, I feel much better about how things are going and will continue to go, although there have been some bumps along the way.
First, my school is a private language school, so we teach English; that's all that we focus on. Granted, there are time when we'll be teaching something else (like a little sex education, if you remember my other post), but that's simply used as another vehicle for connecting kids with their destination -- higher proficiency in English, both written and spoken. I've talked with both Don and Dianne, one of the Korean coteachers (who's great, by the way), about the schools over here, and apparently not as many kids study English as I thought. I'm not sure of the exact percentage, but it's not most apparently. And especially at my school, which may be one of (if not) the most expensive private schools in Gwangju, kids are here because their families have the ability to pay for our instruction. Knowing this and knowing that I am teaching one of the intensive classes has made me really try to evaluate what I'm doing, so that I know I'm doing the best I can. So Haba and Oedae really do have the reputation for being exceptional schools, and that draws in our students.
I still don't have a good understanding of the difference between the public and private schools (as far as what they teach in English), but I've heard time and again that teachers at the public schools tend to have a lighter teaching load than do their private school counterparts. I even ran into one guy this past weekend who claimed that in the past 3 or 4 weeks he's only taught 30-35 hours in the class at his public school, and due to this, if I decide to stick around, I should really go to a public school instead of staying with the hogwan because that's so much better. Unfortunately he was pretty drunk when we had this brief chat, so I don't think he really picked up on my sarcastic approval of his situation, although fortunately his state did afford me the opportunity to easily end our conversation almost as quickly as it began. One of these days I'll have a good interaction with a public school teacher, and I'll give you all the lowdown on our differences and similarities.
Back to my schools … my classes include both boys and girls. In Edison class, I have 6 boys and 6 girls. I can't remember exactly off the top of my head, but it's a pretty even split between the sexes in all of my classes. And both little Korean boys and little Korean girls are very nice and very loving. It seems that nearly every day, whether it happens in the class or in a hallway, I'm mobbed by a group of little kids. It's great. I was talking with Aimee over video chat, and I think I said it something like this: every day I'm reaffirmed that I'm pretty much the next best thing to sliced bread … and it brings up my ego each time only a little bit. haha. But really, I will probably say time and again that these kids are great, and part of that is their, but another part of that stems from the culture of and atmosphere in this school. I did ask Dianne about that as well, the intimacy between teacher and student at this school, and apparently there was a problem with that a few years ago, but in general, kids and teachers do simply become very close in this school, and I, for one, am very thankful for that. I think this aspect of the school, in particular, has been one of the most appealing -- especially during this time of integration into a new way of living.
This past weekend, for the first time yet, a feeling of isolation really began to set in. I'm the sort of person who will all of a sudden put 2 and 2 together, only to realize that 4's been standing in my view all along. There was one point on Sunday when I had just gone grocery shopping and came back to put things away/clean up when I realized that unlike any other place I've lived, I can't just invite friends or family over for a quick meal like I've done before. Obviously I knew before yesterday that this couldn't happen, but it just hit at that moment that most (what an understatement … more like 99%) of the people I know back in the States will never see my home here. And that thought's weird to me. In fact, it's as foreign to me as I am to my Korean neighbor. Well look at this, even I'm subject to a little home sickness. haha. So, how does this connect to the school? I feel that the way the students and my fellow teachers have reached out and connected with me has, with a doubt, been instrumental in helping me replace the loneliness that would normally appear -- before it even began to set in. I feel that already, after not even 2 weeks here, I'm connecting with kids in such a way that they're helping my transition more than they can possibly know.
The afternoon classes have been a different experience altogether. I have three classes each Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and one of those meets on Tuesday and Thursday as well. One of my classes has been nothing but a delight so far; the students are well behaved and pleasant, and I enjoy seeing them each time. The next class has been on edge a couple of times, but in general, this class has also been great. These students enjoy learning new things, and although they lose focus from time to time, they typically stay on task and keep things lively. The last class has been the biggest struggle. In this class of 8, I do have an equal number of boys and girls, and these boys seem to be wildest ones around. After talking with Dianne about this for a bit, I think that when I stepped into this class I did so with the mindset that I could be both friend and teacher simultaneously, and that attitude has worked with my other two classes, but in this one, I need to reassert my … or really, just establish my control over the class. I alluded to crushing students' wills to be unruly in a previous post, and this is where that happened. At the end of the week before last (on my first solo day), I pulled aside the boys and told them that I needed them to be more attentive and well behaved in class. This past week I confiscated a couple toys and took one of the boys into the hallway for a one on one chat. He was fine for the rest of that day, but it seemed to do little to affect the other boys. Next week will be interesting with these boys for they will see that I will teach them English, and even if takes lots of frustration and some belief that I'm a really mean person, we'll get this into place. I do think that this class, with the proper respect for what we're supposed to be doing and covering, could be the most fun because the students are witty and funny and enjoyable, but they have to discern when to do what and follow through for it to be fun for any of us.
Back to Haba … last week Thursday and Friday were a little different than normal; the 5 and 6 year olds (which are most of my students) has their "Camp," which meant that they essentially when on some field trips and got to spend the night at the school Thursday. Because the kids were there overnight, all the foreign teachers went and read bedtime stories to them. I got to read to all three of my classes (Rainbow, Sun and Edison), and I read We're Going on a Bear Hunt, and the book definitely got much better with each successive read. If you haven't read this book, you should look into it because it's lots of fun. By the last time I walked around the class a bit and acted out what we were doing. It seemed that the kids enjoyed it more as well that time than the others did during earlier reads. I will say that reading books to kids is one of my favorite things to do, so this has been a great part of my experience so far, since I end up reading at least one book each day.
Ok, I think this is probably enough for now. Tune in next time for more about language learning, insights in the "Korean standoff" and my first trip to a doctor here.
Much love to you all.
pfn,
bg
ps- I haven't been taking too many new pictures, but if you're able to check Facebook, some others of my have been tagged recently. There's one of me with the Edison class, and some others of my first experience with cold Korean noodles. Who would've thought that eating noodles might involve ice cubes as well. I didn't … until now.
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