Sometimes it's unhelpful when you know yourself well

I say this because I am teaching kindergarten, which I didn’t want to do, at all, but you kind of have to, especially to secure your first job teaching in South Korea.  And you’re in a country with a hard-on for youth and inexperience. Despite my initial reservations due to not being the Barney or high-energy-type who has the desire or patience to sing and dance like a clown for little tornadoes of energy, I figured it’s still going to be good experience, and I was keeping an open mind that I might actually enjoy it.

But my very first class helped prove that my self-awareness was too accurate for that to happen.

First, part of teaching in South Korea is that things tend to be thrown at you very last-minute, hence after a 30 minute tour of the school, I was given my schedule and herded over to teach my first class. Naturally there was no observation time, just me and 4, 6-year old boys (the Elmo class). Another thing it’s important for you to know is that a Korean child’s life kind of sucks. Starting from around age 4 or so, they are usually in school from 8 AM to about 8 or 9 PM Monday through Friday, though frequently Saturday as well. There is a truly ridiculous but rampant belief throughout Asia that simply forcing a child to sit in a classroom will imbue them with knowledge. Stick a teacher in there, and they should learn much more, faster. Memorizing is the really the name of the game here, which they think is learning, and playing is fun, learning isn’t, so playtime, play learning, recess, anything that children naturally want to do and should be doing, these kids have very little, if any, chance to do. Daily when we’re greeting the students when I ask a 5 or 7-year-old how they are, they say tired. What child is tired at 10 AM!?

Sadly, every child but the 4 in my class. I have them about twice a day every day for 35 minutes each class. They make me dread going to work, just those boys. There are 2 in particular who are the biggest little thorns in my side: Ian and Eric. Ian would be especially adorable were it not for the fact that between him & Eric I spend half the class telling them to stop running, sit down, get out from under the table, stop running, be quiet, read, leave his book alone…. Punishment is having them stand against the wall, which Ian refuses to do, usually resulting in me eventually helping him do so, followed by him saying, “TeacherI’msorryteacherI’msorryteacherI'msorry,” as soon as he is up. Ian is also a constant whiner. "Teacher my eraserrrrrrr, teacher my eraserrrrr!" because

1.) it's gone, or

2.) he's lost it.

Ian: we were at a field trip to a tea ceremony, so he was wearing Korean formal wear, and looking very serious because for once he seemed to appreciate he needed to be on his best behavior.

Eric mostly goes right to the back wall throughout class, then proceeds to dance and sing, leaving me to tell the remaining seated students, Jayden and Allen, to turn around and be quiet. Still, Ian at the very least can be surprisingly helpful: he always wants to erase the board for me. I’ve even seen him lend his precious, precious eraser to another student.

The one benefit to this age is that they know standing is punishment, and even worse is standing outside (unless you’re Eric and can resort to dancing in front of the glass-wall of the classroom). We teachers write biweekly progress reports to each child’s parent, which is the euphemism for lie because we are only allowed to say the children are precious little angels/geniuses/models of good behavior. There really aren’t any real repercussions to not doing their work or behaving, because bad grades and intimations that they are raising a problem child will cause the parent to pull their student and their money. 

If the students do something good, we put a smiley face next to their name. 3 smileys and they get a banana sticker which apparently once a year they can use to buy things from some market the school creates for the kids. (In elementary school it's stamps, and they always just hand me their stamp sheets. I assumed it was some sort of attendance thing until week 2 I said something and Kiara said, "Oh, yeah, I should have told you," and explained the stamps are the banana stickers for elementary kids... and about how the kids use them at this market. Because why would you tell someone that before?). Except for yesterday because 2 kids had their books out when I came in, for example, I hadn't given out any banana stickers in about 2 weeks. But I take them if the kids get 3-4 frowning faces OR I write their name 4 times because they've been speaking in Korean.

My one comfort is that the whole Elmo class, and Eric and Ian in particular, try the patience of every teacher in the school, even the assistant principal and native teacher, Anna-teacher. Every morning before class the kids are all gathered into a room and sing some songs, stretch, and generally warm-up for English. I watched as Anna-teacher had to send Eric to stand against the wall, and he continued to dance as he always does. Eventually she had him stand outside.

This is how Eric smiles for anyone at the school who's taking a picture of him, including for the month of January birthday party, where he was a guest of honor. As you can see, his charisma and charm gets him far with all the teachers.

I do have one other kindergarten class in the mornings, the Clifford class: Jessica, Lydia, and this ADORABLE, happy little boy named Prathit. I believe Clifford is 5, except for Prathit, who’s 4. Naturally because there are girls in the class, the chaos quotient is cut by 2/3.

One of the sweetest students we have, Prathit. Referencing the aforementioned charms of Eric, one of them is hating all brown people, so he will move to another table if Prathit sits by him at lunch time. Racism is rampant and unapologetic in Asia.

Oh, I should add that I have now had/made both Jessica and Lydia cry in class. Jessica because I (now) know she can’t read, and when I asked her to read and she said no, I thought she was just being difficult. Even after hugs and apologies she just wouldn’t calm down. She had to go sit for the next 30 minutes with the receptionist before she calmed down. Then on Friday Lydia start sobbing because I said we were going to read a story one more time because there are a lot of new words. She didn’t want us to, I said we were going to, and off she went. “Christ, not again,” I thought. I asked her if it was because I wanted us to read again. *shakes head;* is it because she wanted to read? *shakes head;* is she afraid I’m mad at her? *shakes head;* Finally, out of options I said, “Do you want a hug?” She nodded and cried herself out for a good 3 more minutes before she was ok and things went back to normal.

Lydia

Jessica

Of course, kids cry and pitch fits. And I worried a little that I was too stern with them, until I learned how overly dramatic Korean students are. Yesterday we had an all-school practice for graduation which is at the end of February. Kiara was lining the kids up, tallying who was gone: “John’s absent… Krystal’s still crying….” Krystal, 7 years old, was gone for a good 20 minutes crying. Kiara and Sara both mentioned how dramatic the students here are, so, it isn’t just me. In any event, during the rehearsal Lydia was pretending she was a cat, knelt next to me, and hugged my leg and leaned her head against me for much of rehearsal. So I guess all is forgiven.

In the afternoons the elementary school kids come in. One class I was told are brilliant, but when asking them to do their in-class activity that consisted of underlining the present and past tense verbs, the class acted confused and underlined “and” and “or” in addition to/instead of the verbs. I was alarmed at how confused they seemed, how slowly we then progressed and then fell behind. When I talked to June the owner, I was assured the kids definitely knew what verbs were and are very smart. Initially she thought maybe they couldn’t understand me, and were trying to take advantage of my being new by acting confused. It wasn’t until it kept happening and I talked to Kiara-teacher that I was told, first by her then also by June, that Leslie used to just write the answers for their in-class activities on the board. Not only that, but I definitely have to do that so they catch up, because they can’t fall behind.

So then I realized they’re not really learning and I’m not necessarily improving at teaching, so there’s no it’s-so-rewarding-working-with-kids, young and eager to learn. I decided it was time to accept that all anyone wanted from me was to give me money to be a glorified babysitter, so that’s just what I am going to do. I’m done worrying about researching games that won’t require anything that the boys can use as a weapon (read: anything) and engage them enough to trick them into learning and stem the mayhem. I’m focusing on remaining calm inside and taking no moment of my day seriously.

To add to the joy of all THIS, I get the other thing I despise about new jobs: not knowing how things are done and not knowing how or what to do. I absolutely hate the new-job learning curve. Meaning right now Jen is not experiencing much joy during the day. There are 2 other native teachers: Kiara-teacher, and Sara-teacher. Oh, and before I go any further, whenever Kiara spoke of other teachers, it was always their name-teacher. Even outside of school. So I’m doing it too because it’s what you do and how you refer to other teachers and introduce yourself to students. It’s considered respectful.

Anyway, Kiara-teacher is somewhat helpful but not super-warm/into socializing. This may be because in her youthful enthusiasm she was bombarding me pre-trip with the very basics of going-to-another-country. Shit that anyone who’s ever gone anywhere knows. Like, “You should get some Korean money before you come. They use the won. But they do take credit cards too!” And I was receiving these emails while still getting plenty of emails about last-minute preparing-to-leave stuff. I finally said I appreciated her help but I was a seasoned traveler and knew all of what she was telling me, and to essentially lay-off. So it occurred to me today that, being young and self-centered, she likely took that personally, whereas I only meant, stop telling me that I should bring prescriptions with me when I’ve been traveling longer than you’ve been alive, but DO give me details about the school, or helpful hints for dealing with the students. The other teacher, Sara-teacher, seems really nice, but likewise has her own life outside of school and not much more inclination to invite me anywhere. I’ve seen no other Westerns anywhere here, and while I have started studying Korean, I’m still only 1/2 way through the alphabet and know… only how to say, “hello,” “thank you,” “quiet,” and “sit down.” Heh heh. So befriending Koreans isn’t really going to happen quite yet.

So! I still have the whole this-past-weekend to write about, but quite honestly today was busy: after reading the news, I tested my new no-internet-GPS map directions to find a train station that is closer than the one near work; grocery shopping; put away laundry; cooked lunch & dinner for today and then dinner for Monday & Wednesday, my 2 late days. And some limes (LIMES!!!!!!!), so the expensive bottle of Bombay in my freezer is looming larger and larger than your boundless curiosity about Jen in Korea. So until… next weekend? Adieu/anyeong ga-something-o, which I THINK is goodbye in Korean.

In case you wanted to see the rest of Elmo, this
is Allen. He is the most studious of them
all, and will complete all assignments
asked. He has a speech impediment
which we're not sure if his parents do or
don't acknowledge (because
another benefit to being a Korean
child is if you need classes or have
a learning disability, the parents
will deeply deny it rather than get their
kids whatever help they might need.

Jayden. Interestingly, this is how he looks
all day, every day.