It's been a see-saw, a wave, a roller coaster. Some days I love what I'm doing. The kids are smart, funny, productive, and seem to really enjoy what we're doing. In these classes, I feel like a teacher. Other days, I want to pull a runner and ditch this shit. Some of my classes just do not care, do not listen, and are not afraid of the consequences. In these classes, I feel like an underpaid baby-sitter just trying to survive the three hour block. For six hours everyday I waffle, waver, scrape rock bottom, plan my escape, hit new highs, plan my weekend, and when I'm done, I walk out the door and leave it all in the classroom. No papers to grade, no tests to double check, no curriculum to create, I don't even carry anything home with me. I love that part of the job.
It's only been two weeks, but I'm having a hard time thinking about doing this over and over and over for an entire year. The classes I teach are incredibly structured, everyday I do the exact same thing. It kind of reminds me of the pizza places I used to work at, in that I can still remember 16 ounces of cheese on a large, 14 on a medium, 12 on a small, and now I don't think I'll ever forget Day 1 starts with a review test followed by words in context, vocabulary, vocabulary chunks, so on and so on every single day, exactly the same structure, slightly different material. I mean, the structure is absolutely identical every single class period. I think about it and it scares me that they seem to be preparing the students to be taught by robots who can follow the timing to a T.
Some days are bad, some days are good. I count myself extremely lucky when a 3 hour block finishes without any major problems, me threatening to send one of my students to the principal, or having to repeatedly tell one or two kids to be quiet. Last night, I was really lucky.
Everyday I come into the school log on to my computer and am greeted with an attendance page of my next class. The page contains pictures and an update on whether or not students will be attending class. Lately, because of Swine Flu* it's been a fun game seeing how many of my students, and which one's, will be out. Up until last night the sick ones had all been my really good, quiet students who got sick, leaving me with the monsters. Plus, when it's just the monster's they seem to realize that no one in the class cares, and they tuck away whatever bit of respect they normally have for the good quiet kids who want to learn and just go totally ape-shit.
But last night in my class of 9, three of my kids were gone, including two of the most obnoxious students I have. One of these students is an instigator and a bully. He's actually pretty smart and good at the classwork, but he stands about a foot taller than everybody else and seems to like threatening these young kids every chance he gets. I've never worked with kids before, and I'm working with a strange age. I have this odd mix where about one-third have hit puberty and are growing like crazy, starting to get a little fuzz of facial hair, are obviously wildly hormonal, and two-thirds who haven't hit puberty and our just these tiny angels who still enjoy school and life in general.
So with the kids gone with SI, my 7 p.m. Friday night class was actually a good time, and one of those moments where I felt like a teacher and not a babysitter. Also, this class goes until 10 on Friday night. I feel bad for these kids. If I'd have been going to school until 10 on Friday, I never would have seen an episode of Boy Meets World or Family Matters. What kind of a childhood would that have been? Not one I would have cared to live.
Anyway, every class I do a critical thinking project. It's a 30 minute project where the students try to be creative and answer some topic. Some of them are really simple, like come up with a wish, something you want, and give the reasons. It sounds easy and in an American classroom, maybe it would be. But here, it's like I'm asking them to decide between their mother and father. One will live, one will die. As soon as they have to think entirely on their own, they clam up and shut down, switch into Korean and kind of check out. I generally end up giving them most of the answers. “Ok, you want infinite money, what would you buy with it?” “Ummm.... Nintendo DS!” “Ok, good what else” “PSP!” And this goes on in every single group of students. Always Nintendo DS and PSP.
But last night's CTP was different. Last night's CTP was ridiculous. These kids are 7,8,9, maybe 10. The unit was on detective's and forensic science. Everyone knows forensic science is the study of dead people – everyone except 7, 8, and 9 year olds. Most people I know, know who Ted Bundy is. Now my students do too! Also they know he left bite marks on his victims. They now know about Helen and Olga, two women who murdered homeless people for life insurance policies. They also know that Scott Peterson murdered his wife and unborn child. What a fun Friday night for my 7 year old! But the CTP really takes the creepy cake. My students get to play detective's. Sounds fun. Find the missing treasure or something. But of course, no. This curriculum seems designed to teach the students English and at the same time introduce them to the real world, well the real world of America, where everyone is constantly doing drugs and killing each other, considering all the serial killers and murderers we discussed were American. So the CTP is not about finding stolen goods, it's about solving a murder.
The students are given information on three people. Heather, Lauren and Julian are all suspected of killing their friend Melanie. Melanie had cocaine in her blood. “Teacher what's...coke-ine?” “Um...it's a drug.” And this is a culture whose money is not covered in cocaine, drugs are highly illegal, and most of these kids won't ever see a joint let alone “coke-ine.” Next up “Teacher, what's anti-depressants?” It appears one of our suspects was on anti-depressants. Great. I'm not really sure what the policy on anti-depressants is here, maybe there as easy to get in the states, but I doubt it. If you break a bone, they give you Tylenol, regular Tylenol. No pain killers, and I bet very few anti-depressants.
So great, I've introduced my students to murder and drugs. The best part was that I got to sit through 3 presentations of the CTP in which they outlined why they think Heather killed Melanie and how she did it, and most of them say the word “Coke-ine” like ten times, including my tiny 7 year old and it's all I can do from rolling on the floor and laughing until I puke. Last night was a good night for me, I've dealt with being afraid of serial killers and murderers, and I slept last night knowing I'd done a decent job for the day. But my bet is that at least one of my students went home, Googled Ted Bundy, and won't sleep for weeks.
Side note: Swine flu is running rampant through all the schools here, something like 5 billion cases of school children. That might be exaggerated, but I've seen the way all the kids take their paper masks off and swing them around, leave them on desks, let other kids touch them, and then put them right back onto their little faces, breathing all those wonderful germs. And it's not just the kids, no one here seems to have any concept of germs and how they are transferred from one human being to another. For example, hacking a huge lugee in the middle of the street – totally acceptable. I'll never forget the time Sara and I were walking to get some food and heard this person behind us hacking, I mean really digging deep, scraping the snot off the brain pan type snorting, and of course the spitting and the eventual thud against the pavement. And I'm thinking, oh, there's like a dying homeless man suffering from emphysema and he's got to get that shit out of his lungs. Meanwhile Sara looks like she's going to vomit. The person's footsteps get closer behind us and we kind of move over to one side expecting this emphysemic homeless man, but no, a little old Korean woman in a tracksuit with a huge perm and an even larger visor. But, that's Korea. Totally acceptable to hack up your lungs on the street, no paper towels in the bathroom, no natural impulse to cover your mouth when you sneeze, incredible paranoia about swine flu.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Caterpillar (pre-cocoon learning)
As usual, Zach has inspired me to write something on our blog. He's right, the purpose of this blog is because we forget so easily and get confused so often. We're both lucky that our lives are so full of excitement that we get one adventure confused with the next. Our current adventure in Korea consists of teaching English at a Hogwan (Korean private school) in Bundang, which is a suburb of Seoul. Zach teaches at Chungdahm (on the 3rd floor) and I teach at Chungdahm April (on the 4th floor). My classes are children from about 6 to 11. They are energetic, but not quite as energetic as I am.
Today I was teaching away, singing and giving my students acting tips when there is a knock at the door. I answer it to find my Korean teaching partner, Ray, standing there looking....
worried.
She asks if she can speak to me for a second, and I step outside. “Sara, you're supposed to...” to make a long complicated mistake short, I have been teaching the wrong thing to half of my students for the past two days.
Oops.
Ray is very patient with me, she walks me through the array of Type A or Type B teaching days, Seed, Sprout, or Sapling. When to teach only speaking, or reading and speaking (but only speaking butterfly). She reminds me that I do not teach writing, but I do the homework check for writing. She also tells me all about the e-learning on the computer, the magic screen, how to grade revision tests, enter them in the computer, update the classes, and grade participation. So I have to get there early tomorrow because all of the lesson planning I did in order to get ahead was based on my own personal level of ignorance. Luckily, the Faculty manager (my boss) doesn't know the curriculum for April very well either, so when he watches me on CCTV (that's right, we have live cameras in our classrooms where our boss watches us and gives us feedback) all he sees is a vibrant, confident teacher who asks leading questions, elicits answers and helps her students.
Phew.
I'm figuring it out, slowly but surely. On Thursday and Friday I have to record videos of the kids acting projects and upload them so their parents can see them. And I have been warned, when the mothers don't get to see the videos, an uproar ensues.
Be advised, the Korean mothers are watching.
Hopefully, I succeed, record the videos and upload them properly. I still need to get my Alien registration card, a phone, a gym membership and fully function internet. I am confident that I can do these things. It's fall here and the leaves are turning beautiful shades of red, yellow and gold. Now, if only I can figure out how to turn the heat on in the apartment, I'll be all set.
Buying A TV in Korea
Neither of us has posted to the blog in awhile, and we feel bad about that. Not because we think the world needs Twitter like updates of our every move, but more because our own memories of the last year get foggier and murkier every day. We've been so many places and seen so many things that now we can't even remember what country we first ate fried cheese in. That's the real point of this blog I think, for us to remember who and where and when. It's a journal, but open to our friends and family and random internet passer-by.
Anyway, quick update. Sara and I have moved to Korea. We split 10 days in a couple of love motels, which actually turned out to be some of the nicest hotels we've ever stayed in; big tv's, clean accomadation's, quiet hallways and lobbies, decent lighting in the rooms, hardwood floors. All in all, these two love motels, The Hotel Noblesse and the Hotel Major come highly recommended. Still, as nice as they were, we're happy to be in our own place. We've got a decent amount of space, and it helps that our sleeping area is lofted above the kitchen, although the somewhat low ceiling makes it impossible to stand up in our "bedroom." That's fine. We can live with crouching every time we want to get into or out of bed.
We were also excited to see that the previous occupant of our apartment had left us a monster 40" television. One of those big grey, old, boxy behemoths, the bigscreen tv equivalent of the Zach Morris monster cell phone. Great. A big tv. But, we turned it on, and the picture kind of sucked. We tried for a couple of days to watch it, but quickly gave up and decided to buy a new tv. Now, we don't speak any Korean, and this being a Korean speaking country, we knew we might be in for some trouble. Add to that the fact we don't have a car, don't have a phone, don't know our address, weren't sure our American credit cards would even work here in Korea, you've got a recipe for TV buying disaster.
But we wanted that TV. We started by looking on Craigslist, but could only find Televisions much like the one we currently had, old gigantic three hundred pounders. No thanks. So we decided to try to find a store. Last Saturday we went to six places trying to find a TV. No one really even tried to help us, which was fine as we were kind of going through something trying to decide what size and whether or not a plasma or lcd would be best. Plus, you get into the tv showroom, and there's a bunch of 40 and 42 inch televisions that look beautiful and perfect, and they're pretty reasonably priced. But then there's that giant 60" hanging there, dwarfing the 40", ruining the perspective of everything. It's not that much more in money, (ok, it's double), but it's so much bigger and the people look like they could walk right out of the screen and into the showroom and dance around with their weird purple hair and yellow spandex shorts. So Saturday, we went home. We couldn't afford the 60" and the 40's no longer looked adequate. Shamed by their bigger, brighter, better cousin the 60, we were defeated.
But we came home, turned on the old tv and went, oh screw this, tomorrow, new tv. So Sunday, we wake up and head to the LG store, about two blocks from where we live. Again, we don't know our address or how we're going to get our tv home, but we're also kind of stupid and just do what we want regardless of little problems like not speaking the language and not having any idea where the tv should be delivered, if that's even an option. But, while we may be kind of stupid, we're also extremely lucky. The first guy that approached us at the LG store spoke decent enough English. So he kind of points at the TV's and repeats the major capabilities of all the Tv's, 50", 1080p, Plasma, LCD, that kind of thing. There's some kind of wonderful sale happening, complete with a giant dancing clown out front and The Black Eyed Peas blaring from speakers, and most of the tv's are marked down 600,000 won, which is close to 600 dollars. Great for us. We point at a tv and the guy goes and checks the price and tells us it's a display model. We're like great, sold. He's very happy, we're very happy.
Now, delivery. We try to tell the guy we live close, in the building with the Pizza school. He kind of looks at us like, great... this Pizza school reference is sort of the equivalent of telling someone you live near a Starbucks and therefore not very helpful. So we tell the guy we're going to leave, go to the apartment, find the address and come back. Ok, good. He walks us to the door and asks us where we live. We point down the street, you can almost see our apartment from the store. So we're pointing at our apartment, and he starts pointing at his car. "My car, I'll take you." We look at each other, look at the guy, sort of figure he's just a serious salesmen and cross our fingers that he's not some kind of Korean serial killer and get it. So then this guy drives us to our apartment, hops out of the car, gets the address from the security guard, gets back in the car and drives us back to the LG store. Awesome. What a great country.
Good, now we know what TV we want and we know our address. We fill out some paper work, all in Korean, so maybe we signed our organs away to this guy I don't know, and hand over our credit cards. He swipes them once, twice, three times... no go. Thwarted by our foreigness. And us, from the country where easy dirt cheap credit allowing young, barely employed, broke people to buy fancy televisions. Noooooo! So what can we do? Get cash? Sure, but we're confident we have limits on how much we can take out and we want this TV today. So we leave, promising to find a way to get this much cash. Lot's of ways flash through my head. The Koreans are a pretty trusting people and with any half-way decent pick-pocketing skills, you could clean up on the subway or any kind of crowd really. But I like it here and don't want to go to Korean jail, although I bet there would still be Kim-chi. So, while Sara and I are standing around trying to decide whether or not we should rob a bank, the salesmen comes running down the street, waving. "Hey" he communicates. "I got it." Something about a phone call to the credit company, I don't know. What I do know is that we go back in, he makes a phone call, punches our numbers into the phone, and boom, receipts start popping out. TV purchased. So now this guy has driven us to our apartment, chased us down in the street and sold us a 50" plasma, to be delivered on Monday.
We walk out of the store, all high on spending massive amounts of money, and I start to put the receipt in my pocket, and I look and it's all in Korean, and I start to wonder, what if this is all some big scam? What if we just dropped a thousand bucks on nothing? What are we going to do if they don't ever bring our TV? What can we do?
Of course, there's nothing we can do. It's done. The TV will come or the TV won't come. That's it.
Happily, it wasn't some rip off the foreigner scam and on Monday morning the largest, most beautiful tv in the world arrived. The delivery guys even set the whole thing up and changed the menu to English. All included in the price of the TV.
Now, I'm sitting here in my new apartment, watching the NLCS on my new tv and feeling pretty good about this whole Korea thing.
Anyway, quick update. Sara and I have moved to Korea. We split 10 days in a couple of love motels, which actually turned out to be some of the nicest hotels we've ever stayed in; big tv's, clean accomadation's, quiet hallways and lobbies, decent lighting in the rooms, hardwood floors. All in all, these two love motels, The Hotel Noblesse and the Hotel Major come highly recommended. Still, as nice as they were, we're happy to be in our own place. We've got a decent amount of space, and it helps that our sleeping area is lofted above the kitchen, although the somewhat low ceiling makes it impossible to stand up in our "bedroom." That's fine. We can live with crouching every time we want to get into or out of bed.
We were also excited to see that the previous occupant of our apartment had left us a monster 40" television. One of those big grey, old, boxy behemoths, the bigscreen tv equivalent of the Zach Morris monster cell phone. Great. A big tv. But, we turned it on, and the picture kind of sucked. We tried for a couple of days to watch it, but quickly gave up and decided to buy a new tv. Now, we don't speak any Korean, and this being a Korean speaking country, we knew we might be in for some trouble. Add to that the fact we don't have a car, don't have a phone, don't know our address, weren't sure our American credit cards would even work here in Korea, you've got a recipe for TV buying disaster.
But we wanted that TV. We started by looking on Craigslist, but could only find Televisions much like the one we currently had, old gigantic three hundred pounders. No thanks. So we decided to try to find a store. Last Saturday we went to six places trying to find a TV. No one really even tried to help us, which was fine as we were kind of going through something trying to decide what size and whether or not a plasma or lcd would be best. Plus, you get into the tv showroom, and there's a bunch of 40 and 42 inch televisions that look beautiful and perfect, and they're pretty reasonably priced. But then there's that giant 60" hanging there, dwarfing the 40", ruining the perspective of everything. It's not that much more in money, (ok, it's double), but it's so much bigger and the people look like they could walk right out of the screen and into the showroom and dance around with their weird purple hair and yellow spandex shorts. So Saturday, we went home. We couldn't afford the 60" and the 40's no longer looked adequate. Shamed by their bigger, brighter, better cousin the 60, we were defeated.
But we came home, turned on the old tv and went, oh screw this, tomorrow, new tv. So Sunday, we wake up and head to the LG store, about two blocks from where we live. Again, we don't know our address or how we're going to get our tv home, but we're also kind of stupid and just do what we want regardless of little problems like not speaking the language and not having any idea where the tv should be delivered, if that's even an option. But, while we may be kind of stupid, we're also extremely lucky. The first guy that approached us at the LG store spoke decent enough English. So he kind of points at the TV's and repeats the major capabilities of all the Tv's, 50", 1080p, Plasma, LCD, that kind of thing. There's some kind of wonderful sale happening, complete with a giant dancing clown out front and The Black Eyed Peas blaring from speakers, and most of the tv's are marked down 600,000 won, which is close to 600 dollars. Great for us. We point at a tv and the guy goes and checks the price and tells us it's a display model. We're like great, sold. He's very happy, we're very happy.
Now, delivery. We try to tell the guy we live close, in the building with the Pizza school. He kind of looks at us like, great... this Pizza school reference is sort of the equivalent of telling someone you live near a Starbucks and therefore not very helpful. So we tell the guy we're going to leave, go to the apartment, find the address and come back. Ok, good. He walks us to the door and asks us where we live. We point down the street, you can almost see our apartment from the store. So we're pointing at our apartment, and he starts pointing at his car. "My car, I'll take you." We look at each other, look at the guy, sort of figure he's just a serious salesmen and cross our fingers that he's not some kind of Korean serial killer and get it. So then this guy drives us to our apartment, hops out of the car, gets the address from the security guard, gets back in the car and drives us back to the LG store. Awesome. What a great country.
Good, now we know what TV we want and we know our address. We fill out some paper work, all in Korean, so maybe we signed our organs away to this guy I don't know, and hand over our credit cards. He swipes them once, twice, three times... no go. Thwarted by our foreigness. And us, from the country where easy dirt cheap credit allowing young, barely employed, broke people to buy fancy televisions. Noooooo! So what can we do? Get cash? Sure, but we're confident we have limits on how much we can take out and we want this TV today. So we leave, promising to find a way to get this much cash. Lot's of ways flash through my head. The Koreans are a pretty trusting people and with any half-way decent pick-pocketing skills, you could clean up on the subway or any kind of crowd really. But I like it here and don't want to go to Korean jail, although I bet there would still be Kim-chi. So, while Sara and I are standing around trying to decide whether or not we should rob a bank, the salesmen comes running down the street, waving. "Hey" he communicates. "I got it." Something about a phone call to the credit company, I don't know. What I do know is that we go back in, he makes a phone call, punches our numbers into the phone, and boom, receipts start popping out. TV purchased. So now this guy has driven us to our apartment, chased us down in the street and sold us a 50" plasma, to be delivered on Monday.
We walk out of the store, all high on spending massive amounts of money, and I start to put the receipt in my pocket, and I look and it's all in Korean, and I start to wonder, what if this is all some big scam? What if we just dropped a thousand bucks on nothing? What are we going to do if they don't ever bring our TV? What can we do?
Of course, there's nothing we can do. It's done. The TV will come or the TV won't come. That's it.
Happily, it wasn't some rip off the foreigner scam and on Monday morning the largest, most beautiful tv in the world arrived. The delivery guys even set the whole thing up and changed the menu to English. All included in the price of the TV.
Now, I'm sitting here in my new apartment, watching the NLCS on my new tv and feeling pretty good about this whole Korea thing.
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