In the Shit, Part 1

As I sit in my classroom, children screaming bloody murder behind me, I bring to you my first real entry since I've been here.

Long story short, I'm enjoying my myself.

First off, what I'm here for technically: Teaching

I teach at two different schools, both of which are about an hour away from my apartment. Hanmaumn Elementary is near the south eastern coastal town of Pyosan, while Seongup Elementary is in, well...Seongup. Both schools are minutes away on the same road, so aside from the fact that they are a bit of a hike from my apartment, I guess that qualifies as some sort of minor convenience. I would tell you about my carpooling shenanigans, but instead I will just direct you to my previous blog entitled: Korean Karpool.

At both schools, I am teaching grades 1-6. When it boils down to it, I teach anywhere from 15-20 courses a week. Some classes I see multiple times a week (grades 3-6) and some I see only once (grades 1-2....good riddance.) Hanmaumn I am at Mon-Wed, and Seongup Thurs-Fri. While some of my fellow English teachers are serving their time here as English Robots, who are at the beckon and call of their students homeroom teachers masters, I roam the classroom landscape free as a bird. By that I mean, I have no help from other teachers and I plan things on my own. At first it seemed daunting and that I was getting a little screwed over, but in the long run, the other folks are the ones who got the short end of the stick. I'm actually getting the experience of planning and conducting my own courses completely on my own, which will be great for me once I go back home and continue to teach. I got thrown into the fire, thats for sure, but I've came out with only a few bumps and bruises so far, and it only gets better on the daily.

The Elementary Schools have a set curriculum, complete with terrible text books and cd-roms.

Exhibit A:


Imagine the thrill of having the kids repeat, "WAIT WAIT" and "I"M COMING," over and over and over again. Needless to say, for me the text books are just the framework of what I need to teach. I gather the key phrases from the chapter and make up my own way of teaching it to make it a lot more interesting. The books are helpful, thats for sure, but at times, pretty damn useless.

My grade 3 classes at both my schools are far and away my favorite. They are just getting excited to learn, and pick things up the quickest. There are excited about activities and always just have all sorts of great energy. The grade 1-2 kids I often just don't know what the hell to do it, and mostly just feel like a baby sitter sometimes, and the kids in grades 5-6 can just act like they are way to cool to do anything. It's really tough to get them excited about ANYTHING. Grade 4, is just an awkward transition period, and the text books I have to use for them, and the lesson ideas are by far the most vague and tough to teach.

Some days the kids are absolutely wonderful, and the joy I get out of seeing them actually pick something up and run with it, is unexplainable. The days they just get it, make me realize even more that his is indeed what I want to do, I really do enjoy it that much. Then there is those other days. The ones where you secretly wish the teachers were still using corporal punishment on their students. These kids are BAD. Unless your living some Dangerous Minds type scenario with inner city youth at your school back in the states, you haven't seen these types of behavioral issues in such large quantities. A.D.D. kids don't have shit on the madness of Korean school children. Kicking, punching, screaming, literally beating the shit out of each other. Running around, jumping on tables. On the days they are riled up, you are powerless. That is just how the day is going and you have to try and figure out how to deal with it. It's a group craziness. When one kid is like this, they are ALL like this, even the "good kids."

It's kind of like this. Nevermind, that's actually funny. It's more like this. Yeah, just like that, ALL DAY LONG.

I know there is a language barrier to blame for some of the frustrations that come from trying to get them to calm down and listen to me, but sometimes they just DON'T give two shits about listening, and either do their teachers. There are somethings in a classroom, and fucking life, that are just universal, ie. shut the hell up and don't scream unprovoked (especially in the classroom), don't beat the hell out of your friends (or stab them, yeah that happened already), and just other really simple things here and there that help prevent general chaos. The kids understand what I'm telling them to do, telling them to chill, they just choose to make it a game. Stop me if I'm being nieve here, but this is definitely part of the education system here that frustrates me. When the kids are chaotic, they generally could care less to stop them and just accept the fact that they probably ain't going to learn anything today. To me that is a little warped.

All that said. It's their culture. I'm here for a year. I'm not out to change who they are. And bottom line is I deal with it. It may be frustrating at times, but it's just how it goes.

And there is the fact that the kids are just so overwhelmingly cute. You become merciless.

Contrary to that slight rant. I am having the time of my life so far in the classroom and I can only see it getting better and better. Classes will sporadically get cancelled on a regular basis. Sometimes they tell me, sometimes they don't. You just really have to go with the flow here, and not get too uptight about it all.

I generally have a lot of time free in my afternoons to plan for my classes for the next day, and do just this, screw around on the internet. That said I never have to take any work home, so that is a major plus. All and all it's a pretty sweet gig.

This is getting long winded, so I'll cut it off here. But stay tuned for part 2: The Faculty / Staff / Parents.