New Kid

We got a new student in 6th grade a few weeks ago who is absolutely stellar in English. He attended the Daegu English Village, a very good English program in nearby Daegu, before coming to Andong. But whenever you get a new student, you worry about them fitting in. So I was naturally concerned when we did the comparisons lesson and our new student, Minho, at barely 4 feet tall and maybe 65 pounds dripping wet, was paired with our sumo-wrestler 6th grader, Taeyong, to write 3 comparisons sentences about each other. At the end of class, each pair was instructed to come and read me their three sentences.

Taeyong:
"I am taller than Minho. I am bigger than Minho. I am stronger than Minho."

Minho (slightly bored with the remedial-for-him activity):
"I am shorter than Taeyong. I am weaker than Taeyong. I am smarter than my whole class."

I think he'll be OK.

Teachering

We're now nearly three months into my first year as a teacher, and for those who are wondering, I think I've gotten the hang of it. It's obvious to me that every single teaching job, even in the same school and grade, is so vastly different that they never match up perfectly. One teacher can never be compared to another and every situation is unique in both positive and negative ways. My next two posts will deal with this issue in my two schools. Here are the negatives and positives of working in a small school like Dongbu.
Negatives
Because Dongbu is so very tiny (about 140 studnents), I am only able to use each lesson plan I make once. This means that lesson planning can be harder for me because I have to make sure it's perfect the very first time. I don't have the luxury or experimentation or guinnea pig classes, since I only see each class once or twice a week. Even if I do see them twice a week, the lesson has to be new each time. This is a challenge that I accept, since I think that teaching the same lesson over and over can be boring. But it is also very difficult since I need my lesson to go flawlessly on the first run without any sort of rehearsel. I can say that it does not always go that way.

The other major drawback is that I am the only full-time English teacher. Most other schools in Andong have several Korean English teachers and one native English teacher. This allows the other foreigners to spend more time planning and preparing with their co-teachers, since none of them have homerooms to manage. At Dongbu, all of my co-teachers are also homeroom teahers. HB teaching 5th and 6th grade with me, but he is also the 6th grade homeroom teacher. Mrs. Lee teaches 4th grade, and Mr. Kwan teaches 3rd grade. This leaves precious few moments in which to talk with them about lessons, and pretty much leaves me on my own when I have to plan one. This also means that when they prepare a lesson, I usually find out about it at the start of that class. It can be very hectic, and also very lonely, since they are teaching their classes most of the day while I am alone in my office.
Positives
Though the size of my school can be taxing because of lesson planning, it also allows me to bond more with the students. I know the faces of every student in my school, and I have started learning many names (a feat which most of my foreign counterparts will never accomplish). I have a core group of students (mostly 6th graders) who visit me in my classroom during breaks and after school. I don't think I teach them much during this time, but it's still fun to stumble through single-word conversations and see what they've learned since I've been here. They also do me favors like arranging the chairs in my classroom for the next lesson and the occassional shoulder rub, which is a real bonus. (Side note: yes, the first time a 6th grade girl started rubbing my shoulders I about peed my pants and ran to the office to tell them I didn't mean it. But I soon learned that this kind of student-teacher interaction is acceptable and common in Korea. It isn't uncommon to see a teacher grab a student and hold him/her tight to their chest for a few moments to calm them down.)

Also because it's small, Dongbu stays out of the lens of the Andong Office of Education a lot of the time. I am sometimes not subject to the politics and policy BS that other foreigners are, and I am eternally grateful for that. While some other foreigners in Andong are never allowed to leave early or just relax for awhile at school, I get a good deal of free time. They also sometimes seem to care more about my needs than my job performance, though I never let that get in the way of being a good teacher.

The school treats me very well and the staff understands that while I am in Korea, I am as much a student as I am a teacher. They are gentle, considerate, and at times forgiving when I do or say something that isn't totally appropriate. They also try their hardest to make me feel at home and help me learn about their culture and language. Yesterday, Mr. Kim (our special education teacher) sat me down on the mats in his classroom and brought out some flash card puzzles with Korean words on them. He taught me the words, then separated the words from the pictures and had me re-join them. I think I owe that kind of treatment to the fact that Dongbu has fewer staff members than the average elementary school classroom has students.

Closing
And these are my currrent thoughts about working in a small school. It can have its drawbacks, but I think the perks outweigh the downfalls. I am very happy to be at Dongbu four days a week and Youngnam only one. More on the situation at Youngnam tomorrow.

(The pictures in this post were taken during my open class, several weeks ago. That's why you can see some of the other teachers in the back of the room watching. We don't usually have an audience like that.)

Tolerance

A few days ago, one of the students in our school brought an air soft gun to school and shot some of his classmates. The assumptions from the staff was that he was acting out in response to repeated teasing about his weight. If you aren't familiar with air soft guns, they work like a BB gun, except the pellets are plastic and there's less pressure involved. They can't really do any harm unless you get someone in the eye. Still, when Hyun-beom told me about the incident, my first reaction was utter horror, having grown up in a place where the rule is no tolerance.

I know I'm making assumptions here, and feel free to correct me in the comments if you think I'm wrong, but this kid would have been out of school in a heartbeat in America. He would have been suspended with mandatory psychiatric evaluation at the least, and expelled at the worst. In Korea, the approach was a little different.

The entire class sat down and wrote letters to each other about the incident. By the end of the day, everyone was friends again.

I'm not saying this method is perfect either. In fact, I'm not necessarily saying one way is better than another. Guns shouldn't be tolerated, but at the same time--people should be. Certainly, some kind of punishment might be called for in a situation like this, but the matter was resolved anyway. The student understood what he did wrong and his classmates realized that teasing him about his weight probably led (in part) to the action.

I guess what really intrigues me about the situation is that in a country where you can buy any number of weapons easily and quickly, kids get kicked out of school for having them. But in a country where firearms are absolutely impossible to procure, a slap on the wrist is all that's necessary.

Teacher's Day

May is holiday month in Korea. Last week brought Children's Day and Parent's Day. Buddha's Birthday was right before that. Next week is a day celebrating marriage. Yesterday was Teacher's Day. Teacher's Day begins with the students (sometimes reluctantly) giving their teacher's carnations and reading them letters. Then the teacher's all go to a predetermined location for a volleyball tournament with all the schools in the city. (Dongbu lost in the first round, but they put up a damn good fight!)

Lunchtime

My staff went to a restaurant up in the mountains. After an (accidental, hour long) detour through the mountains north of Andong, HB and I arrived at the restaurant. During our adventure finding the place, several members of our staff called us to make sure we were OK. When we got to the restaurant, shots of soju were immediately poured and glasses of beer consumed. The main course was yumsogoki (barbecued goat meat) which was a little tough and very fatty, but still delicious.

After several shots of soju and a few glasses of beer, I began speaking Korean, which quickly gained the attention of the staff. Immediately, I was being handed bottles and slips of paper to read, with each oration being followed by rousing applause and chattering about how great my language is. Nevermind that I had no idea what I was saying most of the time...

Enter Kinny

There was another school at the same restaurant with a TaLK scholar in tow. TaLK is like EPIK but for college students or people with 2 year degrees. The other school's staff marched Kinny over to me, so I approached. What ensued was akin to parents in the park putting their babies in front of each other to see what they'll do. Kinny told me he was from San Antonio. I told Kinny that my Aunt Julie and Uncle John live in Boerne. Kinny told me about his school. etc. etc. (Did I mention he was absolutely sloshed?) All the while, both schools watched in quiet awe as we spoke rapidly in English and shook hands.

When Kinny left I turned to Hyeun-bum and asked how to say "He's very drunk" in Korean. He told me, and I turned and announced the now-forgotten phrase to my co-workers, who immediately burst into literal fits of laughter.

Saxophone Live!

From there we went to a bar called Saxophone Live which was a Karaoke Bar (nari-bang in Korean), but with a man playing saxophone with each performance. It was a lot of fun, as you can see below.
That's Mr. Kim, our special ed teacher, singing. Our school bus driver (who was also emcee) on the left. You can see the saxophonist on the far left. (I took this with my cell phone, sorry!)

After some prompting, I got up to sing a well received rendition of The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel. After I finished singing, Hyeun-bum told me that he got a call that police were out in full force to pick up the hundreds of drunken teachers if they dared get behind the wheel of a car. I joked with HB that if you get caught, they send you to the North.

After more soju and more beer, we were all up cheering on the current singer. At one point Mr. Kwan, our 3rd grade teacher, turned to me and said, "Sikotchie!" (my name butchered in Korean) "You sing--again--Village People!" I courteously abstained from the Village People, but HB and I did do a fun duet of Bob Dylan's Knockin' on Heaven's Door together.

Nighttime

As if 5 hours of drinking weren't enough, I then joined Sara's school downtown for a few more shots of soju and some more beer, followed by bar-hopping with the foreigners. We went to a foreigner favorite called Woodstock, a cheesy but character-filled attempt at an American western bar. We then went to WABAR, which has a great selection of imported beers and cocktails, as long as you want to pay $6-9 a drink. We then flipped over to Okdong (the new downtown) to go to another western bar called Indy, but not before meeting our friend's adorable new shitzu puppy. All in all, it was a great day, a great night, and somehow Sara and I ended up at home with a can of BBQ Pringles that I picked up somewhere along the way.

Teacher's Day, in Andong, was an absolute riot. What's more, I finally feel like I'm not just "the foreigner," but a bonafide teacher and resident. Andong is starting to feel more and more like a suitable home, thanks in no small part to a great cohort of colleagues and friends.

Thoughts On a Month of Teaching

A new job can be scary for anyone. A new teaching job can be terrifying. A new job teaching in a foreign country where only a handful of people speak your language is downright enough to stop your heart. But here I am, over a month into this new gig, and my heart is still pumping hard. What I've realized now after starting a small handful of new jobs in my life is that there are always people there to help you, and they always understand just how scared you might be. If you get the right group, they will even find ways of harnessing your anxiety into positive energy. At Dongbu Elementary, that's exactly what the students and teachers have done for me.

You might say I got lucky here. I'm at a school with only 150 students, so I have ample opportunity to get to know each and every one of them. I may not know their names, but I recognize them all, and I feel like I've built some lasting bonds with some of the kids already. It's easy to fall in love with a school when the students seem so eager to learn and the staff are so excited by everything I do. If I bring in a chocolate bar from America or show the kids some pictures of my university, everyone is ecstatic. Literally everything I do is a learning experience because I'm so foreign to these kids. And the teachers are so excited to have me that I sometimes think I can do no wrong. Of course, that just motivates me to continue giving them a high caliber of results. I want to impress people every day, and am driven to show my students (and the staff for that matter) that I am excited on a daily basis because of that.

(Unfortunately, lately that has been hard to do. Because of my lingering bronchitis from being sick a few weeks back, the teachers all think I'm very sick and weak. I'm not, but that's hard to explain in a culture where your health is valued above almost everything else. Because I have a raspy voice and nagging cough, the teachers want to give me time to rest. They will sometimes take over more of the class or cut class short. Anyway this is a tangent, let me get back to teaching...)

Yes, I am stuck to the same boring and occasionally downright pitiful curriculum that is provided for all English education here. And yes, sometimes its hard to motivate students when the material is dull or doesn't make as much sense as it should. But finding ways to make that material fun or interesting is the best part of this job. For example, last week after the 5th graders had learned the prepositions on, under, above, inside, between, and next to (after 3 classes), I took the opportunity to teach them parts of speech. What good will random phrases do these kids if they don't understand how English works? So, with a lot of help from my brilliant co-teacher Mr. Choi, we talked about nouns, verbs, and prepositions. Now this week I am devising games to help them understand why they need to know parts of speech.

But none of it would be any fun, or productive in any way, if the students weren't so excited about learning so much of the time. I click most with the 5th and 6th graders, only because they can communicate the most with me. But I still love the 3rd and 4th grade students and their enthusiasm for learning even a new word or two to say to me in the hallways. In particular, there are a few 6th grade students who will come to my classroom between breaks or after class is done for the day just to point at things in the room and ask me what they are. Or arrange letters on my Velcro board to show me words they can spell. They also take the time to teach me a little Korean, though I make it clear that my classroom is an English only zone. These are the kids that send me home with a smile every day.

And so there you have it--any job is wonderful if you are surrounded by the right people. And at my job, I am surrounded by the perfect group of mentors, co-workers, dedicated students, and friends. I couldn't ask for a better situation.

Youngnam, on the other hand, is a completely different story--a story that I will tell you in the coming days.

Kids Climbing Mountains

Here is a video of my students climbing Youngnam Mountain last week. This is more of a test to see if I've got the video thing down than anything, but at least you can see some of my students! This is the 6th grade class at Dongbu Elementary School.

Technology

Since Friday is slow, and since the time difference worked out in my favor, I just finished watching the White Sox beat the Rays 3-2 LIVE on my 85" touchscreen blackboard in sparkling HD. Technology is a wonderful thing.

By the way, if you'd ever like to skype with me, feel free to drop me an email and I'll tell you my skype name. I would post it here, but this is a public blog, and I'd rather not have some guy from Montana calling me at 3am.

Cause Sara Did It

Ok...I suppose I'll tell you all about MY teaching experiences thus far.

I was not lucky enough to be given the 2 week grace period to observe and get my feet wet. I was instead given 1 week and then had to dive in head first. It took awhile at my primary school (Dongbu Elementary) to fully understand my role since only one of my co-teachers speaks any conversational English. As nice as the other two are, it's very difficult for us to talk, much less lesson plan. And so, I end up being a talking parrot for 3rd and 4th grades. My schedule looks like this:

M: 6th grade--5th grade--3rd grade--2 hour English camp
T: 3 3rd grade classes--3 4th grade classes--2 hour teacher course
W: 4th grade (I like Wednesday)
Th: 5th grade--4th grade--2 hour English camp--2 hour teaching course
F: 6th grade--1 hour English camp (Friday's nice too)

I was told that they wanted me teaching the teacher training course on Tuesdays and Thursdays because I was the most qualified foreigner to teach a college level course. (Pat on the back) As nice as that is, though, it also makes Tuesday and Thursday an absolute nightmare.

Anyway, back to the kids. I teach 6th and 5th grade with Hyeun Bum, my main co-teacher who speaks nearly fluent English. We have a lot of fun, use a lot of activities outside of the textbook, and I really believe we get through to those kids every time.

4th grade is taught alongside Mrs. Lee, who is a joy to watch, even if she doesn't speak much English. I've never seen a group of students respect their teacher more--anywhere. Recently, Mrs. Lee worked out that on Wednesday we would teach the textbook lesson and on Thursday I could do whatever I wanted. (SWEET)

3rd grade is cute, but the kids just plain don't know much. I am there basically so they can hear a native speaker of English. It's hard to teach them much, but they're just so darn cute that I love the class anyway.

Youngnam Elementary on Tuesdays is both a blessing and absolute hell. Since I'm only there one day a week, the rockstar image will be hard to shed. I am followed everywhere by a gaggle of girls who all but sit on my lap when I'm at the computer. It's nice to be such a spectacle, but a moment's peace away from the screaming 9-year-olds would be nice. Plus, 6 straight classes is a little taxing.

The students are all at different levels, like Sara has said, but most of them can answer basic questions. At Youngnam last week, I was asking a 35+ student class how they felt that day. I asked a few students in the front row and got responses of "I'm fine," "Ok," and "vely good-uh." At the end of the row was a tiny, squirrely looking girl who I assumed didn't know what was going on. In my attempt to teach EVERY student at least something, I wanted to ask her. So I walked over to her, squatted down next to her desk and said, "How are you today?"

She looked at me for a moment before quietly squeaking out in perfect English, "I'm alright, but I have a cold."

It's times like that when I know it's all worth it.

Engrish in the Classroom

This is an actual picture from my classroom. I haven't said anything, because I figure it probably won't ever come up in classes, but I think it's funny.
I'd like my stake extra pointy please!

My Classroom

Since I'm a loser and can't figure out videos yet, here are some pictures of my classroom.

My new touchscreen blackboard and computer desk. BDCafe Dongbu

And the view from my room.So...not a bad life here in the Capital of the Korean Spirit. (That's Andong's slogan.)

Elementary School

For those who might not know, I'm teaching elementary school here. I teach 4 days a week at Dongbu Elementary, grades 3-6. It is a small school (only about 120 students), but they are great kids. Each and every one is dedicated and friendly. Of course, they are children, and they do get out of line, but they are quick to fall back in and are laughing off their disobedience right away. Plus, they bring me chocolate. (score!) On Tuesdays, I will be going to Yeongnam Elementary. I haven't been there yet, so I'll post impressions when I do.

I just witnessed my first school assembly. I was asked to introduce myself, so I gave a short speech about where I'm from and why I'm here. It was translated by my main co-teacher Che Hyuen Bum. The students seemed mildy excited to see me, even though they have seen me many times before, but that isn't the reason for this post.

These kids are in the frickin' military! They stand, single-file, with as little movement as possible. Then, a lead student shouts commands at the students and they fall into a militaristic trance as they stand straight, salute their flag, and stand at ease. Hyuen Bum tells me that this is a tradition lasting from the Japanese invasion and occupation of Korea in the early 20th century. Since that was not a very pleasant time for Korea, it shocks me that they still practice it. Perhaps as the older educators retire and young, Korean blood is brought into the schools, this is a tradition that will fade, and new traditions will arise.

Now, I must go, as my daily milk has arived, and I must enjoy it.

Facilities

We were told to expect the worst in Korea in terms of facilities, both in the classroom and at home. Everyone told us that the schools were falling apart and the apartments were so small one person would barely fit. I must be living proof that it's a case-by-case situation. My classroom was finished 3 weeks ago. Although my school itself is 90 years old this year, my classroom overlooks downtown and the mountains. Inside, it is lined floor-to-ceiling with new oak paneling. On one side of the room is an 85" touchscreen blackboard with computer connectivity. On the otherside is a 50" LCD HDTV (likewise with computer connectivity). I also have a brand new computer, digital laser printer and all new furniture including computer desk and chair, podium, multi-colored leather stools, a huge map of the world (pacific-centered), and cabinets lined with plastic food which comprise a supermarket and restaurant. Did I mention the 3 brand new student computers, world clocks from London, New York, Seoul, Moskva, and Sydney and the PA system with wall-to-wall speakers?

Then there's our apartment. After all of the preparation of lowering our expectations for what we assumed would be a chicken coup with a squat toilet, we were taken to our apartment building which was completed in January. Keypad entry system, air conditioning, brand new appliances, huge bathroom, and a patio overlooking the river and downtown Andong. It does not come with a TV, but that's about the only drawback there is. It is also exactly halfway between Sara's school and mine. Wow. We got LUCKY. It is a studio, but a large studio, and Sara and I don't need much room. Even for being a studio, it is by far the largest apartment we've seen. And I'll take one huge room over 2 tiny ones any day.

So thank you, Korea, for proving so many people wrong. Pictures and vidoes to follow in the next few days!

PS

Check out http://www.addongbu.es.kr

Sweeeeeet.

update April 3rd:

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