The past few weeks have been quite busy! School has been a little crazy, which isn't anything new and life outside of school has been nonstop. Let's start at the beginning.....
Teachers Day is a day celebrated in Korea to honor teachers ( I think you could have figured that one out). It was really nice, my kids brought me flowers and presents and the moms also bought me gifts. Some of the gifts were very nice, a small Coach key chain, and some were very nice but not so useful, whitening cream (Koreans want to whiten their skin, us Americans we want our skin darker). Thankfully, we can exchange things such as whitening cream for things we will actually use. Nevertheless it is a thoughtful gesture on the part of the moms. The school's gift to us was an American BBQ. Now, although it was nice to eat watermelon, grilled chicken and potato chips, it would have been nice to get a gift from the school. I mean we are their livelihood and the reason they are in business, a token of their gratitude would not have been too much to ask, but I digress. The BBQ was great and the taste of grilled chicken was almost as good as the smell of charcoal and lighter fluid, it's amazing how much that smell can take you home! As the night went on the beer and Soju started flowing freely, and to make a real long story short, the BBQ lead to our director and assistant director taking all the foreign teachers to Noribong (karaoke) and both of them passing out while singing! Amazing, only in Korea!
That same weekend I ran a half marathon with the Seoul Flyers. It was a really nice course and I took 2nd place and set a new Personal Record with a 1:28.05! That is a 6 min and 40 second improvement from my old Personal Record. I won a heart rate monitor and 4.8kg of beef!!! Once again, only in Korea! That same day was the Lantern Festival. This is one way Korea celebrates Buddha's Birthday, or the Coming of Buddha. The whole day was filled with different things people could do and see. You could make your own lantern, learn all about Korean culture, and see different Korean folk dances. The day ended with the Lantern parade. It was very cool and an experience you can't get in the states. In Korea, they really embrace their culture and traditions.
The next week at school was a short week, we had a three day weekend!!! This is really exciting because they are very hard to come by in Korea. Even though it was a short week, it felt like the longest week of my life! We had new lesson plans due, weekly comments due, our birthday celebrations due, and our lesson plan for open class due. Open class is something a lot of the private schools in Korea do to give the parents a chance to come to school and watch you and your partner teach. It's a bit of a joke because we rehearse and practice our open class lesson with our students so it goes smoothly when the moms come. It really defeats the purpose of seeing us teach. It's not real and therefore not what class is really like, but I have learned to not get too frustrated with the small things, and this is a small thing. I just wanted to get my work done so I could enjoy my long weekend.
For the long weekend, six of the other teachers and I went to a city called Busan in the southwest part of Korea. It's right on the East Sea and just beautiful. We took the fast train down Thursday after work, took about 3 hours, and had two and a half days in Busan. Friday was absolutely gorgeous and we spent the day on the beach and may have spent a little too much time in the sun, but it was nice to just relax. Saturday it was raining so we went to the Busan Museum of Art. The exhibit on display was art from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and we saw paintings from Monet to Picasso, and although I would have rather been hiking, it was very neat. Saturday night we went to the biggest fish market in Korea and ate some real sushi. Yes, real raw fish! Some of the teachers ate LIVE OCTOPUS! The octopus were moving on the plate. I wasn't that brave but I did have the raw fish. It wasn't too bad, very mild with little taste but very chewy.
After that, we made our way through the mini monsoon that was taking over Busan and found a pub close to our hotel. As we made our way into the pub, I slowly felt like I was back home. See, Busan is a popular destination for foreigners and with the three day weekend, we kind of took over the city. The whole night, I felt like I was on spring break in Florida, not on a three day weekend in Korea.
This feeling of home was present all weekend. I had dreams all weekend of home and going home, and as Sunday approached, I felt as if when I left Busan I would be going home. Not home to Seoul, but home to Minnesota.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Long overdue post!
It's been too long and I know everyone is just dying to know what I have been up to half way around the world! :) Okay, maybe not but I'll let you know anyway.
Work is work. It is frustrating, wonderful, exhausting, and rewarding all at the same time. We had parent meetings a few weeks ago. This is like parent-teacher conferences back home, the parents get to come in and have a one-on-one meeting with Sheena and I. If they speak English they will talk directly to me but most don't and Sheena translates. Most of the meetings went well but one mother was not happy about the way I disciplined her child in class. No, I take that back, it wasn't the WAY I was disciplining that she didn't like, she didn't like that I disciplined him in front of the other children in class. Because then the other children talk about it. Well, I'm not exactly what she wanted me to do, and God knows she wasn't full of suggestions. Essentially she doesn't want me to discipline her child at all because then the other kids talk about how he gets in trouble and Lord knows that can't happen! It's very frustrating! I guess I'll just let him run around the class, yell all he wants, and sleep instead of do his work because he is tired! Ridiculous!
Aside from the bad, I have had some great things happening in my classes. One of my kids in Bristol used to be a major behavior problem. He would whine, cry, and not listen to anything I said. The most frustrating thing with him was that he is a very smart kid. His speaking is wonderful, as is his spelling, reading, writing and penmanship. But he would have break downs and act like a 2-year-old. But the past two weeks it's like he is a different kid! He listens, doesn't whine, doesn't cry and does all of his work. It has been such a treat to have him acting better. It makes the whole class better.
And in my Leeds class, one of my kids is really starting to grasp new concepts and understand the "hard" things in class. If you haven' been following my blogs, my Leeds class is very smart, they are the smartest kids in the school. But there is one child in my class who is just a bit below the other 7 kids. Lately though, I have really noticed improvement in his writing and he is really understanding some of the harder lessons we have in class. It's a great thing to see the smile on his face when he gets it!
The after school aspect of work has been very exhausting. I teach the "speaking" class so obviously the focus of my class is.....speaking. When the class started, the administration gave us a lesson plan. We had a theme we taught for 3 weeks then the kids did presentations on the topic. Well that crashed and burned real quick. So they changed the format for the next month, but it still crashed and burned. So now, they are completely changing the class. I am completely okay with them changing the class because it just wasn't working the way they had it, but the thing that I'm not okay with is how they are going about changing it. Instead of just asking us for our input on the matter, which I do appreciate, they are pretty much asking, no telling us, to make new lesson plans. They gave us a few options of the books we can use and asked us how we would use the books, how long we would teach a certain book, and when/if we would do presentations. Like I said, I really appreciate having a chance to give my input on the information but I don't think I should have to make an completely new lesson plan for the class. I already create and teach my Kindy classes and now they are telling me I have to do the same thing for my after-school class? That is not what I agreed to!!
When the day's over though, I have to remember where I am. Things are done so differently here and I can't expect things to be the same as they are at home nor can I expect things to change any time soon. I came here because I wanted to experience something completely new and different and I am certainly doing just that. Even though I don't agree with some of the things at school, some aspects of the culture and lifestyle here, I have already had some wonderful experiences and I have many to come!
Work is work. It is frustrating, wonderful, exhausting, and rewarding all at the same time. We had parent meetings a few weeks ago. This is like parent-teacher conferences back home, the parents get to come in and have a one-on-one meeting with Sheena and I. If they speak English they will talk directly to me but most don't and Sheena translates. Most of the meetings went well but one mother was not happy about the way I disciplined her child in class. No, I take that back, it wasn't the WAY I was disciplining that she didn't like, she didn't like that I disciplined him in front of the other children in class. Because then the other children talk about it. Well, I'm not exactly what she wanted me to do, and God knows she wasn't full of suggestions. Essentially she doesn't want me to discipline her child at all because then the other kids talk about how he gets in trouble and Lord knows that can't happen! It's very frustrating! I guess I'll just let him run around the class, yell all he wants, and sleep instead of do his work because he is tired! Ridiculous!
Aside from the bad, I have had some great things happening in my classes. One of my kids in Bristol used to be a major behavior problem. He would whine, cry, and not listen to anything I said. The most frustrating thing with him was that he is a very smart kid. His speaking is wonderful, as is his spelling, reading, writing and penmanship. But he would have break downs and act like a 2-year-old. But the past two weeks it's like he is a different kid! He listens, doesn't whine, doesn't cry and does all of his work. It has been such a treat to have him acting better. It makes the whole class better.
And in my Leeds class, one of my kids is really starting to grasp new concepts and understand the "hard" things in class. If you haven' been following my blogs, my Leeds class is very smart, they are the smartest kids in the school. But there is one child in my class who is just a bit below the other 7 kids. Lately though, I have really noticed improvement in his writing and he is really understanding some of the harder lessons we have in class. It's a great thing to see the smile on his face when he gets it!
The after school aspect of work has been very exhausting. I teach the "speaking" class so obviously the focus of my class is.....speaking. When the class started, the administration gave us a lesson plan. We had a theme we taught for 3 weeks then the kids did presentations on the topic. Well that crashed and burned real quick. So they changed the format for the next month, but it still crashed and burned. So now, they are completely changing the class. I am completely okay with them changing the class because it just wasn't working the way they had it, but the thing that I'm not okay with is how they are going about changing it. Instead of just asking us for our input on the matter, which I do appreciate, they are pretty much asking, no telling us, to make new lesson plans. They gave us a few options of the books we can use and asked us how we would use the books, how long we would teach a certain book, and when/if we would do presentations. Like I said, I really appreciate having a chance to give my input on the information but I don't think I should have to make an completely new lesson plan for the class. I already create and teach my Kindy classes and now they are telling me I have to do the same thing for my after-school class? That is not what I agreed to!!
When the day's over though, I have to remember where I am. Things are done so differently here and I can't expect things to be the same as they are at home nor can I expect things to change any time soon. I came here because I wanted to experience something completely new and different and I am certainly doing just that. Even though I don't agree with some of the things at school, some aspects of the culture and lifestyle here, I have already had some wonderful experiences and I have many to come!
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