I love my second graders more. I’m not even going to front here. Maybe it’s because I know some of their names now, but I look forward – I even get excited about – seeing them. The first graders are fine and cute and all, but with the exception of 1K, whom I see every week, I don’t know them all that well, and I find myself caring less.
My affinity for these classes is only strengthened after days like today, in which I taught 4 classes of first graders, only one of which could be said to be listening. And I am prouder still of them when I think of last Wednesday, when a small cadre of drama-loving girls staged a minor revolt against Co-Teacher F.
I like Co-Teacher F, personally, but apparently he hits too much for some students’ tastes. As a result, he made two of my better-behaved students cry quietly all through class Wednesday, which dampened the mood, as you might imagine. On the opposite side of the room, girls kept trying to call my attention to the situation by writing me notes that said things like “Teacher hit.” We were still studying the subjunctive, so I got sample sentences like “I wish teacher is fired.” When I told them that that wouldn’t fly, they changed it to “I wish she or he is fired” and pointing, rather unsubtly, to the hitter in question. As a result, I had to drag two of the crying girls and one of the protesters to the gyomushil and foist them off on ACT, who discussed the issue with them and promised to intervene so that Co-Teacher F does not hit them anymore.
My pride is mitigated a little bit by my shame in not having intervened, but, of course, here’s the thing: I don’t think any students should be hit, but I see corporal punishment being inflicted literally every day. While I may privately judge this, I still feel that this is a different culture and educational system, one of which I’m not part, and one I don’t always understand, so I’m not really qualified to or justified in stepping in. But I guess girl students aren’t hit that often – there are all these nuances to the punishment system that I don’t get – so when one is hit, it’s a big deal. But I’ve become so used to turning away that it didn’t occur to me that something might be wrong with what was going on. So I suppose I’m proud of my girls, even though I know part of their motivation was attention, simply because they gave me something of a wake-up call. In addition to stepping in for their friend.
And for the record, Co-Teacher F came to me later, apologized, assured me that if I ever had a problem I should talk to him directly, and informed me that he used to hit a lot more, but had become much better about it. Well, good for him.
Soccer and I were discussing Neutral Milk Hotel the other day, and Jeff Mangum’s obsession with Anne Frank came up. I told her that he wasn’t the only one obsessed with Anne. Here’s a Ryan Adams bootleg and perhaps one of NMH’s best-known songs, “Holland, 1945.” They both take very different approaches to the subject.
Filed under: ACT, Pop-Song, life on Jeju, life progress, music, pipe dreams, skool, students, volunteering, yoga
My PopSong boys – the boys who had left because they were embarrassed that they were the only boys, the boys who skipped out for two weeks – came back today! I LOVE THEM. I was so happy. They still can’t hear pitch, but their presence, you know, it just adds so much.
Today I wore a plaid flannel skirt and met Scooter for coffee, which is almost usual now, and then Soccer and I went to see this art thing at the Art and Culture Center, and then I went to yoga and had dinner with ACT and her daughter so that we could talk about the winter camp I’ll be teaching. I am exhausted exhausted exhausted – and tomorrow will be the same; I’m going to school, then to pottery, then to Korean class, and THEN I will go home. That will be around 9. Today ACT asked me if I wanted to do any more volunteering, and I felt bad, but I was like, NO. Now I am going to take a shower and watch “The Office” and dream about my students singing sweetly. Or showing up, whatever.
Filed under: ACT, CT, PCT, VP, crushes, life on Jeju, music, okay seriously Korea, skool, teaching
So the price for my getting to spend time with the only cute teacher at my school (also, the only male teacher under fifty) this morning was a nasty-looking rock on the floor of my classroom, where it had landed after having been hurled through one of the windows at the end of the room. Vice Principal and Cute Teacher helped me sweep up the fragments of glass littering the floor – although there wasn’t a lot to talk about, given my complete absence of Korean skills – and then I was consigned to Pseudo Co-Teacher’s room next door until the whole thing got fixed. The whole thing is more than a little unnerving, although at least I know that it’s probably not personal; Actual Co-Teacher has assured me that the same thing happened twice last semester. Sweet. I was a little afraid that it was some student who was disgruntled over having not won a Choco Pie. Or maybe someone protesting against Kentucky Fried Chicken, or hapas, or people who can’t speak Korean. So many possibilities, really.
Every few months or so I forget exactly how in love I am with “Baba O’Riley,” so I listened to it on the way to school as I caught some third graders hanging out in Family Mart, and then I used it again as my signal for the kids to come into PCT’s room instead of mine. Which was the only upshot of the whole situation, I guess, because really I was just playing it to see if I could.
Other day highlights:
STUDENT RESPONSES TO THE PROMPT, “DESCRIBE JEJU-DO”
- many cars
- many beautiful girls
- many handsome boys
- exciting stones
- oranges
STUDENT RESPONSES TO THE QUESTION, “WHAT HAPPENS IF THE NOISE-O-METER GETS TO FIVE?” (correct answer: no talking for the rest of the period)
- “You hit”
- “We die”
- “You very angry”
As untrue as all those are (well, maybe not the last one), as much as I would like to sing that I don’t need to be forgiven…I made one kid in my last class, 2K, stay behind once the bell had rung. I actually know him pretty well, which is to say that I can remember his name; we’ve hung out after lunch a good bit. He’s tiny and mouthy and funny and he speaks English pretty well, but he seriously will not stop being disruptive and talking – which I can understand, having been more or less the same kid in some ways, but still. So I had my standard “you-are-smart-why-are-you-doing-this” talk with him, after which I released him into the care of his other English teacher, who then proceeded to corner him in the hall and hit him repeatedly with a book. And this is a teacher that I like.
PS. It’s not his best, but I’m still in love with David Sedaris.
