Teaching and Learning

Yesterday my third week of teaching came to an end and today I have officially been in Seoul for three weeks. The first week and a half was very full of the excitement that comes along with being in a new place (country/culture/apartment/school) for the first time. I will admit that during the second week and a half I started to feel a bit homesick. In the moment(s) I was mad I was sad (figure that one out), but after some contemplation on the matter, how could I not be homesick? I am in a new country on the other side of the world where no one speaks the same language, in a CITY that is smaller than New York City but more densely populated (i.e. EVERYTHING is crowded), every smell/sight/activity is pretty much new, I’m in a new apartment living alone for the first time…..I think you get the picture. I had a couple of those moments of being irrationally angry at something, my shower for instance, but I had some TIME with myself and my thoughts and now I’m feeling much better. What it mainly comes down to is that I cannot set expectations on the places and people around me because what will happen will…..happen. There is a lot I cannot control but I can control what I do. (Deep thoughts by Katie Kearney.)

Being homesick made me think back to Journey’s End, where I worked as a camp counselor for a long time, and therefore dealt with a lot of homesickness. One little boy I had put the feeling of it into words perfectly, “I feel weird.”

The saving grace during my bouts was definitely teaching little kiddos. Each day I get more used to it, more organized, more comfortable, more in control, more set in my routine, and I just have more GD fun. Here is a picture of my Kindy class doing show & tell; the little girl in front is presenting her favorite Fairy Tale book, which is our monthly theme. She’s pretty much the all-star in my class, as are most of the girls. They are more quiet and reserved (and well-behaved) while the boys are wild and very competitive. As much as I don’t like to gender stereotype, these behaviors seem to directly reflect their gender, especially in a country as patriarchal as this one. The life in this country for the rich little boys in my class is such: go to a private English school, do THE BEST, go to a private high school, do THE BEST, go to college in America or Canada, do THE BEST, get a job that pays A LOT, get married, have kids so you can pay for their expensive education, re-start cycle. The women in this scenario get the ‘easy’ (so they say here) life of taking care of the kids and house. There are a lot of days here when I thank my lucky stars that I am an American, which is kind of a new thing for me.

But I digress. Last week in class we had a birthday party, which I probably got too excited about. Shocker. There is one day a month that every class in the school celebrates the birthdays that happen(ed) that month. I had two boys in my class celebrating, one of whom wore a little bow-tie to class, which he kept fiddling with all day. They each brought in a photo album of themselves from when they were a baby. It was weird seeing them show the pictures and say, this was when I was 1 (as Koreans are a year old when they are born.) But these photo albums were HUGE and FANCY. One boy couldn’t even hold his. They dressed these babies up in about 20 different outfits and took an obscene amount of pictures. My favorite outfit, and boy do I wish I took a picture, was a kitty one – a blue fuzzy kitty head with ears, then blue fuzzy paws on each foot, then a blue fuzzy bottom with a blue fuzzy tail. And the baby was smiling. Amazing. We also had a huge lunch (chicken and kim-bop) and each kid in the class bought each boy a present, which I don’t agree with but still love watching kids open presents. It reminded me of a scene from the video my friend Vanessa has of her 7^th birthday where she is opening presents. Everyone is YELLING, so excited, and in the back at one point I jump up and wiggle, which I assume was to get my extra energies out. Anyway, at the end of the day we had cake that cost over 100,000 won ($100), and was apparently made by the most famous baker in Korea.

I am feeling more and more bonded to these little kiddos, and they to me. They are starting to crowd around my desk in the morning to see what’s a happening, ooo and awe over my newly painted nails, yell excitedly when they see me in the halls after school (or they shy ones have a big smile they try to hide.) I am so flippin’ thankful to have this year of teaching to do because I am learning so much about myself and how I teach. I have been taught how to teach public school in the traditional sense (sit down, be quiet, follow my rules, do worksheets), but also have a lot of experience as a camp counselor allowing kids to be wild and learn on their own terms. It has been a challenge to meld those two experiences together, so these little Korean kids are breaking me in. Many thanks to Max, James, Barbie, Selina, Lu, Tae ha, Sean, Alice, Louis, and Michelle. Maybe I’ll give them all a sticker on Monday.

Thanks again for reading.