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Published: April 2nd 2010
I left you last time after arriving in “They City of Lights” - Cheongju, South Korea the 14th largest city in all of Korea. Home. After a week in Cheongju we are yet to have a permanent home. But what we do have, are jobs. It is Thursday night and I have had 4 full days of work. Before going any further I will tell you this (but knowing perfectly well that I am only one week in): I love my job. It is a pretty cool idea since I feel that not many people can say that- at any point in their lives, or jobs. But here I am 4 days in and I don’t want to do anything besides teach English in Cheongju, South Korea. So, here is the run down:
I work from 16:00 (4) in the afternoon to 22:00 (10) at night. And yes I love the 24 hour clocks that I have used since SA, I’m just glad I’m back in a country that shares my love. We have a 5 minute break every hour (on the :55 minute mark). I have two different classes (sets of kids) a day. Both of those classes are 3 hours long and the class break is no different from any other hour break, 5 minutes. This doesn’t give you anytime for anything other than a snickers or some sort of convenient store sandwich (I prefer the Korean peanut butter convenient store sandwich, personally). When the clock strikes 21:55 (9:55) the other teachers are lined up at Bethany and I’s door waiting for us to get all of our grades in head home. We are home by 22:10 or 22:15. Most teachers get to the school by 15:00 or 15:30 but all week Bethany and I have been in our rooms no later than 13:30. This happens for a few reasons but none more relevant than the fact we STILL do not have internet at our place. But we also enjoy the extra time to prepare for our different classes. I will now try my best to explain the mess that is our class schedules. We teach 2 classes (different sets of kids) but depending on the day we might teach those two classes the same materials or we might teach them totally different materials. Bethany rarely teaches the same materials twice in one week. Everything continuously moves so we are lucky when we teach the same thing twice ever. Just when you get used to one level of English and one set of materials, the next class arrives and we have new materials to teach.
The kids have 1 or 2 classes all week and we never get the same class twice. Class sizes vary from 2 kids (Bethany’s smallest class) or 8 kids (my smallest) to 16 (Bethany’s largest class) or 17 (my largest class). These are relatively small classes in the grand scheme of things but let me tell you 17 is no cake walk (it’s been a while since I have competed in a cake walk) but come on who am I kidding, it’s nicer than the 30+ classes you get in a public school. So if we do the averages I see 120 different kids a week. Building a rapport of any kind will take months. Learning 120 different faces and names will take some time as well. But since these kids will be in my room once a week for every week of the year it will only be a matter of time. If they get a rare day off for a holiday, they make it up on Saturday when yours truly teaches Saturday school. We have smaller kids (elementary) in the first session and older kids (middle school to high school) at night. This is because the high school kids don’t get out of school until around 6 or sometimes as late as 10. If they get out any earlier than that they got immediately to cram schools and then to their hagwon (English school) of choice. When they find themselves in our class they are about done. Trying to engage them is what we spend half our time doing. Most of these kids sleep around 5 or 6 hours of sleep a day and spend 6 days of the week in school until 10 at night.
Coming to Korea I felt that my kids would be wanting to learn English and be highly motivated to learn whatever was in front of them. With the little ones this is exactly what you will find. The middle and high school kids are exactly what I remember from my days in school (besides the huge difference of school hours and work load). These kids don’t want to be there anymore than I wanted to be in Mrs. Rick’s college algebra class as a senior in high school. They pull my strings just like I pulled Mrs. Thrashers strings. Kids are universal. Their hormones don’t push them towards academic success, their parents and their culture does. I have great kids and all want to be successful in life but they all could quit school right now in middle school and already be more advanced than most college freshman. They warned us in training that our middle school kids would be smarter than us. They were right. Bethany teaches a few of her classes from a university level text book. She is talking about capital punishment, euthanasia, multiculturalism, supply and demand, theories of law, and stem cell research with twelve year olds. They are pushed but at first glance you wouldn’t think they were any different from any other kid you would see walking down the street in the states. And most of these kids cannot answer a question I ask them without looking in the book. I will ask their opinion about a topic and they immediately put their face in the book. They might be able to explain multiculturalism in great detail but then struggle to tell you what they think about it and whether or not Korea should push to become more multicultural. These kids are geared for tests. The company I work for boasts that it is the only hagwon that teaches and promotes critical thinking. Wait… What? You are telling me that out of the thousands of English schools in Korea ours is the only one that promotes actual brain use? Critical thinking is how you solve problems, cure diseases and end wars- but it wont help you pass multiple choice tests.
The kids have been great and I really only have one “bad” class, that just happens to be the class with 17 “bad” kids. That class and the fact that my room is equipped with a video camera that never turns off are really the only things I can complain about. I really do enjoy it and 4 days have flown by.
Bethany and I will soon (sometime next week) move into a place that is about double the size of our current room. And I am sure that it will only take another 2 to 3 weeks for them to get internet in that place after we move in. Can you tell that things don’t exactly move as quickly as people tell you it will move? Then maybe skype will be in order for most of you. I hope so.
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Jeanne Curtis
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Hey, Sweetie!! It's so good to hear from you; to get an update! I'm so happy that you like what you're doing! I could not be more proud of you! One week down, 50 to go!! What an experience! I love you and miss you! Maggie is coming today for Deidra's shower and I'm so excited to see her!! All's well with me! I went to a performance at Olivia's school last night and will see them on Easter Sunday! Going to George's with Maggie tonight!! Keep up the good work and the funny, informative updates! MTLIS!! Mom