magic, the queen, and chocolate cake.

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The zealousness of my Korean students towards their studying this winter break worried me. As a teacher I suppose I should be supporting this, but instead I tried to convince them to go outside, muddy up their knees, or have a snowball fight. But they shook their heads and spent the good part of the day studying in a mostly deserted school. In America, students don't stress about academics until high school when the pressure of getting into a good college hits. But Korean students are already feeling the heat in middle school; worrying about how much more they will have to study in high school (is it possible to study more than they do now??) and seeing their grades posted on the wall in comparison with their peers. When I ask my students what they did on the weekend besides hitting the books they usually answer PC bang (computer games) or television. It's sad for me to see them study group and boob tube the tail end of their childhood away, especially when I spent most of my middle school days hanging out at friend's houses, going to the lake, and running amok around our small town. The best I could do was try and give them a fun winter camp for the 1-2 weeks they were forced to be at school with me in a classroom.

The theme was Harry Potter. I had one class of 5 and another of 3 students. Very small, which was annoying at first since I had grandiose group games planned, but it turned out to be a blessing because I got to know the girls quite well and was able to tailor my classes to what they wanted to do. The girls at my school are mind blowing artists so we made some house crest posters and magic wands out of pencils, stickers, gold garlands, and shiny jewels. We did lessons on describing appearances, mythical creatures, and acting out and coming up with spells. One of my favorite lessons was when the girls made travel brochures for the country of England and I spent half the class explaining the royal family to them. It took an abnormal amount of time to explain that Prince Charles was not married to his mother. Never thought I would be making a family tree for Queen Elizabeth II in front of a class of Korean students...

Most winter camps expect a cooking lesson from the foreign teacher. As my good friends know, my cooking skills are unconventional and probably close to poisonous. I tried to find something simple enough for my students to do (but even more importantly something I could do...) and dear Sunelle told me about a chocolate cake you make using a microwave. Just throw your sugar, flour, baking soda, cocoa, egg, milk, and oil in a bowl and stir away. Nuke for 3 min and viola, dessert is served. Brilliant. It went smoothly with the students and they had a giddy little team smearing pink frosting and sprinkling candies all over the chocolate lumps we had artfully baked. They had been appalled on what unhealthy ingredients had gone into the cake though. "Teacher!!! No, too much! Not good!", as I forced them to pour 3 tablespoons of silky oil into the batter. "Horrible teacher..", they muttered as the 4 tablespoons of sugar began to dust the lumpy mixture. As we had our cake and ate it too they seemed confused on how something could be so sweet but they found themselves unable to stop cramming it in their mouths."Welcome to America", I said.

Now winter break and my camps have ended and it's back to the daily grind of school tomorrow. Back to an overload of studying, homework, and various enrichment for my middle schoolers. But when I think of my winter camp girls jump roping with me in the classroom, having races, eating junk food, acting out scenes from Harry Potter, yelling imperatives with their makeshift wands, and running through the school on a scavenger hunt I hope that it injected some good times into their vacation and gave them a well deserved break from all that they do. They better appreciate it because tomorrow starts my new discipline plans and soon enough I'll have to turn the horrid lessons from the book into something they can stand. It's back to school, my little munchkins.

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Comments

[Marty]

chocolate tofu cake?
There are some really good alternatives, try a tofu chocolate cake, they may enjoy that!! I was hoping to hear more about your snowboarding with the girls, your brother is thrilled that you have discovered the joy of snow!!! We miss you, you wonderful teacher you!