First Day of School

Today was my first day of school at the Hogwan. A little bit of background on what exactly a Hogwan is:

A Hogwan is a private school that students attend to get taught extra subjects. These students’ parents pay big bucks for their children to attend these types of schools. My school, Top Language School was established in 1973, and is the most prestigious in all of Jeonju. I work at the Seoshin-Dong branch. (A dong is a neighborhood, so it’s the Seoshin-neighborhood branch.) All subjects are taught in English at this school. I have a Korean co-teacher, but we don’t teach together. She has the class one day, and I have them the next. We just flip-flop. The Korean teacher’s job is to teach them the meanings of the English words in Korean so when they come to me for their next class, they know what they are talking about from their previous day’s notes. We teach all subjects at the school, but different students come for different reasons. I have Kindergarten in the morning from 10am-11:50am every day. On Tuesday, we have Gymshule, on Thursday, we sing with the other Kinder class, and on Friday, we have outdoor class where we take a field trip. I then go home for lunch. On Monday and Tuesday, I get a 3 hour lunch, and on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I get a 1 hour lunch with another 1 hour break.

So in the afternoons, I have classes from 3pm-7pm and they range in age from 9-12. My 3 o’clock class meets everyday, my 4 o’clock, 5 o’clock, and 6 o’clock classes meet MWF or TTH. On Wednesday, I also have Kinder gym at 1pm, Thursday I have Kinder playtime at 1pm, and Friday I have Kinder story time at 1pm. So all in all, I have 11 different classes and every class is working on something different!

So my first day was pretty rough, as I expected it to be since I have the whole philosophy of tell me and I forget, do and I remember. So I wrote down the main things I had to get done for the afternoon classes: 1) Attendance, 2) Check Homework (if there was any), 3) Give any tests that there may be, 4) Give new material, and 5) Assign new homework. I also had to write down what I did that day on the planner sheet in each of the classes’ folders and also what was to be memorized and their homework. For the Kinder class in the morning, I just follow the schedule on the wall and my Korean co-teacher, PAK In-Suk (We call her In-Suk, because PAK is her last name. In Korea, last names/surnames are first), tells me where things are and what I am supposed to do. In-Suk is really nice and she is slowly learning English, too, but she can control the kids a lot better since she literally speaks their language. I also have another co-teacher but she is more of the quiet type. I don’t know her name yet, but I’m sure I’ll find out sooner or later.

I got to school, and apparently the first thing I do Monday morning is fill out a report on each child to be sent home. Since I didn’t know any of the children or how they were performing in class, I couldn’t do that. Instead, Mrs. Han had me write an introductory letter that highlighted my educational background. She said the parents really want to see a lot of experience and education, so I put all of my college clinical and student teaching experience, my volunteering at the schools, and my substituting. It was then 10am and time to start class, so we started with the date, season, and weather. Then we said our alphabet and we counted. All of the kids know their alphabet and can count to ten, so that’s nice. We then did our morning expression or message where they had to trace the sentence and then color, ahem, I mean scribble on the picture. It was then about 10:40 and time for the Thinking Skills book. We spent 20 minutes on that and then it was play time until 11:30. Finally we had our Theme Journal where drew a picture of what we did in outdoor class on the previous Friday. Then I left at 11:50 and Joni took me to meet Tom at some so-called vending machine restaurant.

At the vending machine restaurant, Joni left and I asked Tom what are some good dishes to get. He recommended two, one that didn’t sound too appealing, and one that was called Bulgolgi Beef. I decided to go with that. So we motioned for the man behind the counter to press the Bulgolgi button because we obviously can’t read Korean. He pushed the touch screen and then motioned me to put in my Won just like in a vending machine back in the states and it gave you the change right there. Then they receive the order behind the counter (it doesn’t come out of the machine!) and then you sit and wait for either take-out or dine-in. I guess if you dine in, you also get soup. Tom’s meal came, and mine came shortly thereafter. We then walked back to our apartments and dined separately. The Bulgolgi is spicy beef and it was fabulous! In the big container was the Bulgolgi beef, white steamed rice, kimchi (I think), and a fried egg on top. I took out the fried egg and the kimchi and only ate the beef and rice, which was filling enough. I also didn’t eat the sides because I wasn’t quite sure what they were and if they were safe for me to eat, considering I just got here and am still getting acclimated.

I relaxed a little bit and then left for school around 1:30-1:45. I decided that I like to get there early to prepare for my 4 afternoon classes, and then any extra time can be spent blogging in the lounge. I found that I concentrate better there with people and kids running around because amazingly silence distracts me more than anything because I’ll start to look around and daydream. Plus they have a water-cooler, coffee, and tea! My classes don’t start until 3:10 and then don’t end until 7pm.

All of my afternoon classes range in age from 8-13 and most of them are working on different things. My 3 o’clock class that I see everyday does reading/phonics on MWF and social studies on Tuesday and science on Thursday. All of my other afternoon classes are strictly English/phonics classes with an array of books.

After I got home, Tom took me to E-Mart. You’ve heard of Wal-Mart and I’m sure you’ve heard of K-Mart, but I’m also sure you’ve probably never heard of E-Mart. What I soon realized is that you have to be in a good mood to go to E-Mart. Why do you ask? Well, first of all it is cart HELL. You thought Wal-Mart was bad?! Think that times 50. Not only do the carts move forward and back like in America, but they also move side-to-side. Their wheels can go in any direction! So we have established that there are 6 carts per 3 feet of space. Well, there are also 3 employees for every person who are either dressed in the traditional Hanbok or are dressed in normal clothes. If you stand in one spot for too long looking like you’re trying to decide on something, they will start coming from every direction and surround you! That gets annoying rather quick because since I am obviously a foreigner, they think I’m dumb and try to sell me the expensive health bread that tastes like cardboard and the giant bag of laundry detergent that would last me until the day I die. Needless to say, I miss the seclusion of shopping back home where everyone minds their own business and you have to track someone down to ask if they have something in stock. Treasure the isolation! The other joy of going to E-Mart is when young children jump out in front of you from an aisle and yell “WAYGUK! WAYGUK!” or tap their mothers repeatedly and point at me and say “Waygoooo!” For those who don’t know, like I didn’t, “wayguk” means “foreigner.” Older children and adults are more coy about staring, but the small children hold nothing back.

Not only is being at the E-Mart an experience, the items they sell are also something to see! The bananas are smaller than the size of your hand and they come in huge bunches of about 15 bananas and you are not allowed to break them! I picked out a bunch and was going to put it in the cart and the banana lady (yes, banana lady) freaked out and took them from me! My first thought was, “I wanted to buy and enjoy those bananas. Are those not foreigner bananas? If not, where can I find them?” but translating that in to Korean would be trouble, so instead, Tom turned around and said, “Oh, she has to wrap them for you,” and sure enough Banana Lady is putting them in a bag and handing them back. So after the produce section, was the open fish section. I have never seen so many dead fish out in the open! There were squids (three to a plate), tons of fish - on plates, in rows that were tied together, in tanks, etc., and other animals that I just didn’t want to take a closer look at during this trip. Next was the meat section. Tom advised me not to buy American beef because they send the worst stuff and Koreans call it “Crazy Cow,” and they don’t even buy it. They only have Korean and Australian which I had also noticed at McDonald’s earlier. We then went to the dairy aisle and there was milk and cheese that I could identify. I’m not sure what kind of milk it was but there were two kinds there. The cheese was also few and far between, but they had Velveeta singles, and I’m familiar with that so I picked some up. We then ventured over to the water/juice/paper towels and toilet paper aisle (weird, I know). I managed to find some Dole orange juice, which turns out to be mighty tasty, and I found some bagels for breakfast. Tom and I soon finished our business and went to check out. At the E-Mart you have to pay 100W for every bag (that’s a little less than 10 cents per bag), so they are at least encouraging recycling. We finally got back in a cab and went home. Cab rides here are dirt cheap. The base rate is a little less than $1.80 (1800W) and it is rare that you pay more than $3. However, if you go out to the mountains, it may be $7 (gasp! …Only kidding!). Also, you aren’t expected to tip. The cabbies will always try to give you your 200W back (20 cents), and us foreigners usually just let them keep it because it not only keeps us in good eyes with the locals, but change is also annoying. ...And so ends my first day of school!


Well, until next time! An-nyeong-hi-kye-se-yo!

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