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Published: October 25th 2012
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After I wake up and get all the normal morning things taken care of I try to get into work a little earlier in the morning to get some emails typed up, work on lesson plans if I need to finish them or tweak them or just browse the news to see what is going on at home. The kids start getting to school around 8, 8:15 and homeroom starts at 8:30. There their homeroom teacher takes attendance, collect their cell phones, and they have some sort of morning announcements or whatever they do in the am. (I am not a part of this so I have no idea really.) Then 1st class starts at 9:10 and each class is 45 minutes in length with a 10 minute hallway/play break. Every day of the week is different. Some days I will teach 3 classes all day, somedays it's 4 or 5. 5 classes a day is pretty brutal. You feel like you are losing your voice after about the 3rd one. The worst is when you have a bad class at the end of the day. That is the last thing you want. Hence the sticks....Every teacher has "the stick." Basically
English Zone
English zone classroom that we never use for some reason it's a small piece of wood or a rolled up, duct taped book that you can slam down on the desks or anything hard to get the kids' attention. My one coteacher, Yumi has the end of a pool stick. I don't know how she got that although I would like a stick. I'm thinking about going out into the woods and trying to find a big staff to scare the kids into silence. Sometimes if they are not paying attention, sleeping in class or being disruptive, the teacher will come up and give a quick whap to the arm/shoulder or pinch their cheeks to get them to behave. It's actually pretty funny to watch. Sometimes the kids will just be that loud and my co teachers will straight up yell and yell at them in Korean. The first couple weeks that happened I thought I was getting yelled at they scared me that bad. I have no idea what they are saying to them but from then on the kids are silent. It's very surprising how loud this Korean women can be!
The kids are in their homeroom classroom. So each teacher has to go to each class
200 Hallway
A look down the 200 hallway at the bell and teach their designated subject. There are different level kids in every class that I teach. Some of the kids are so smart and will listen to what I say and translate to the class what I am saying which is actually really nice. And then some of the other students who may be shy may know but can't speak up and the other ones who just don't speak because they don't know it. And then there are the ones who just simply put their heads down and sleep. You let them go because they really don't care and nothing you say or do will get them to do anything. I sat in on a test one day and saw a kid just basically look at the test and didn't fill in a single thing. Not even his name or try and guess the answers. He just sat there and stared at it. If you graduate Middle School then you are allowed to drop out or just not come anymore. But everyone passes anyway no matter what. So if you simply just show up, do nothing and eat, you will pass and graduate middle school.
Overall
Courtyard/Soccer field
A view from the school looking out at the soccer field my classes are pretty good. There are a couple I could do wihout but each week is a different story. The one thing that is the most insane is in between classes. When I sit at my desk downstairs and I hear the bell ring, I seriously just hear a stampeded of foot running and stomping, doors slamming, bodies running and chasing through the hall. It's like this crazy pent up energy that these teenage boys have from sleeping all class and they let loose for 10 minutes! Also, another weird thing is they are very physical and touchy feely. You'll see some kids punching the hell out of each other and giving each other headlocks and then a roundhouse kick and then right beside him you'll see another boy sitting on his friends lap or holding arms or anything along those lines. They don't have quite the personal space phobias that we have at home.
As I leave for the day I pass most of my students on the way out of school and they drop all the english words they know at me. "Hey teacher," "How's it going teacher?" "Where are you going teacher?" and then when
Part of the school
This is the 200 hallway on another wing of the school. I respong to them they just have this blank look, smile and talk Korean to their friends about what I just said back to them. Most of the time I get the typical Korean response...
Me: "Hi!, how are you?"
Them:"I'm fine thank you and you."
Just like that. No pauses or spaces just straight up as fast as they can, then, "bye!"
Makes me smile everytime! I'll have to take some pics of my school and post it on here for you all to see!
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