Read From the Beginning

Posted by Marisa
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This is Korea

02 Mar 2009
Posted by Marisa
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I was just admiring the picture from Antalya, those days when we were on vacation. It now seems like 5 billion years ago. Those days when I was "working hard." Not much has changed in that respect, I'm currently sitting at my desk (still in the giant office, no private office for me it turns out) with nothing to do because no one has made a schedule for me. It is I guess "the busiest day of the year" or so Ms Park tells me. And Jordan and I have already exchanged comments that we sure were naive to believe we could just walk into this year with no surprises. As if there has ever been a day with no surprises, and I think that even if we stayed in Korea forever, it would never stop surprising us.

So first I walk into school, where I think my new office is, to find Ms Park and she tells me that someone (she actually said "my friend" but I don't know who that is) has decided it's back to the giant office for us. Actually, just for me, since Ms Park used to be in a smaller office. Surprise Number 1. I start to wonder if we'll have class in there or if they'll just use it as a fancy showpiece, when she starts to answer my question, "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday you have class here" (she points to the room and I assume this means the classroom) "Thursday, Friday you go to new school." Wait, what was that? A new school? Surprise Number 2. No more is said about this issue as Ms Park now starts telling me about how this is the busiest day and I have to pass out papers. So we have a teacher meeting and about 10 new teachers have arrived (at this point I realize both Miss Kim and Miss Doo, my favorite, are missing, likely gone to different schools and replaced by these newcomers, Surprise Number 3). Then we go to a school meeting, where one of my conversation ladies whispers to me that she's heard that I'm going to a school in the country. Surprise Number 4. I try and express that this is all news to me, but this just confuses her (perhaps she thinks I should know where I'm going, this thought has occurred to me, but only briefly, when since I've gotten to Korea have I known what's going on?) At the school meeting the new seventh graders bow to the older students and they all whoop and holler for the new teachers. Ms Park confides to me that since today is so busy, no one has yet made me a schedule, so I can "prepare." (No surprise here) What, however, should I prepare for I wonder. What grades am I teaching, who am I teaching with, what do they want me to do, and perhaps the greatest question, where am I teaching? This feels rather philosophic since I've only been at school for two hours and already I'm questioning the nature of the universe (the Korean school universe that is).

I think you know you've arrived, or perhaps that you've been here too long, when a day like this seems pretty normal. After all, I say to myself, this is Korea, what else do you expect?

TGIF

06 Mar 2009
Posted by Marisa
Marisa's picture

"Why are you so happy?"
"Because it's Friday."

This is the conversation some of students learned this week, with a little modification by me to fit the current context (unlike my students, since I can speak English, I am able to actually use the conversation, instead of only using the examples in the book, in which case I would only be able to say, "Why are you so worried?" "Because my mom is sick."). It has been a long week. I honestly haven't done that much teaching, but with the crazy flip flopping of schools, and the craziest jet lag I've ever had, the weekend couldn't come soon enough. Here at my new school I only have two classes on Friday, but today that seems like two classes too many.

My new school, Okgu Middle School, is a nice place. Unlike many of the country schools, it is big enough that it got one of the new English Rooms that Korea must have used it's entire Education budget on, but small enough that I only have 20 kids in a class (which after teaching 37, is something like a miracle). So I feel like this is the best of both worlds, fancy-pants technology and small classes. Mostly I like the new English rooms because it means I use the same computer for all my classes, which means I can count on it working, and don't have to plan back up lessons for if the computer is on the fritz in some classroom.

My reception at the new school was quite shocking. Unlike my city school, where they still treat me as a mix between a celebrity and an infant, the people here have treated me more or less like a normal person. It was quite unnerving. None of the students had huge screaming fits upon first seeing me (just small, reasonable ones). No one asked if I needed a fork at lunch, or oohed and ahhed at my ability to say 'hello' in Korean (despite the fact that I have said 'anyehaseo' to the vice principal at my other school about 100 times, he still claps and pats my head when I do it. I don't even think parents behave this way when their children start speaking.) Basically I was just like a normal, new person: there was interest, but no craziness, which made it all the more crazy.

The school is about a 20 minute drive from our apartment. I get picked up by a Korean language teacher, whose route must come near our house since he's the one who picks me up. His English is quite limited, but he's very friendly and seems to be a reasonabe driver (which in Korea is important, since most people aren't quite reasonable about it. They've put a new stop light on our corner, but since it didn't use to be there, everyone has decided it's optional and drives through it). There must be about 200 students in the school, with about 20 teachers, half of whom come to the "chit chat class" that I have in the afternoons with them. I find this quite impressive, since at my big school, with about 70 teachers, there are only 3 who come to practice with me. As usual, everyone is very friendly and thinks my pig tails are cute. I've decided the Koreans like me best when I'm wearing pig tails, so it's my new hairstyle of choice.

 

Posted by Jordan
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My new semester started out similarly to Marisa's, in that on the first day of school I was picked up by my co-teacher as usual, and was naive enough to think that the day would be without "incident." A few minutes into the drive, however, Mr. Song says, "oh, do you know about new workplace?"

Me: "No." (do I have a new office? I wonder to myself).

Mr. Song: "You are teaching at new school."

Me: "Oh."

Mr. Song then proceeds to explain to me that he had been notified of this school change just a couple hours earlier. "We will see," he says. That day I sit around at Jayang doing nothing, because my co-teacher at my new school (where I am supposed to be Monday through Wednesday now) is too busy to come pick me up. Things get somewhat sorted out by Tuesday though, and I make my way to the new school, a downtown juggernaut of 1000 students, not unlike Marisa's Seoheung... my days of teaching 6 students per class at Napo are gone forever.

My schedule at the new school is haphazard and full to overflowing... they tell me that this schedule is "temporary" though (no surprise there), and that I will be getting my "real" schedule in two weeks... we shall see. In the meantime I've been introducing myself like a broken record to class after class of hollering 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders (that is 7th, 8th, and 9th graders).

I've been around to some of the classes twice now, but wasn't much prepared for the second encounters, since my "temporary" schedule is actually not a schedule at all, and the classes I end up teaching are rarely the ones shown there; this together with the fact that I have not been given a textbook or any materials, leads to what we in Korea call "flying by the seat of one's pants" (i.e. living). The classes themselves do have textbooks though, and sometimes I improvise from there. In one class the lesson centered around a nature photographer, with the topic being protecting nature. This particular class was what I sometimes call a "dud." Meaning that the students look at you sometimes, but rarely do anything else.

"What is this lesson about?" Nothing.

"Protecting Nature, right?" One student nods.

"Do you like nature?" Nothing.

"Do you want to protect nature?" Nothing.

"Just raise your hand if you like nature/want to protect nature." Nothing.

At this point I go a bit off the deep end, and start wildly drawing a grim Armageddon on the chalkboard: giraffes being blown up with bazookas, bulldozers flattening snowy mountains, and people with flamethrowers torching down forests. This gets the students chuckling. Pretty soon the chalkboard is nothing but smoke and flames, and a bunch of X-ed out giraffes. "Is this what you want to happen to the world?" Nothing.

Which brings me to my haircut: for $10 in Korea you don't get Great Clips--you get fanciness. I get my hair cut at Lotte Mart, because there is no reason to do anything outside of Lotte Mart--actually, it is my theory that nothing exists outside of Lotte Mart. So anyway, when you go in a woman takes your coat; next you get a glass of orange juice, which you can sip as you surf the web with one of the provided computers as you wait. When your wait is up a man with a towering hairdo of craziness invites you to sit down and be "prepared" with multiple aprons and perhaps some spray. A lady brings you The Book so you can pick out a do if you want something fancy. I just point to a man with a buzz. "Short Cut?" they ask. "Yea, short cut." This is not enough confirmation, though, so they (lady and crazy hairdo man together) flip the book and find two or three more men with "short cuts," and verify the idea with me each time. Finally we are ready to begin. I figure that the man will take the clippers, run them over my scalp, and be done with it... this is always how I've gotten buzz cuts before. But no. Instead, Hairdo starts to meticulously cut and trim. Cut and trim. A little bit of clippers now. Now back to the scissors. Now a new pair of scissors. Now cut cut. Now trim trim. And so after 20 minutes I emerge with my finely sculptured buzz. Of course then I get the hair wash and scalp massage treatment that is just part of the regular haircut here. Great Clips is kind of lame.

Which brings me back to my school: Nam Middle School, like almost every other school in Korea, as far as we can tell, has been outfitted over the winter break with a shnazzy new English room; "Welcome to Global Zone" is printed over the door in large letters. The room is large and very well outfitted, with a ginormous touch screen television, large sliding whiteboards, new computers, and clusters of tables arranged in a "we're here to be casual and have fun but also to learn about Global Zone" sort of way. Light is good, and posters around the perimeter sport catchy slogans and photos of English-speaking places, like Australia, Britain... and France. My office is actually in this room, where I sit alone and ponder my life. The provided computer, unlike my 10-year-old one at Jayang, is new and fast, and sports a 22-inch LCD monitor. So while the move from Napo is painful for the most part, my new school is not entirely without its upside.

Which brings me to the conversation class I had with the English teachers (5 of them here, all women) yesterday. We started out by discussing London's Tower Bridge (pictured on one of the posters), and I tried to explain how it was not London bridge, and how London bridge is quite drab looking, and how the previous London Bridge is currently in Arizona. Then they naturally wanted to know why "London Bridge is falling down." I had a quick pop into Wikipedia to verify what I thought I knew... anyway, things progress like this, and eventually we are onto America. Then eating. Then beef, which is thought to be to Americans what Kimchi is to Koreans.

"American's eat hamburgers every day?" asks one of the ladies.

"Not really. And no, not generally for breakfast."

They then go on to explain to me how American beef is diseased. All of it. This is why Korean beef is expensive and American beef is cheap. Koreans tried to get the government to stop importing it a while back with massive protests, but to no avail. Luckily, the Korean people know enough to stay away.

"Hm..." I said. "I don't think all American beef is diseased, actually."

"But you will get sick if you eat it," they insist.

"Hm..."

Eventually I figured out that this "disease" they were talking about was Mad Cow. My thought was that perhaps not all American beef was infected, as that would mean most if not all of the US population would have already been eradicated, but this theory did not fly with the Koreans. In all fairness I do remember when nobody in Minnesota would touch beef due to the Mad Cow scare, even though to date only 3 BSE cases have ever been identified in the United States (as opposed to say 183,841 in the UK).

That about sums up my week.

Obama said what?

13 Mar 2009
Posted by Marisa
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People always get nervous when they hear someone else is doing more than they are. And I guess our new President is no different. The following is from the Korean Herald:

U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday called for the United States to look to South Korea in adopting longer school days and after-school programs for American children to help them survive in an era of keen global competition, according to Yonhap News Agency.

"Our children -- listen to this -- our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea every year," Obama told a gathering at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce here. "That's no way to prepare them for a 21st-century economy."

Obama made his remarks while emphasizing the need for sweeping reform of the U.S. education system for which he earmarked US$41 billion out of the $787 billion stimulus package to cope with the worst recession in decades.

"We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed for when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day," he said. "That calendar may have once made sense, but today it puts us at a competitive disadvantage."

Korean Herald

Let's see what I did in the Korean public schools this week.

I amazed myself by coming up with an exercise that got more than 2 people to participate, and had at least a little educational value. The fact that I got the entire class to do the exercise has not ceased to stun me. However, that was only one lesson. Yesterday I was trying to get my students to fill in a sheet about their favorite things. When I tried to get two boys to participate, they went and hid in the back of the classroom, so I had to kick them out into the hallway. Once, I tried an activity where the students had to get out of their seats. I did that only once since the students destroyed the activity in about two minutes. I was so shocked I just stared at them for another two minutes. I had never seen such chaos. I haven't let my students out of their seats since. So the Koreans may have more school, but they certainly don't have better.

Our actual school day is longer here in Korea than any I ever experienced, but I think that's mostly because we have an hour and twenty minutes for lunch and another thirty minutes for cleaning time. The school year may be longer, but I've never seen people waste time like we do at school. I remember fondly the couple weeks of school we had after exams in which we taught our students nothing, and were expected to teach our students nothing.

All the teachers teach straight from textbooks, often to classes of 40 (unless you're lucky enough to be one of the "country bumpkins" Obama mentions from days gone by and are in a class of 7). The teaching is for the most part so ineffective that any student who cares about their future then has to go to the hogwon all night (many students, middle school students, don't get home until 10pm). And who knows if the hogwons are more effective than the schools. At least the class sizes should be smaller.

The students I've met are mostly incapable of thinking beyond the textbook, unless you sit on them or twist their arm. Most students stare out the window during class, or take a nap because they're so tired from studying the night before, or work on homework for another class. In a class of 40, you'll have about three, if you're lucky, who will participate. It's quite common to get "the stare" when you ask a question. Do they understand, you wonder. Are they confused, you wonder. Are they even alive, you eventually ask.

I think the clear answer to the education dilemma, by observing the Korean schools, or any school, is better education, not more. Have we still not realized that more isn't always better? My students said it best when I asked them if Korea was the best place to live and they said, "No. We have to go to school all the time. In America they are free to do things that are interesting*."

 

*The interesting things being dancing and singing like in High School Musical

**Thanks to my Dad for sending me the article.

The Things People Say

19 Mar 2009
Posted by Marisa
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My Mom always says that if she had a nickel for all the funny things her students said, she'd be rich. Well, I say if I had a nickel for all the funny things Koreans say to me, I'd be rich, and I've only been here for five months. Here are some highlights from this week:

1. We were doing an activity in class that involved the word 'pickle.' One of my students was confused by this word until she said, "Pickle...Pizza?!" Of course, if you are a normal person, pickles and pizza don't really go together, but in Korea you always get a side dish of pickles with your pizza.

2. Speaking of side dishes, one of the teachers in my conversation class asked what side dishes we ate at home. I then received horrified looks when it was discovered that we don't eat side dishes at home.

3. When I get a ride to my country school on Thursday and Friday, we always listen to the Korean radio and every morning they have an English expression that the teach all the listeners (which I think is most of Korea). Last week it was "get off your butt," this week it was "speechless." Now I know why all the Koreans seem to know some strange expression (like Campus Couple, everyone gets really excited when they learn that Jordan and I are a "campus couple." I've never heard this expression before, but all the Koreans use it and are excited about it.)

4. The principal came to observe the new English room at my city school this week. Or course this meant that I had to have an alternate lesson plan which involved using the new and fancy touch screen/tv screen/electronic white board. At the end he said I was the "number 1 teacher," I guess because I smiled through the whole lesson.

5. Yesterday after my students asked me the usual question "do you have babies?" Ms Park started telling me how Korea was a good place to have babies. To try and raise my maternal status after claiming I wasn't having babies for a long time I told her how we were getting a bunny this weekend. This did not impress Ms Park and she explained that "babies and better than bunnies."

 

Posted by Marisa
Marisa's picture

For your enjoyment, I have put together a playlist of popular Korea Pop (K-Pop) songs. This is what we hear in stores, on the bus, and what our students are crazy for.  Good for your next dance party.

Tough Love

23 Mar 2009
Posted by Jordan
Jordan's picture

So last Friday one of my classes was not wanting to participate: my thoughtful and creative attempts at discussion and activity were being met with nothing but yawns by the energetic students, and snores by the less motivated.

The lesson was on health and fitness (From the textbook: ... Mike: "It really shows. You look so healthy." / Mina: "How about you? You look like you gained some weight over the vacation." ...). Anyway, I will often search YouTube for an entertaining video touching on our topic just to get the kids laughing or what have you; on Friday I found one that was somewhat disturbing (okay, very disturbing, but that's what middle schoolers love) to go along with our fitness theme. I had not shown it to the students yet, and suddenly I was struck by a brilliant idea.

"Everyone up. Out of your seats. Yes, you too. Stand up."

Gradually everyone wakes up and stands, most of them looking somewhat confused and disoriented.

I then started the video:

They start laughing. I tell them that this is serious business.

"We are now going to exercise with the video."

The students look at each other in disbelief. I can't be serious.

I glare.

Some of the students start to move their arms and legs feebly.

"Pump your arms now! Let's go!"

More feeble movements.

I let them continue in this fashion until the video finishes. Everyone sighs with relief and begins to take their seats.

"No. Keep standing."

Confusion and suspicion radiate from the lethargic mob.

I then proceeded to give an impassioned speech on class participation, lethargy, and education in general: "... and if you are not going to interact with my lesson, then we are going to exercise with the poodles. And if you do not exercise with the poodles--energetically--you will leave the classroom. The poodles, you see, are a metaphor for life: just as you must exercise energetically with them, so you must participate energetically in class..."

It was clear by the horrified looks I was receiving that the students understood my message. And so I started the video again, from the beginning, and this time everyone pumped their arms.

The end result of all this is that when we returned to our lesson, and  I repeated the question to which I had previously gotten no response, multiple hands went into the air. The students had decided that this was better than the poodle video. And I had decided that the poodle video was better than anything. It now resides permanently on my jump drive, in my pocket.

Posted by Marisa
Marisa's picture

Jordan and I are the proud new parents of Faraday Magnuson, a very pretty bunny we adopted from some people who work at Osan Air Base; we plan to call her Farah for short. After a scary (for her) two hour bus ride and shopping trip at Lotte Mart, she is settling into her new home on our balcony. She enjoys eating hay, spinach, carrots and apples, hoping around her new home, spying things in the distance, snoozing in her house, and shedding lots of hair (apparently this is a once a year thing, since it's started getting warm she's started losing her winter hair). Once she adjusts to life on the balcony, we plan to let her hop around the rest of the house when we're home. Bunnies can be trained to use a litter box like a cat. And by train, I mean they do it naturally, you just have to find out where they want to do their business and put the litter box there. She is also one of the softest things I've ever touched. It is very nice to have a very soft bunny on your lap for petting. Farah is still a little nervous around us, but already enjoys hopping around us and getting small pets. We are very happy to have her in the family.

Faraday

Michael Faraday was a famous physicst, who knew little math, but did amazing conceptual work with electricity. Farah is Arabic for happiness.

Here is a quick video about Faraday's first weekend.

Posted by Jordan
Jordan's picture

An activity that I sometimes do with my students involves showing them a cartoonish picture of someone sobbing or smiling or looking angry, and asking them what emotion is being portrayed. I then ask them to complete the sentence "I am [feeling emotion x] because..." on a piece of paper, along with a drawing to help me understand what they are trying to express. A few of the more interesting and/or unexpected answers:

 

  • "I am sad because my lover left me." Oh the heart wrenching drama.
  • "I am happy because my poop came out." There was no doubt about this one, thanks to the detailed drawing accompanying it -- this was a girl by the way. Only in middle school, or only in Korea? Or both?
  • "I am upset because my mother catch me on 19 website." Actually, all the boys at a certain table had some variation of this one. Remember that everyone is a year older in Korea, so a "19 website" is... well, I think you can figure it out. I can't say I was surprised by the actual occurrence--it was just the level of candidness that threw me; I wanted to tell them "I'm just your teacher! Don't tell me this stuff!"
  • And one that needed a bit of correction: "I am in love with my sister because she is cute."