cleaning

"Cleaning time is too short" Ms Park said this afternoon as we came out of the English room when the time was up. I pondered this for a minute or two, gave it a good consideration, but what I really think is that we should get rid of the twenty minutes and go home earlier, not add more time to our lallygagging schedule. Of course, I don't think I would actually get to go home early, and then the school would just be really dirty. Although if we never let the students come to begin with, the school might stay decently clean.

All the public schools in Korea have giant TV screens in every classroom (whether they work or not is another subject, but they are there). And every middle school in Korea with more than 100 students seems to have a gotten a brand-spanking new English room with giant flat, touch TV screen and many other fancy things ("tell us what materials you want, we will get them"). How did the Korean government pay for this? I recently realized it's because the schools have no janitors; the kids do all the cleaning. At first, I thought they just made the kids do the cleaning as some sort of "be responsible" lesson. But as the weeks have turned to months I've realized that the only marginally clean school could only be the work of the students. It explains why the bathroom floor is more dirty after being mopped than it was before.

I have joined the ranks of the other Korean teachers who spend the twenty minutes chasing and cajoling the students into cleaning, since I have to monitor the new English room. Although, I was just told to make sure the students don't touch the computers or destroy the desks, so that's what I do, while surfing the internet and thinking of amusing things to write on the blog. The four girls who do the cleaning in my room can be a bit lax at times, but then Ms Park will show up and boss them around and make them get out the vacuum and smelly spray for the desks. I don't feel bad when this happens because I have done my job of watching the equipment, and in Korea doing your job, and only and exactly that, is what it's all about. Just try and get someone to scoop a fish for you at Lotte Mart. After talking to five people over twenty minutes, all of whom claim,"I can't get the fish" the one person who can will show up, dragged out of their dinner break because they are the only one who was hired to scoop fish.