First Week Flying Solo

Well, I did it. For five consecutive days, completely on my own, I taught elementary school. It was...well... I did it.

It was hard. It was really really hard. My morning students are all 5-6 year olds and have been learning English for a couple years now. They're incredibly smart...sometimes too smart. I spent last week with them so they knew I was coming, but they were still very close to their last teacher (the one I replaced) and the transition was not completely smoothe. There are 11 students in the class and while most of them were fine, there's a couple who definitely made it their goal to test me this week. One in particular, a boy named Chris, was quite belligerent in his attempts to defy me. Refusing to turn the pages in his book to the right page or write down the answers to various worksheets. I had to resort to taking away his breaks and, eventually at the end of the week, asking the Korean staff to call his mother and report his behavior. It was not a fun thing to do (actually it made me feel like an adult...yuck). All the teachers have been urging me to go in to the class with a harder hand. Apparently this group of kindergartners are notorious for being difficult and hard to manage, I guess the previous 2 teachers they've had all had similar problems in the beginning. But it's so hard to go into a class of little kids and just yell at them. The Korean staff has no problem doing it but, then again, corporal punishment is still allowed in Korean schools (though none of us are allowed nor would ever touch the children).

My favorite part of teaching is seeing how quickly minds this young can absorb information. There English is not perfect, but considering they are 6 years old I find it pretty amazing they've learned this much in 2 years (far more than I ever learned after 6 years of french...and I didn't even need to learn a new alphabet!)

My least favorite part is arts and crafts. On the Friday before Halloween, the school celebrated by having both teachers and students dress up and go trick or treating in the hallway (I assembled a pirate costume over the course of 2 days...but the kids loved the parrot glued onto my shoulder so I thought it was successful) Part of the activities was doing face painting. At the time Emily, the teacher I've replaced, was still here and she did most of the face painting while I helped the students with a project. As she was runnign out of time, I helped out with the facepaint of the last two students.

I so don't have mom's talent for painting.

All I had to draw was a pumpkin and a bat. The pumpkin, I thought, would be easy. But there was no orange color and though I tried mixing red and yellow, it came out looking like an apple. The bat looked like one of those blobs that psychologists show to patients and ask them what they see in it. After break, when we came back down, every student that had gotten face paint still had it. Except for the two girls that I had drawn on.

The administrative aspects of the school are somewhat complicated. Since it's a private school that parents are paying a lot of money for, we tend to cater more to the parents than to the students. Our lesson plans and a certain percentage of our homework have to be in color, so that when a homework packet gets sent home at the end of the week, the parents will have something "pretty" to look at. A few months ago one parent called to complain that their child came home hungry so the entire schedule was rearranged to fit snack time directly after lunch to ensure that-though the children may be starving by the time lunch comes around- they get a snack right before they go home so none can complain of hunger to their parents.

I also got to spend the week living in my own apartment! Moving into a studio that is around the size of Kelli's bedroom in Brea was quite exciting for me. It's the first time I've ever lived on my own and while that has already gotten quite lonely, I really love having my own place. It's a cozy little apartment. A metal rod acts as my wardrobe and is located right next to my fridge, which I can't fully open without pushing back the kitchen table. The enclosed balcony acts as both a kitchen and laundry room. The kitchen has one sink and a gas burner in place of a stove, no oven but the kitchen came fully stocked with cooking utensils, silverware, a rice cooker, and a microwave. There's a washer (no drier) that is across from the kitchen. I'm doing laundry right now and after hanging up all my clothes to dry I can already tell that the balcony is going to be a very cramped area. The bathroom is decent, a western style toilet (I was worried about that one...) and a shower head and sink.

Compared to the apartment I spent last week in, this one is exponentially smaller and the furniture is all much, much older. But, the walls are wallpapered and the tile looks new.

And, best of all, there does not appear to be any mosquitoes.