Mail-Order Teacher: 5 Year Olds and Robot Arms

So, okay. I'm in Korea teaching English and all I've been writing about is going shopping. I figured that pretty soon all I'll be talking about is the teaching aspect...I won't get any more of those 3-day vacations for a while! So, when I'm not completely exhausted, I'll tell you ALL about the teaching part! So far, it's been pretty sweet.

A colleague of mine pointed out an interesting tidbit to me yesterday...one HUGE difference between teaching here and teaching back home...get ready for this...WE DON'T HAVE TO TALK TO THE PARENTS. Not that there's anything horrible about talking to parents...usually, I'm sure, it's quite lovely. As a brand new teacher, I know nothing about fretful moms or psychotic complaints of parents who painstakingly go through every question and answer on their child's homework, hoping to find a spelling error on the part of the teacher or something erroneous to complain about. Such things never happen--right? Every parent is fabulous as far as I know. I haven't heard stories or anything (No WAY! Hahaha)...I'm just pointing out a little difference. Since we can't speak Korean, our Korean supervising teachers do all the parent conferences. They are on the phones a LOT.

So anyways, on with my day! I'll start with my daily schedule:

Mon--Fri: 9:50am-10:30am--planning period. 10:30am-12pm--teaching various kindergarten classes Music or Science, alternating. 12pm-1pm--lunch. 1pm-2:20pm--more teaching kindergarten Music and Science. 2:20pm-2:30pm--planning time (small break). 2:30pm-3pm--watch kids in playroom (kindergarteners are leaving, older kids are coming).

Every day is the same in the mornings (til 3pm). Afternoons, however, change depending on the day. Here's my afternoon schedule:

Mon, Wed, Fri: 3pm-5:50pm--teach ESL Grade 2 (kids are about 8-9 yrs old). I get a 10 min break at 4:20 when the kids eat their snacks, provided by the school. At 5:50pm, I am out the door with the kids, and so are the other teachers.

Tues, Thurs: 3pm-4:30pm--planning period. This is my HUGE long break I get twice a week. 4:30pm-7:20pm--teach ESL LP Grade 2 (I have 2 boys for this class, they are about 10-11years old and have only studied English for a year or 2). 7:20pm--out the door. I have time to walk home, cook, and shower and I go straight to bed.

As you can see...a teacher's schedule at a Korean private English school is much different than a schedule I would have as an elementary teacher back home. However, the whole atmosphere feels entirely more relaxed in a way. There are lots of other little differences besides the schedule. Teachers leave their kids during lunch and snack time. For kindergarten, the supervising teacher or one of the lunch ladies comes in to watch the kids. We do not wait for them to come in, though. We jet out the door. If you wait there, the lunch lady might take her time getting to your classroom.

Another difference is the way we interact with the kids...namely, we can hug and kiss them. I remember in teacher school in the US learning that you should give a kid an almost "sideways" hug, if you hug them at all. Parents are super paranoid about molestation and all of that. Here, you are a complete weirdo if you don't hug the kids. The attitude is, "Why don't you hug the children? Don't you like children? Why are you a teacher if you don't like children?" You are almost expected to hug them. Teachers even give the kids kisses on their cheeks sometimes, or let them sit in their laps, or pick them up. It's not an issue here. We are teachers and we love kids; therefore, we show affection towards them. That's all there is to it.

I asked some teachers if these differences also have to do with the fact we are a private school. "Nope," they said, "It's just Korea."

Yesterday morning, as four of us rode the elevator up to school, we noticed a sign for our school saying there is a "Field Trip" on the 17th of this month. None of us had heard anything about it. Today we noticed the sign had been changed, and that now the field trip is scheduled for the 15th. Like I said before--the Koreans are last minute about things and they like to change their minds. Even with something as seemingly major as a school-wide field trip with lots of little children. As far as I know, no one has even explained to any of us when we really are going--or where we are going! Go with the flow. I'm going with the flow. And no, there is no such thing as a "permission slip."

Now let's point out some similarities. A lot of people, including myself, have wondered if Korean children are more disciplined and/or better behaved than American kids. Here is one thing I have definitely learned from this experience, and I learned it on Day 1--kids are kids are kids are kids. Being a kid is universal. Kids here are no different than kids back home. They laugh, they play, they fight, and they cry. They tattle on each other; some always follow rules, some rarely seem to. They get hyperactive; they want to please you. They get loud and scream. They sing songs and jump around. They are kids. As far as the discipline thing goes...the answer, as far as I can tell, is no. They are not more disciplined here than they are back in the States. If anything...the rules here are more lax. Kids get away with things they would NEVER be cool with back home. Of course, I do need to keep in mind that it is the beginning of the school year. We have brand new 3 year olds who are in school for the first time and are still crying for mommy during the day. So, maybe the little chit-chatting in the hallways will cease at some point. Maybe the kids will be better behaved as time goes on. So far though, I'm going to say that no--kids are no more disciplined here than there. There's been plenty of yelling, pushing, shoving, and crayon throwing since I've arrived...and not just in my class (LOL). It's across the board. OK, so, the crayon throwing happened in the 3 year old class...but they have not had any discipline at home yet. They are learning it at school for the first time. I believe that parents let their toddlers get away with a lot more here than in the US.

That being said, kids here ARE pushed harder by their parents to do well academically. Sure, American parents expect A's on report cards and put their kids in ballet or soccer or piano lessons. But here, kids have it a LOT tougher. First, they go to Korean school all day until 2:30pm. Then they get on a bus and come to English school. Even though it's dinner time (or past dinner time) when they leave our school, many of them go on to Tae Kwon Do or to a math group, for example. They get home around 8 or 9pm and do homework for a couple of hours after that. Some kids do not go to bed until midnight. Then, it's up at 6am to do more homework before starting it all over again. Yes--your kids have it easy. They know what X-Box is.

Ask a kid back home to draw a picture of their favorite activity. What will they draw? Video games? A baseball field? Shopping at Toys R Us? Not here. Here they will draw themselves getting to do their science homework with daddy every Friday night.

I've heard it mentioned that there are a lot more suicides amongst Korean youth than kids from other countries. I don't know if that's true...but it seems plausible. It's because of this knowledge that I am perhaps more lax with discipline than I might otherwise be. These poor kids never get to play! I go through my lesson plans and make sure everyone seems to understand...then we play Hang Man or do word searches. I let them laugh and I teach them little jokes in English. Today I got back in my classroom before snack was over with my ESL kids. One kid showed another the chewed up food in his mouth. I taught him the joke where you say, "Do you like seafood?" "Yes." "See--FOOD!" (and you show the person the food you're chewing) I wrote down on the board "seafood" and explained it was fish, octopus, stingray, etc (they eat that stuff here on a regular basis). Then I wrote the phrase "See? Food!" They thought it was absolutely hilarious--and they learned new English words. They also learned the word "burp." Hey--it's probably more useful than "voting booth."

Oh yeah--ROBOT arms! I was going to talk about teaching Science and Music to the kindergarteners! For 30 minutes, we (Jess and I) get one of the kindergarten classes so their teacher can have a planning period. It alternates, we teach one class Science, then the next Music, etc. Each class comes to us twice a week. Jess will be leaving in 15 days and I will be on my own. I am EXTREMELY lucky to have not only the easiest and most fun kindergarten job in the building, but also someone who's been doing it for a year to show me the ropes. Music is fun...there is no curriculum or guidelines whatsoever; I am expected to come up with the lessons. However, I only make one lesson each week and teach it to every class who comes in. I'll modify it a little, depending on if the kids are 3-4 years old, 5-6 years old, or 7...but it'll be the same lesson for the most part. This week Jess decided to introduce musical instrument vocabulary to the kids. She has a poster with all the pictures of instruments and their names. Some of the kids remembered from last year; for others it was completely new. I was surprised how quickly they could say "tambourine" or "xylophone." We get those 3 year olds tomorrow, though! After introducing the names, she held up actual instruments and chose a kid to say the name out loud, and if they named it correctly, play it. It was kindergarten percussion at its finest--a symphony of clanging triangles and beating on little drums and symbols. I needed earplugs!

Science is a completely different story. Each kid comes to class with a workbook and a prepackaged large ziplock plastic bag with parts and pieces to be assembled and experimented on. Talk about easy, right? For the most part--yes, it is. Unless the mess they're given in their bags doesn't make any sense or is entirely age inappropriate. For example, the 6 year olds this week had alien faces to work on. It was just a cardboard cutout of an alien with which they had to tape a white sheet of paper behind its eyes...then the white paper turns purple in the sun. It would be cool--if you aren't in a tall city building where you can't go outside and the windows are so hard to reach only I had long enough arms to squeeze through the bars and barely be able to hold the paper in poor sunlight for a few seconds. There are 2 layers to our little windows, one window opens from the inside, and the other layer is about 2 feet beyond it and it opens on the outside. Luckily the outside layer stays open. My arms are barely long enough to reach. I'm hearing "Teacher! Teacher! Me next!" as I hold one student's out the window, head pressed against the wall.

On the other hand, the 5 year old group had another packaged "experiment"--robot arms. Picture this: ten 5 year olds holding ziplock bags with about 20 little pieces...plastic "arm" pieces, tiny metal snaps, 2 syringes, a tube, and a couple other little plastic pieces. And if you lose one piece--it ain't gonna work. Jess and I couldn't even really figure out how to put it together at first...even when we did get it right, it was so shoddily made it fell apart if handled slightly too roughly...and it didn't work to begin with, anyways.

But the truth is, I'm not complaining. It's more funny than anything...I mean...it's all good! It's not for a grade. They are learning some English words, which is the whole point, and they are having fun. And in 30 minutes, they go back to their regular teacher! I love it. No worries!

Oh yeah--and they don't care if I take pictures of the kids and post them on the internet. I asked!