"This is my home"

This week, our class size has grown from 9 to 11 students.  Two may seem like a small number, but I can definitely feel a difference.  We're struggling to integrate everyone into the routine.  However before this addition, our newest student was "four year old" Aden.   Aden came to us about three months late.  It was obvious from the start that Aden had NEVER been to preschool.  He was a wild child, often hitting other students, playing during circle time, and never helping to clean up during "clean up time." Aden was by far our most difficult child.  He didn't ever do his work unless one of us sat with him the entire time coaching him step by step, which makes helping the rest of the children do with their work extremely trying.  His focus lasted as long as a gold fish's memory; two seconds.

His adorable face with two deep dimples was quite endearing however.  And although he often hit other classmates, he'd always freely admit to it, and would apologize with such candor and empathy in his eyes, even reaching out to touch the other student. It made my heart melt the first few times I saw it.  Now, I'm just tired of the words, "Aden hit me!"

But today, Aden did something else to tug at those heart strings; he cried when it was time to go home.  His aunt told us that he's been doing it nearly every day.  He insisted that he wanted to stay at preschool.  When teacher Cindy said, "But Aden, it's time to go home now." he exclaimed adamantly in Korean, "This is my home!"

I'd like to take all the credit for this outburst, but I realize that it most likely has more to do with there being other children to play with than with my marvelous teaching ability. But I'd like to think at least, that I create a fun and safe environment for the children to learn and play in.  And that's enough to make my day. That one of my students, despite, how much we scold him, still wants to be at school with us.  These kids just might make leaving Korea more difficult than I bargained for.

Ancedotes of preschool 3

We've been teaching illnesses recently in my afternoon class.  They learned stomach ache, fever, cough, cold, and rash. The picture for the rash, however, was a bit deceiving, and confusing. The picture shows a child with red dots covering her face. I think they were demonstrating chickenpox but what it actually resembles is acne.  We were talking about each of the illness, and as we came upon, "rash" one of the kids observantly said,
"Teacher you have a rash"
Shaking my head, slightly embarrassed, I explained that the red dots on my face were pimples, which are different from a rash.   "Rashes itch, pimples are just red dots that you get when your older."  I didn't even have that many, maybe two or three, but oh, are kids observant.  Almost every time I have a new pimple, one of the children asks me about it.  "Teacher, what's that?" they ask innocently, not knowing that they are rubbing salt into my wounded self-image.


It's summertime.  In Korea, the tale tell signs of summer is the heat, which isn't anywhere near the heat index in Texas, the humidity, which is high, maybe even sometimes higher than San Antonio, and the insects. (I wrote two posts last year about those nefarious bugs, here and here)  These insects, seeking refuge from the great outdoors, or maybe the many cruel Korean middle school children who try take them apart limp by limb, for some reason or another, choose to make their home in our bathroom.  At first, we didn't understand why the kids would wiggling and shaking, doing the pee pee dance, were refusing to go to the bathroom.  Sometimes, they would even have their pants down, as they came back into the classroom, whining. Once, a student in our afternoon class, who is normally quite garrulous, refused to not only answer a question but repeat anything I said.  He then refused to answer, "what's wrong Edward?" We finally got out of him that his stomach hurt.  Later, we found out, that his stomach hurt because he refused to go to the bathroom to poo, as he was afraid of the bugs.

Cindy, my co-teacher, is afraid of all bugs, even moths and butterflies, albeit massive bird sized moths and butterflies, but harmless critters never-the-less.  So that makes me the designated bug catcher. I don't like to kill animals, unless it's likely to harm me.  However, I've had difficulty catching spiders without killing them, as I'm always afraid they might escape and start crawling on me. 
The kids have, out of necessity, have learned the word "bug," a word they use nearly everyday now, when its time to use the restroom.  What I've found, even more cute however is when they tell me,
"Teacher, spiderman, bathroom!"

"Spiderman is in the bathroom?" I ask jokingly. They know who Spiderman is, but haven't learned the word spider on its own.  I'm loving summer, but I'll be glad when I no longer have to fend off the insect invaders so that my kids don't pee in their pants!

Ancedotes from preschool 2

So last Ancedotes from preschool I talked about my little girl Elise, however, the story doesn't end there.  Elise is a four year old (in Korean age) which means she is between two and three; my guess is that she is three years old.  But she is quite mature for her young years, and is by far one of the superior colorers in the class. She is quite adept at staying in the lines, and even color coordinating.  She is reticent, and slow to speak, but lately she has been coming into her English voice with confidence.  After lunch, which is brought to our classroom, I make their toothbrushes.  That is, I put the toothpaste on their toothbrushes to avoid a calamitous sticky disarray that would send me into a cringing, twitching state liable for institutionalism. (I have to say, I'm admittedly, not a neat person, but messy toothpaste is a pet peeve of mine)  And when I first entered preschool, the children raced after lunch to brush their teeth, and found it hilarious to put not only their own toothpaste messily on their toothbrush but to make a hodgepodge of everyone's toothpaste on their own one toothbrush, making what they called rainbow toothpaste.  After a few eye twiches, I put a stop to that quickly.  I digress however...  Where were we?  Awww yes, Elise.  One day, Elise, who hasn't spoken hardly any English outside of circle time suddenly calls out to me,
"Come here!" Two words I haven't heard her speak before. I'm already impressed, but she's just gotten started. She leads me to where I have made up the toothbrushes, and points to one particular toothbrush, Louis's.
"Louis isn't here." she tells me.  I stare at her dumbfounded. Not only had she been observant enough to remember which cup and toothbrush was Louis's, but she had just formed a perfect sentence, with a negative verb and all.  She didn't say, "Louis not here," which would have been impressive on its own, but she used "isn't."  Huge! Colossal! I had to restrain myself from picking her up and twirling her around. My throat constricted, and my heart pounded with pride like a mother just hearing her baby speak its first word.  My children were learning. They were actually not only understanding but on the cusp of beginning to speak English in sentences.

One finale Elise story...(watch her little video here)

As you know, our preschool goes on field trips.  One Friday, we made our way to a beautiful wildflower garden. We picnicked under the shade of  sycamore trees. (I don't even know what sycamore trees are, but it sounded nicer than just saying trees :) )  Lunches consisted of the snacks the children brought, which ranged from chips, packaged goods, candy and fruit, and kimbap which is brought by the school (Korean style sushi roll).  One ingredient in the rolls is a yellow radish.  I don't like radish.  I don't like radish in any form, yellow or no so I meticulously pick it out. On seeing this Elise picked up my radish to hand me, thinking that it has fallen out.  I tell her "Thank you," but explain to her that I'd taken it out because I didn't like radish. Minutes later, Elise handed me a kimbap, an action that's sweet in itself.  However, that she handed me food without my asking is thoughtful in itself, but what really got to me, was that she'd been considerate enough to take out the radish. This is a three year old folks.  A three year old who thought beyond her own needs and desires to unselfishly feed her teacher. I nearly cried. Seriously, I held back tears as she handed me that seaweed rice roll missing the disgusting radish.  Elise has taken my heart and run away with it, and its all I can do to keep up with her.  I only hope that she remains small enough for me to pack in my suitcase when I come home.

When all else fails

I have put little time into the blog lately as anyone can see from the glaring lack of posts this month. However, when all else fails, pictures of my adorable students can always suffice as an adequate filler until I sit down and actually take time to write something other than, "isn't he the cutest thing you've ever seen." 

Friday was a busy fun day in the land of the (korean age) five year old class.  We played handbells, which was ULTRA confusing, as the handbell colors were the wrong color for the Wii handbell game.  "Jinu- your bell is red, but you need to ring when you see the green handbell, got it, not the red one." "No, jearom, your white, not green." 
When your kids are just starting to learn their colors, and the colors don't match the screen, you can be sure that chaos will rein, and the urge to ring the hand bell at any moment in time just for the fun of it, will be the main chorus of music.  Maybe to some it qualifies as music, but in my world, it does not.

After handbells, we made a fun project.
What one needs to make the most awesome sucker person!
1. paper cup
2. sucker
3. googly eyes
4. q-tips
5. pipe cleaner.
6. markers
7. sissors
Now, when I say "we" made the sucker people, I mean that the kids sit there, while Cindy and I make their activity.  Why? Well, for starters they couldn't hot glue the googly eyes, nor the pipe cleaner hair on.  I mean I guess technically they could, but that probably woldn't be a very responsible move. Nor could they poke holes in their cups to stick the suckers in the top to act as the head or the q-tips in on the sides for the arms. 
What could they do? They picked the color of their cup, in English mind you!  They picked the color of their sucker and the color of the hair.  They were also able to color the cup with their markers, while Cindy and I furiously ran around trying to glue and poke everyone's sucker people to satisfaction.

In the end, I think everyone was happy with their final project.

Gestures around the world

 While I was still in the "education department" meaning the camp portion of English Village rather than the preschool where I am currently teaching, I was commissioned to make a culture class.  I love culture, as you might have noticed by the amount of culture posts I have written regarding Korea.  And, Koreans, like in every country I have ever visited, love their own culture.  Honestly, I think this is important aspect of being a citizen of a nation, to be proud of your roots, to be proud of where you come from.  I don't believe in ignoring faults, or smearing history in order for your citizens to have false pride as often happens in schools around the world.  In Israel, as in Germany, directly after WWII, the autrocities which had occured weren't spoken of, or even acknowledged. In America, many of our history books are written with such slant that its obvious to any student that America is the only worthy and good country out there, and that America's moral conduct in the world has always been strictly ethical and even motherly.  If you'd like examples of what I'm talking about, I'd suggest a book called, "Lies my history teacher told me." An utterly depressing book, but I'm sure the concept of slanting truths for your particular country is not unique to American history books.  However, the purpose of this offshoot was to comment on Korean children's lack of desire to leave their country. I see this in my own country all the time, but the excuse I give Americans, valid or not, is that America is a freaking huge country, and there is much diversity within our own borders.  Korea is the size of Indiana.  Imagine, never leaving Indiana. Never tasting cuisine authentically from a different country or region (such as our states), since Korean cuisine is just about the same all over the country.  I had a hard time pinpointing one aspect of culture to teach the children, but in the end, I settled on the importance of intriguing them to one day explore outside the confines of their country.  I created two power points, one which is geography based, but in the form of a quiz so hopefully more exciting,  and the other a travel jeopardy with subjects such as music, food, gestures and habits. I scoured the internet looking for a well made youtube video about gestures in different countries, and I found some, but nothing perfect and nothing slow and clear enough for an ESL learner, so instead, I decided to make my own because I am insane.  (I didn't actually calculate the amount of time it took, but I estimate somewhere close to 20 hours of filming and editing) Click here to view said video.



These are the two ppts I made.  Anyone, especially teachers, are more than welcome to use them, download them, and use them in your classroom. The sound files didn't transfer to Slideshare, so you'd have to import your own music, but that should be simple enough.

Travel jeopardy best… This ppt was created for ESL middle school students, interlow to interhigh. I can't take all the cr...

View presentation 

World Geography ESL… This is a powerpoint to test geography skills. It is fun and interactive and can be played as a gam...

View presentation

Making pizza the Korean way

As I have mentioned in the past.  Friday in preschool is "theme day." This past theme class was cooking- cooking pizza.  Except this was no ordinary pizza- oh no, this was special Korean pizza.

How does one cook Korean pizza?
1. get bread- most likely plain white bread
2. put tomato sauce on this bread
3. spread mashed sweet potatoes.  Yes, I did say sweet potatoes and yes I am aware that we are making pizza.  Remember, this is Korean pizza.
4. sprinkle onions and bell peppers which are called paprika in this country.  I don't know why.
5. cover in fake soy cheese which tastes like plastic.
6. place in oven and watch cook.
Honestly I was surprised that there was no corn.  There is never a pizza in Korea without corn. Even cheese pizza has corn on it because obviously you didn't mean "just" cheese.

So how did our pizza making day go?  It was a trial of patience, that is for sure.  First of all the kids had to have their cute aprons on, because you must be dressed for every occasion.
And then came the problem of the counters being incredibly high.  We had to find chairs that the kiddies could stand on so that they could make their pizza.  Often times when they were given the job of spreading something, they actually knocked off the toppings so that they were no longer on the pizza but on the pan, but really that was to be expected.
How did the pizza turn out?  I'm personally not a fan.  Maybe that makes me a pizza snob, and if so, then so be it. But the kids had fun, and that was the point.

In their cute aprons.

this has to be my favorite picture of the day.  look at Jerrome's face!

eating the pizza

they think it is yummy.

and so does my Korean co-teacher.  It is Korean pizza after all!

Preschool pics

Top (the boy in the picture)  hates art class. Most children love coloring, Top just finds it tiring.  Holding a coloring pencil and using ii is entirely too much work.  This strawberry was actually drawn by my co-teacher.

The students have Chinese class once a week.  They can now say "hello" in three languages :)

Friday afternoons are "special classes" . Last Friday was "health check." We checked their eyes, height and weight.  Two of the boys refused.

You can see my lovely house shoes here :)

We're trying to learn our colors. Its slow going.

Darling Elise really loves art class.  Isn't her picture lovely.

Richard- the angry cryer is at the top of the slide. This slide is the favorite activity of the kids.

This activity involves matching things of the same color.

Aram is the little girl who loves to wave and smile.  She is adorable.

My first week in preschool

I've officially moved to the dark side, or the light side depending on how you view working in the preschool. Last year, when I was asked to substitute I was extremely hesitant.  Cleaning up messes, wiping faces, dealing with "he hit me" all day long and not having interactions with the other teachers throughout the day didn't seem very appealing.  However all of that changed once I began my temporary service.  The children with their hugs, smiles, enthusiasm and love boggled my mind.  I loved walking into a classroom where the students were thrilled to see me, and weren't afraid to express their enthusiasm in the form of a full body hug. Seeing the daily growth in their language abilities was incredibly encouraging as an educator.  At the end of my time with my class, I was terribly sad to say our fretful good-byes. We'd become attached.  I told the preschool director that when I returned I would consider a position in preschool depending on the class size, and prep time alloted. Last year I taught the (korean age) 7 year class, children who had been learning English already for at least one year.  This year, however, I was placed (by choice) with the (korean age) 5 year old class. Mind you these children have had minuscule to zero exposure to English. Some of my students, although  officially in the five year old class, in western age have not even reached 3 years of age.

I had been warned about the fitful crying tantrums of the first two weeks of school. Luckily however, we did not have the track record of the previous year, but we did not escape the crying episodes. Jerom was the first to break "Oma, Oma, Oma" he wailed, "mommy, mommy, mommy."  Try as I might to console his tears, my round eyes and unfamiliar features only served to frighten him further.  The art teacher, an older woman seemed to be the only cure for his blues.  She cradled him like a baby and cooed him into a limboed state somewhere between wails and zombie-like acceptance (as long as she was nearby).  The next child to follow in the steps of his mommy-missing predecessors was Richard.  But instead of yelping for his mother, he screamed in a hot tempered fashion breathing at the rate of a fire-breathing dragon in a marathon race.  His red-rimmed eyes illuminated the image of his uncontrollable temper.  He pointed his finger at me, and told me, in not such a kind voice, to go away when I attempted to distract him with toys. He stomped the ground, and threw himself down at the mercy of the floor.  He was plain and simply furious with us.  How could we keep him here against his will away from his mom, toys and home. His tempered raged for hours, once again only consoled by teacher Sunny, the art teacher, who he eventually referred to as grandmother.

We are now finishing our first week together, and the kids and I are slowly getting used to one another.  But it has been difficult and will continue to challenge all of us.  For one thing, we do not understand one another.  They constantly walk up to me and ask me questions.  I try to pick out familiar words, but even their Korean is baby talk, and the Korean teacher, in order to understand, has to ask them to repeat often.  Most of the time, I just follow them and see where they take me.  Sometimes they take me to the bathroom, and sometimes to the water fountain.  Other times they take me to the slide and explain something to me that I cannot understand. "Cindy?" (my Korean co-teacher) I look around lost for what to do.

When they begin to cry, I have no idea what they need or want.  They try as hard as they can to get me to understand, but I never do. This afternoon, little Elise grabbed my hand and tried to explain something about the slide. She pointed at Ester. Ester walked up to her and yelled something in her face.  This was then followed by open mouthed crying and flailing on the floor on Esters behalf.  I pat Esters back and then went in search of Cindy.

I have been video taping some moments of our first week together, and although I am significantly slower this year in editing video footage, I am looking forward to sharing some of our moments together and the adorable children I will spend the next year teaching English.

Teaching the mentally challenged part 2

The second day, I walked into the facility with a little more hop in my swagger.  I had done this once before, it wasn't a cinch, but it hadn't killed me either.  In my bag of goodies, I brought with me two sets of cards, one regular set and one alphabet goldfish, plus Jinga.  We were going to have fun today, I was determined. My first class looked simple enough- it only had 4 students.  One of the four students however was in a wheelchair and was, as far as I could tell, nearly a vegetable. She had drool coming down her mouth and her hands were both curled against her chest.  Another student had the close set eyes of a boy with down syndrom, and he smiled brightly at me. The other two students, a young boy and a 12 year old girl looked "pretty normal" on the outside at least. I smiled inwardly.  This was going to go well, I thought to myself.  I couldn't have been more wrong.

I started with numbers. I wrote out 1 through 10 on the board, and pointed to the numbers and had the students repeat.  The Korean teacher, who hadn't been able to speak English left the room.  The students had been behaving up until this point repeating each number as I said it.  The young boy, who appeared normal from the onset, bounded from his seat grabbed the eraser and began to erase the numbers I was trying to teach them. Once I had wrangled the eraser from his grasp however, he used his palm as an eraser.  He then grabbed a marker and began writing his own message of scribbles on the board.  Once I had effectively taken away all of the markers and both sweetly and firmly requested that he return to his seat, in a language he couldn't understand, he began to run around the room, pulling open cabinets, and pulling things out of their place.

Meanwhile I'm chasing him like a mother hen trying to round up her distraught chick, except that this chick is mentally unstable, can't understand a thing I'm saying  and is enjoying this game of 'make the teacher run around like a crazed chicken.'

Another teacher walked into the room, one this time who can speak some English, and he immediately sits. And I, near hysterics, grasped onto the table for support and attempted to continue the lesson.  I lay cards out onto the table 2 through 10.  I demonstrate putting them in order.  We don't have a 'one' card, so it starts with two, and "what comes next?"  They look at me blankly. I choose three and place it next to the two.  Once we're at six, they get the hang of it, I think.  They at least understand that I'm asking them to choose cards.  The boy who nearly threw me over the edge at the beginning of class removes his slobbery hand from his mouth and touches card 10. "Ten" I say, "good try, but not that one." I move the cards further from him so that he doesn't get his slober on school cards.  After we went through the game twice, I determined that not one of them actually can count.  However, during this game and throughout the duration of my time in the class, the girl in the wheelchair cries.  She doesn't just cry really but wail.  She wails like a newborn baby who has just woken up from her nap and wants her mom.  Big fat tear drops stream down her face.  The Korean teachers wipes the tears from her face and simply says, "she cries everyday." He walks her around the room, but it doesn't really console her.  The other students are plainly not even phased by this, and ignore the piercing sound.
Next we play Jinga.  However, we have more success building the jinga tower than actually playing the game, because although the girl is totally engrossed in jinga, and would actually like the play, both boys, when it comes to their turns just knock it down purposefully.  The girl looked grief-stricken with each blow, and yelled at each boy in turn to behave in front of the foreigner.

After 35 minutes, I move to the next class. I walk in, with my nerve endings a little seared, and see a 40 something year old, deaf, mentally retarded woman, and a lady whose age is unknown to me since I never saw her face throughout the entire class. She had her face flat on the table, and by the end of the lesson, I actually forgot that she was a person in the class.  She just felt like a piece of furniture.  The deaf woman was very interactive and in fact she was a bit simpler to communicate with than other students as she doesn't speak Korean, she only signs simple signs. She was smart, in that she picked up on things quickly, but not smart as what one would consider for an adult.

Her name for me was the sign for beautiful, the hand moving around the face and the sign for the teacher I was subbing for was the finger going down the nose of the bridge and following the tip to the mouth to indicate that he had a large nose.  She loved learning the alphabet and tracing the letters in the air.  The girl from my previous class came to join us, and we played a lovely game of "go fish," a game that Koreans don't play typically.  The Korean teacher in the room, didn't know the rules of the game so I had to explain them to her as well. By the end of the game, everyone had laid their cards on the table so that everyone around the table could see their cards, but it didn't occur to either student that we could cheat since we could plainly see their cards.  I didn't cheat, well, in a way I did, because I cheated so that they would win hands, but in the end, I still won.  We actually had a very lovely time in that class, which balanced my class from earlier thankfully.

After wards, because it was the last day the principal of the school invited us to have a cup of tea- barley tea- I find it's flavor appalling.  I lifted the cup to my lips and pretended to drink out of politeness.  He spoke for a while in Korean, I don't know what he said, most of it wasn't translated, but what was translated was that he wanted to know if we had any suggestions for his school.  I wanted to ask why such capable students were placed in classes with completely incapable students, but in asking us for suggestions, he wasn't really asking for advice, it was just a polite Korean thing to do, one that I don't understand.  I'm not sure if we were supposed to give him a compliment at that time or what the polite appropriate response should have been, but no one really responded.  It was actually an awkward moment, at least for the foreigners, but maybe not for the Korean staff.  I asked them about it after wards, but I didn't get a clear answer as to what it was all about. Sometimes cultural behaviors are difficult to translate into words.

I wouldn't go so far to say that the experience was life changing, but it certainly wasn't an experience I will not easily forget.  My appreciation, and reverence of those who care for these people has certainly increased ten fold.

Teaching the mentally challenged

February is a slow month for school in Korea.  I've never worked in a public school, so I'm not sure exactly what goes on, but we hardly ever have students in February.  So instead of bringing students to the schools, we take the teachers out into the communities.  Some of you might recall my posts about teaching at an orphanage last year.  This teaching experience was part of the "teaching away" program that English village participates in every year.  This year, however, many more schools signed up than ever before, including a facility, or a school for the mentally challenged.  I don't speak Korean, which can make my life difficult sometimes living in Korea, where everybody speaks Korean, and only a few speak English.  Because of this, I'm not sure of the details of this school in which we attended; such as how it is funded, and who all is admitted it there, but what I do know is that it was an entirely novel and trying experience.  I should clarify that I only taught at this school twice.  I've been assigned development for the month of February, however, I've only been able to focus precious few minutes on developing because everyday something pressing takes me away from my developing work. Two days this week, I was asked to substitute for teachers who were too weak and lazy to attend their classes.  I mean, seriously, like a swollen lung and fever is enough reason to take off work.  (this is sarcasm for those who can't read the tone of my voice)  So with thirty minutes to prepare, I was piled into a van with all of the other teachers and was shipped off to this special school.  The classrooms were well maintained, and honestly better than ours.  Because I taught for two different teachers, I taught in four different classrooms, two each day.
I'm a little ashamed to say that I have a fear of the disabled.  Not so much a fear, but discomfort. I think its the uncertainty of what they will do.  A fear of the unknown.  And a fear of the bodily fluids.  A lot of people share this discomfort or fear, but I don't know really how to pinpoint the cause.  Its the same reason people don't like hospitals or nursing homes.

On that first day, I laid my jacket on the podium, and anxiously awaited the arrival of my class.  They streamed in some limping, some looking at the ground, one even holding her arm limp at her chest in the stereotypical way children or insensitive people make fun of the mentally challenged. Some of them were curious about me, some of them didn't notice me, however only one of them made eye contact.  A teenage girl with neatly done pigtails, laid her head on the table and began to lightly tap her head with her fist.  Another grunted loudly, raising his voice to a shout on occasion.  Showing the Korean teacher the color by number pages I brought for our activity, she pointed out the students who would be able to do the activity.  It was valentines day, so I had brought a coloring page resembling a stained glass window.  Each section had a number, and the students were supposed to color each numbered section a specific color.  I passed out the worksheet and colors.  Two boys sitting side by side quietly responded to my instructions by picking out the correct color I had said in English and began coloring the correct sections.  They even repeated "red, one" in English.  I was astounded. Another of the capable students whose face was deformed in such a way that he looked like "Sloth" from "The Goonies" kept giving me the thumbs up.  His coloring was focused but he wasn't able to follow the directions fully.  The grunting student scribbled getting so far out of the lines he drew on the table as he squealed.  I'm not sure if he was squealing out of emotion or if it was just something he did.
When the bell rang, I breathed a sigh of relief.  One class over, and it hadn't been so bad.  The next class was even more entertaining.  An older lady with down syndrom never looked up from the circles she was drawing on her own paper.  This teacher asked me to teach them a song.  I knew that many of the teachers had been bringing coloring pages.  No one knew exactly what to do with special needs, and since only a few of them were capable of even coloring, they were at a loss.  One of the teachers decided she was going to make masks with the kids.  She passed out the cut out faces with a chopstick all the while, the Korean teacher followed behind, picking up the wooden chopsticks.  He mimed the chopstick sticking in their mouth and eye, and all she could do was laugh in desperation.  "Just coloring then." she replied.
I sang "twinkle twinkle little star" in English.  The teacher sang the Korean version, and some of the students hummed along while others continued to do what they had before, such as the sweet smiling girl at the corner who folded papers the entire class.  She had a seemingly never ending supply of papers in her desk.  She would take one out, fold it in half, open it, and fold  a different crease in it, fold another crease, crumple the paper, put it away and pull out a new, clean paper.  She did this until she ran out of paper towards the end of class, and then went to the cabinet to pull out more.  A student entered late, a popular student, and the class began repeating his name occasionally yelling out "babo" or foolish.  The popular student only laughed.  "Kim Eunlee" cried the girl folding papers.  "Kim Eunlee" repeated the boy who continually stood up to turn off the CD player and erase the board against the teachers wishes.  Kim Eunlee would laugh and it would start again.  This game made them dizzingly happy, and I laughed along with them.  At one point I asked, "crazy?" after they had yelled out "babo" for the hundredth time, and they all started to yell out "crazy!"  When the bell rang, I said goodbye feeling more confident with my abilities to deal with this group. I had walked in unsure of my capabilities and walked out an hour and a half later patting myself on the back, but with a greater appreciation for the teachers who teach these students daily, day after tiring day.

To be continued...day two... more trying than the first.

ps. I didn't bring a camera to either session as I didn't know before hand that I would be teaching at the school.

Making a Christmas tree

Christmas in Korea is strange.  I mean, I understand that it isn't really their tradition and that through American movies and Western idea brainwashing, they have begun to incorporate our holidays into their culture in their own fashion.  There are similarities. Department stores put up beautiful Christmas tree displays.  Some of them are truly fabulous.  Even our little podunk town has strung Christmas lights on the shivering naked trees that line the street to the subway station.

The differences however are stark.  For instance, the biggest difference is how they spend Christmas.  They go on dates.  It's kind of like Valentines, in that if you don't have a loved one, you feel left out.  I don't know how this tradition started, but kids are left behind, and couples go out on a romantic outing.

Another difference is the gift giving.  I don't really think they give many gifts at Christmas.  This week, we have been practicing the question "What do you want for Christmas?"  These are the answers:
I want...
to make a snowman
candy
cake
my mom (her mom is very busy and she never sees her)
books

There is only one kid who has his exact toy picked out.  Jude, he's secretly my favorite, although, he also  is extremely hyperactive.  I just really like his enthusiasm.  Even when he is acting out, it is because he is just so enthusiastic about life! His wish is for a remote controlled toy tank.  That a boy.

And they don't do Christmas trees in the homes.  They see them around stores and in the movies so they know what they are, but the majority of them have never decorated a tree in their lives.  So I have made it my goal before I left to make sure they got the full experience of decorating a tree.  There was only one problem.  The preschool didn't provide us with a Christmas tree.  Not to fear, arts and crafts are here.

The first step- making a Christmas tree. Only half of the class showed up on the day (Fridays are more of fun days so some moms had taken their kids skiing) we made the tree.  The kids drew their little hands on green construction paper and cut them out.  But because only half of them were there, they ended up having to do twice the work, meaning they had to draw and cut at least ten hands a piece.  They were exhausted by the end of it. Literally, I had to give them a nap.  But after layering their hands into the shape of a Christmas tree, they were ecstatic.  Absolutely thrilled. And so was I.  In the end, the sweat and toil was worth it.









 

The next step was to make snowflakes.  They weren't so great at this, but some of the snowflakes really turned out beautifully.  Mostly the ones the parents helped with. They had snowflake homework after I realized that thirty minutes of snowflake cutting training would not be enough to create 6 year old masterpieces.  Their homework was to take home paper and teach their parents how to cut snowflakes so they could do it together.  They brought back some of their parents and sibling's snowflakes as well.

Next... making fake presents.  Wrapping pieces of construction paper with real wrapping paper and ribbon was a task, but they turned out pretty good.  I even let loose, and gave the kids control over to where they put their own present, under the tree.

The last step was making ornaments to actually decorate the tree with.  I printed out photos for each child to put in their locket like ornaments.  The outside, they decorated how they wished and on the inside flap, they put their picture for all to see when opened.