bad teacher

Recently, a student learned the words bad and teacher.  she even managed to put the two words together!  (maybe I am getting to these students...)  Anyways she kept saying it since it's the only thing she knows how to say, and it got me to thinking whether or not I was a good or bad teacher.  I do believe I put a lot of time and effort into teaching, and overall I'm quite happy with my performance.  However, I realized there are certain things that I do, or don't do, that might make me a "bad teacha."

Example 1:  I have two doors to my room, and we ask the students to use the back door to enter and exit the class.  This has been a rule for a long time, and is even stated in Korean to make it abundantly clear.  Sadly, students seem to see the sign and find joy in breaking my simple request.  Actually, it wasn't my request, it was a different teacher's, but I'm annoyed when kids don't adhere to simple rules.  So, to break this bad habit I have taken a liking to letting students use the front door to leave the room to go get a drink of water or go to the bathroom.  Keep in mind you PULL this door to leave the room, and PUSH this door to enter the room.  After the student leaves the room I casually walk past the front door and lock it to make sure the student uses the back door.  What could possibly go wrong?  Well, every kid knows they shouldn't run in the halls... so what do they do???  RUN.  Usually, they bust into the room at 100 mph, look at me with a smile, and give me a look of satisfaction that they broke the rule and they don't care if I don't like it.  Locking the door while they're out fixes this.  Ever heard a small bird hit a glass window?  It gives a pretty good thump!  Well a 6th grader sounds like a flock of eagles hitting a window.  It will also elicit a good laugh from the class as well.

Example 2:  unless there is blood or actual fists getting thrown, I DON'T CARE.  slapping is way too common here...

Example 3:  after school I pretend that my ipod is playing even when I haven't picked a song yet.  see you tomorrow kiddies...

Example 4:  the student who named himself golden now has a new nickname.  Aluminum.  and it's sticking.

Example 5: More worksheets have been distributed during football season than the rest of the year combined.  when Green Bay opened the season on thursday night I made the most difficult word search known to man.  I win.

Example 6:  I spent 30 minutes writing this blog entry instead of planning my lesson that'll occur in an hour.  better wrap this up...

Example 7:  I spent 20 minutes, before the aforementioned 30 minutes, trying to find the best video clip of the teacher from charlie brown.

I'm sure there are more examples, and I'll post them as I think of them.  Perhaps some will be more elaborate such as example 1.

sincerest regards,

a tired teacher

English class in Korea...

English Competition

On Wednesday we took the kids back to Hwaseong Fortress to take part in the English competition.  The kids were really excited, and it was fun to see them work together to do well.  There were about 15 or 16 different locations around the fortress for the competition, and luckily ours wasn't at the top of the "mountain."  One of our kids was on crutches, and wasn't looking forward to helping him up the hill if we got Seojangdae (command post at the highest point).  Maeyeoul, my school, was the first group to go in our fleet, and it was evident that they were nervous!  Luckily the native English judges were very helpful and clear.  The students walked away from the questions jumping and yelling as they answered every question with quality answers.  I'm proud of how hard they worked, but I'm also happy it's over.  I get my lunch break and passing time back.  Some other teachers took photos from the competition so I'll try to get some from them and post them on here.  I do have some photos from last week when we took them around the fortress for practice.  

this weekend is the yearly school festival, so the school has been in busybeaver-mode.  Today we managed to hang about 100 pictures and put out another 100 plants.  It's quite the show, and all the homerooms put on a skit or dance or song.  I'm looking forward to seeing all the different songs and dances, the kids did a great job last year. 

Also, I was just penciled in to teach 4 more classes starting in November.  I'm not exactly excited to teach more classes, especially because the kids are so young.  This will be 1st and 2nd graders who speak zero English.  Personally, I disagree w/ having someone taking care of 20 kids when the adult can't communicate with the little kids, but they want them to have the opportunity to learn a bit of English at that age.  It's when some students begin English academies, but these kids don't have that option.  I suppose the silver lining is the extra pay.  I also have absolutely zero experience with kids this young, so I don't know what I'll do.  It'll be a learning experience for both teacher and student...

time for bed, g'night

keith

sunday funday

I just finished watching the Badgers get embarrassed at Michigan State... I think the Badgers were the better team, but if you have four straight possessions of turnovers/blocked kicks you're going to have a hard time climbing out of the hole you dug.  Still they almost did just that.  I have a feeling we'll be seeing the MSU Spartans again in the future.

On to more important things...

In continuing my effort of writing more I thought I'd share a couple recent things at school.  The kids stories seem to be more popular than stories from my day to day life, so I'll stick to those for today.

I began my Halloween themed classes on friday, and the kids went nuts for it.  I can't blame them because they're smart enough to know that Teacha Keiss is going to bring in copious amounts of candy to give them right before I send them home, or to someone else's class.  I certainly am not getting 10 year old, candy-deprived children a lot of candy before I ask them to sit quietly and listen to me.  Friday's class was mostly just pictures of autumn foliage and kids costumes to make them jealous of my country and american holidays which was quite successful.  I showed a lot of american cartoons about halloween, and even a clip about haunted houses which had the girls scared outa their minds, and the boys screaming to watch it again.  The last half hour we made halloween masks which was a lot of fun, and I noticed the kids getting more and more creative.  Creativity isn't common among young Korean students because there is no time for creativity.  It's a sad fact here, and I think most native teachers try to encourage creativity whenever possible.  Here are a few masks the students made:

more creative

less creative

My co-teacher put some of the projects about the fortress up around the room.  I never took time to really look at the posters, however I probably should since things like this get put up.  I decided not to take it down because it provides a quick laugh every time I pass by.

In case you didn't notice, it clearly says "Porn" on the bottom-center sticker.  As far as I know there was zero porn related structures in the Hwaseong Fortress. 

Next week is the Hwaseong English competition which I've been helping out with for the past month or so.  The two women in my office (Julie & Annie) have taken the grand majority of the work for this, but I help with the pronunciations and general tips to sounding more "american."  It isn't so much an English competition as it is a "who can memorize the most" competition.  So far my kids are doing pretty good.  Last Wednesday we took the kids to the fortress to walk around the entire structure and show them what exactly they're talking about.  I think it worked pretty well, but it lasted a long time.  The entire circuit is a bit over 3.5 miles so the kids were pretty exhausted afterwards.  Mt. Paldal is in the middle, and one leg of the wall runs up the "mountain."  I tried to explain to the kids that if it only takes 10 minutes to get to the top it probably isn't a mountain.  However, I didn't want to detract from their accomplishment.  It was actually really nice to walk the whole wall, finally.  I visited it a few times when I first arrived, but have found little reason to go back until now.  The last time I went there was with Chrissi and Enna which was october of last year.  WOW, how the time flies.  

Last week I was sick on Monday and Tuesday leading me to miss work on monday.  This was not good, and I plan on going to work even if I'm puking in the future.  Lesson learned.  I'm not going to delve into detail here because it wasn't a fun situation, and doesn't merit any more blog space.  

That's all for now.  Time to finish up some side-work that I'm doing to help a teacher at school.  

Hope all is well with those who read this.  

GO PACKERS

  

students' story

I gave some students a packet of pictures to look at and write about.  The only rule was to use past tense, however they've come to realize that I prefer funny stories.  Here is my favorite.

Bad Family

Once upon a time, a family lived in Canada, but they smuggled squirrels.  This bad family came to Korea.  They were arrested by policemen because they smuggled squirrels in South Korea.  They ran away to Suwon Station.  They took the KTX.  They went to Sokcho Station.  They climbed Seoraksan and they ate bananas.  But they were arrested again by policemen.  The bad family went to jail forever.  

The End.  

Those squirrel smugglin' SOBs... great story though!