Interesting school tidbits for those of you who are interested.
My school has ten minute passing periods and during every single one today this kid has had to come into the teacher's office & stand with his face against the wall. I have no idea what he did, I never have any idea what the punishments are for, I've just learned to accept that kids are going to be in the teacher's office staring at the wall or standing with their arms above their heads on a regular basis.
What I do find strange is that I had my 2nd graders (8th grade kids) soon to be 3rd graders make rules for my classroom for next semester as they will be the oldest grade. The punishments they were coming up for themselves for things were strange. Here are my three favorites so far:
"We shouldn't sleep in class. If you don't do this, you have to run a playground five times." - AKA, they have to run around the soccer field 5 times.
"We should dance at the virtual studio when we hit our friends in class." - AKA, they have to do a dance in front of the whole class.
"We shouldn't talk in class otherwise we sould have a conversation with Kate. If we couldn't answer the question, we should be do 'invisible chair'." - I still haven't completely figured this one out, I think it means if they talk in class & can't tell me why they are talking they have to do a wall sit (I only got wall sit because they demonstrated it for me).
Two weeks ago I did a Halloween theme thing with my high schoolers & I made them draw me a picture/describe the creepiest, most disgusting thing they could think of. This AWESOME girl drew a picture of a pretty girl with a meat cleaver in her head and blood SPURTING out of her eyeball, she made it even better by writing a story of how she came to be in that state. I hung it up on my fridge.
These are the times that I love my students.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving, America!
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Resolution: I will blog at least twice a month.
Hello everyone!
Long time, no writing - sorry! I just got very caught up with school & my extracurricular activities (a lot of binge drinking & money spending). But, as I'm using November as a month to restore my health, sanity, and checkbook, I thought I'd also use it as a month to catch up on communication.
My life is progressing quite splendidly! I feel completely settled into Korean life and I'm 80% sure I'll end up staying here for at least another year. Some things still irk me almost daily (such as not having hot water unless I physically go push the buttons to turn it on) and I don't think I'll ever get use to being stared at. However, that is part of life & I've just learned to accept the good parts of life in Korea with the bad.
Teaching is going really well, I think I'm getting better and better everyday. Either that or I'm just getting faster at lesson planning & better at improvising things at the last minute. I've also become a master of simplifying my language, I can now speak in the most basic of terms while simultaneously miming the most bizarre actions. At this point I would pass mime school with flying colors.
I still don't really care for teaching at the Middle School, but I think that is due to my coteachers/subject matters more than the students. The Middle School is very strict about having me stick to the book's curriculum, I basically spend my classes , repeating phrases, trying to get the students to create their own sentences, and checking pronunciation. It is just repetitive & I don't feel like I'm able to use my creative side during these days. I try to bring a litte bit of fun into the classes as I can only imagine how bored the kids are.
On the flip side, I love being at the High School, it gives me an amazing rush to stand up in front of those kids. You can actually see the enjoyment on their faces & they cheer for me when I walk into the room, it is a really great feeling. The High School has given me free reign over whatever I want to do. They basically told me as long as the kids are speaking in class & enjoying themselves they don't care what I do, so I'm able to use my creative side a little.
That is all for now, I promise to the few of you that actually read this that I will do it at least twice per month.
Long time, no writing - sorry! I just got very caught up with school & my extracurricular activities (a lot of binge drinking & money spending). But, as I'm using November as a month to restore my health, sanity, and checkbook, I thought I'd also use it as a month to catch up on communication.
My life is progressing quite splendidly! I feel completely settled into Korean life and I'm 80% sure I'll end up staying here for at least another year. Some things still irk me almost daily (such as not having hot water unless I physically go push the buttons to turn it on) and I don't think I'll ever get use to being stared at. However, that is part of life & I've just learned to accept the good parts of life in Korea with the bad.
Teaching is going really well, I think I'm getting better and better everyday. Either that or I'm just getting faster at lesson planning & better at improvising things at the last minute. I've also become a master of simplifying my language, I can now speak in the most basic of terms while simultaneously miming the most bizarre actions. At this point I would pass mime school with flying colors.
I still don't really care for teaching at the Middle School, but I think that is due to my coteachers/subject matters more than the students. The Middle School is very strict about having me stick to the book's curriculum, I basically spend my classes , repeating phrases, trying to get the students to create their own sentences, and checking pronunciation. It is just repetitive & I don't feel like I'm able to use my creative side during these days. I try to bring a litte bit of fun into the classes as I can only imagine how bored the kids are.
On the flip side, I love being at the High School, it gives me an amazing rush to stand up in front of those kids. You can actually see the enjoyment on their faces & they cheer for me when I walk into the room, it is a really great feeling. The High School has given me free reign over whatever I want to do. They basically told me as long as the kids are speaking in class & enjoying themselves they don't care what I do, so I'm able to use my creative side a little.
That is all for now, I promise to the few of you that actually read this that I will do it at least twice per month.
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