Meanwhile, in Daegu / Happy Humpday Haiku #5

To begin, let me lend an apology. This post has been long overdue, and I’m sorry that it’s taken me two weeks to come to a place where I’m able to write again. Let me also be clear, this post is not overdue in the sense that what it contains will blow your mind (or, at least, I don’t think it’ll prove to be anymore special than my previous posts). It is overdue in the sense that, like most of my university essay assignments, I purely just procrastinated but only because I was trying so very hard to come up with a good idea but I couldn’t come up with a very good idea so I waited and waited trying to think up of good ideas but really just really I browsed Facebook and Stumbleupon and Uncrate and stalked all my friends who seem to be having such a much better time than me and why can’t I have times like theirs? enjoying everything all the time and really I think really it’s just because I mean I really believe that I work best under pressure. So, yeah. Glad that’s out of the way now.

            Let me take a moment to go back to my last Haiku about a certain event day the foreign teachers had to plan at my school, and about how all the merriment was shattered by two boys in my lowest achieving class. One of the classes that is taught at the school is called English Village, and its purpose is to facilitate English learning through total cultural immersion by studying different countries and scenarios each month. Each ability level learns a different country. For March, the country was Korea (to make it easier for the kids relate to the kind of learning they will encounter over the course of the year. The four foreign teachers were tasked with organizing the event. As per the observed modus operandi, we didn’t really have a good idea what we were going to do for the event until Monday night, and the event was Wednesday morning.

            Event day came, and for two hours all thirty some odd kindergarteners and their teachers were in one room doing craft activities. It was actually really fun. It was definitely a change of pace from the previous two weeks being anxious from speculating on my perceived expectations as a teacher. All the kids had a great time doing their crafts, and obviously the event as a whole can be greatly improved, but I think everything went better than expected, which started the day off on a really awesome tone.

            Then I it kind of hit me that I had to teach class the rest of the day, and I think I was sort of ready to just keep having fun with my students. Anyways. 2:40pm rolls around, and I walk to my next class, still slightly elated from the morning’s festivities, but fully aware that whatever I felt at that moment will have vanished by the time the class ends. My 2:40 class is a nightmare. The class is labeled NL for Novice Low. Maybe half a dozen can read any English. Maybe three can speak any passable English. There are nine of them, and they are eight and nine years old. Frankly put, they simply do not care. Some days are better than others, but everyday is a bad day in that class. Today was the worst day.

            It is incredibly difficult to get a child to behave in a certain way to facilitate learning. It’s damn near impossible when they don’t even understand the words, and all they say is “OK” after every sentence you speak. Everyday when I come into class, they assume that it’s Hide-and-Seek time. About six or seven hide under the table (despite the fact that I don’t have to bend over to see them), one or two have closed themselves in a coat rack/dresser (which I hope I’m convinced they will tip over while inside one day), and yet another has stashed himself in a very confined utility closet. After several attempts to corral them back to their seats in a polite, professional manner, I’m forced to resort to yelling and screaming, if only for the fact that the only emotional that can register with my students is anger (and even this has begun to fade in effect, making my students laugh even more wildly). Anyways. You might be wondering how any learning can take place in a classroom like this? That’s a good question. It doesn’t.

            On this particular day, the snack for the day (we give our students snack time…which is a thing apparently…still don’t remember if I had this growing up…but I want to say I didn’t…) was bananas. As I’m sitting at the board one of the students tries making for the door like he’s about to leave, so I run to grab him and show him to his seat, when I look down and see two banana peels. I look up and notice that two boys who have been particularly troublesome the last few days do not have said peels. I ask them if they threw their peels at me, to which they affirmed. Not five minutes goes by and the same two boys start fighting each other. I don’t know why, they cannot tell me. All I know is that now I have two crying, yelling boys that have disrupted the class, and the lesson is pretty much shot to hell. The only thing saving me from absolutely losing my mind was the comfort in knowing that I was going to be picking up my girlfriend the following night.

            The next day was satisfying. I got to watch the director verbally berate the two troublemakers in my class and then made them apologize to me. She then came into my class while I was teaching and told them that if they don’t listen bad things will happen (liberties were taken with that last statement, but what she said was to that effect). Also, I picked my girlfriend up from the airport that night (Thursday) and she stayed until the following Monday morning. We had a great time…in case you were wondering…

            Other things that happened over the last two weeks that are of considerable mention:

-       one of my kindergarten students, an adorable little boy who is bubbly and very bright, has thrown about four temper tantrums since school started. Apparently when he gets angry he starts huffing, his eyes get puffy, his chin starts to quiver and dips into his chest, and then he starts pushing and shoving and crying, and it’s awful to witness, because three out of the four times I had no idea what had triggered him. The most recent one happened because he thought we were going to have “playtime” when in fact it just turned out to be a learning exercise. He was removed from class the rest of the day, and the following day he gave me a hand-written apology. Picture of said note forthcoming.

-       We had a combined four-way birthday party for one of my classes. It took up so much time, in fact, the first four time slots for classes were not taught, and instead we sang happy birthday and ate birthday cake and wrote birthday notes. That was a good day.

-       Today, in my Novice Low class, one of the girls gave me a lollipop before class started. Nice. At the end of class, a different girl started calling to me. This girl, who usually calls me over to help her get dressed to go home, brings a sweater, a coat, a backpack, and a duffel bag to school (and is usually holding something in her hand that prohibits her from putting her things away properly). When I hear her call me over, as I finish up with another student, I ask her what she needs, when she tells me with a shy, embarrassed smile “I love you” Yeah, my heart just about melted, and that sole act will probably redeem teaching the class for me for the rest of the week.

Anyways, those are the highlighted happenings in my neck of the woods. Again, I apologize for the tardiness in posting, if not for you, then for myself. There is a good thing that comes from consistency, and that’s constancy. You can expect that of me from now on.

P.S.

In case you thought I forgot about last week’s Happy Humpday Haiku, here you go:

Don’t Sleep

Call me Futureman.

Fourteen hours is the lead

That I have on you.