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11/19/2004
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KLB - Spin Game
Turns out the "spin game" was not what I thought. Cathy put the kids in my chair and spun them until they were dizzy, then had them try to spell words on the board. Needless to say most kids just fell down and didn't know what to do. The rest of the kids seemed unable to control themselves, started imitating the dizzy students and raising hell in general.
So, I interupted, stopped the game, made all the kids sit down and be quiet. Then I changed the game so it would be like I thought. They had to spell the word first, or they couldn't spin. Wow! I never seen kids study so hard. Most of them could spell all the animals I taught by the end of the game. Hmph...
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written by shawn matthews
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11/18/2004
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KLB - Weird Game and Post Office Kitten
Today, while the A (youngest) class kids were busy making pictures of dogs and rabbits and listening to animal songs, Cathy came up to me and said, "Shawn! I have good idea for game for kids."
Me: (sitting at my desk) "Well, that's great, Cathy. Go right ahead."
Cathy: (flustered) "What? No, you have to play. You're the teacher."
Me: "The kids are busy, and quiet for once. What game?"
Cathy: "The students spin in chair and spell the word game? Let's play." (she then held her hands together against her chest as if she couldn't contain her excitement)
Me: "Um, what? I don't understand."
Cathy: "You're chair. The kids spell word and spin you chair. They don't spell, they can't spin."
Now, as I write this it finally dawned on me what she must have meant - I think. The kids would go to the board and try to spell animals such as cow and chicken. If they spelled a word right, they would sit in my chair and I'd spin them. Whoo hoo! Not a bad idea, I guess - but at the time, I had no idea what she was talking about and assumed she was out of her mind from too much decorating. So I said to her, "Cathy, I don't understand what you're talking about. The kids are spelling the animals above their drawings. We can put these on the wall for open-house day. They are quiet for once. Let's let them be."
"But it's game. The children love game."
"Yes, I know. That's why Friday is "game day." I don't understand the game you're talking about and the kids are working on something."
"Oh, OK." (dejected face)
"Why don't we play the game tomorrow. You can explain what you mean to them and I'll help."
"Oh, I don't know. You should with them."
"OK, sure, great. Sounds wonderful."
"Really? (face lit up again) "OK, the kids will game tomorrow!"
Cathy does have some good ideas, but half the time I don't know what's she's telling me and she doesn't seem too keen on explaining things to the kids, especially since she's not supposed to speak Korean anymore. Even when she does, she stands there like she has stage-fright and speaks in a barely audible voice.
I forgot to mention, and I should bring my camera tomorrow, that me and Julie walked down by the post office last night to look for the kitten. I walked around like a lunatic making cat noises and Julie and everybody looked at me like I was nuts. As we were about to give up, we heard it: "meowowk quakameow." It really sounds like a dying duck. We lured it out with more o-daeng and tried a few times to grab it, but to no avail.
Again today: I met Julie after work and had to run to the post-office again to send books (a few in Korea, another to Australia, and one to a hermit who lives in a hut in the middle the Boreal forest) and as soon as we walked by, the kitten meow-quacked. It (I say "it" because I still don't know the gender) must just hang out in the bushes in front of the post-office all the time. Another piece of o-daeng and a couple of mild attempts to snatch it. We probably could have today. It came right up to us and I was able to pet it a little. However, the reality started to set in: will it pee all over our apartment? Better yet, will it pee all over me as I carry it home? Do we really want to start buying kitty litter (which is expensive in Korea) and cat food all the time? Does it have a mother? Is the mother just out finding tender vitals? Also, the weather was nice today and the kitten had another good meal to hold her over while we think about it.
She looks a little plump actually. Maybe I'll just look for it whenever I go to the post office and give it more o-daeng if it's hungry. What a win-win situation. The o-daeng ajumma gets some money, the kitten gets some food, and I get a big warm happy feeling in my stomach knowing I've contributed to the welfare of a homeless kitten. I think I'll celebrate by writing a poem and painting a picture of happy trees and flowers.
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written by shawn matthews
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11/16/2004
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KLB - Open House
You know the expression: Too many chefs spoil the soup. That's how it feels at my job sometimes. I work at a public school that sponsors my visa, but I actually work for a placement agency. That means I have to deal with my agency boss, an assistant, a woman at the school in charge of our program, and her boss, the vice principal and then the principal.
At first I had a few grievances with all of this. For example, I was required to fill out daily and monthly lesson plans for each class: first for the school, then again, the same damn thing on a slightly different form for the agency. Now schools are responsible for a colossal waste of trees in general, but this was ridiculous. For the first week, I didn't say anything. Then I told my agency boss. To my surprise, she said, "don't do it anymore, no problem." I was elated, until I realized my assistant now does all the daily/monthly plans herself, which takes away her time to help me teach the kids. All I have to do is jot down on this small form brief details of my lessons. Before you jump all over me, realize my assistant's job is to assist me. Since she's not even allowed to speak Korean in the classroom anymore (what a stupid new rule) and the kids don't need discipline usually, she really can't help me in many other ways besides doing paperwork.
Now my agency boss, let's call her Bonnie, comes in from time to time to see what's up. The second time she came she and my assistant stayed after and decorated the classroom. It looked great. Then the principal stopped in a few days later and decided to make the room bigger by knocking out the middle wall and combing our playroom and the classroom. I actually felt bad for my assistant, Cathy. She spent a lot of time making the room pretty. And in Korean schools there are no janitors (something I can't comprehend) and the teachers are required to clean the rooms. The construction workers who enlarged the room left a whopping mess (not to mention ate all our candy and drank all the pricey drink-packs the parents had given me) and poor Cathy had to go in two Saturdays on her days off to clean it. They also ripped everything off the walls, leaving them bare. Anyway, so now, instead of having a classroom and a playroom where the kids used to hang out in before class, I have a giant room and the kids raise hell in the hall before class and barge in the middle of classes to drop off their bags.
Still, I can't complain. At most other schools in this program, the teachers don't have their own room and have to shuffle around the school all day. Not to mention they teach 6 classes (full-time) for not much more pay than I get for 3 (technically part time). Still, why did they make this room so big and then not provide anything to fill it such as more desks, etc? There are 6 tables for the kids, and about 15 kids per class. These tables, even spread out, take up about 1/3 of the room. The room is huge and now Cathy spends her time making silly decorations to fill the barren spaces (I've helped by making the kids draw and color pretty pictures based on their story books) and cleaning.
OK, so this was a few weeks ago and now we are settled back in our new room after having to use the computer room as a makeshift classroom and the room is decorated somewhat - but it's still vastly unfilled. The kids are great and I am making progress with them more than I ever have at any other school in Korea.
Then comes the vice-principal. Apparently in a rotten mood one day, he had a fit over my daily lesson details and reamed out somebody or other. He went through and marked every place I made a smudge or cross-out or used the bottom of the form to write the details in. I was doing this because for some odd reason each page has spaces for 4 days of plans instead of 5 and 1/3 of the page at the bottom is blank, which I decided to use for Fridays. Anyway, as if anyone cares what my notes say since Cathy does all the plans herself nice and neatly on long forms for both the school and agency in English and Korean.
So, that put me in a bad mood that day, because of how pointless it was. I spent 15 minutes of each class erasing and rewriting things nobody reads anyway rather than teaching the kids, because he wanted it done immediately and I have to leave right after school for certain reasons.
Next, now that we have a big classroom, the principal decided last week without asking me, that we would have an "open house" this Friday. This means the principal, vice-principal, head teacher, agency boss, and all the parents will come in and stand in the back of the room (there sure is plenty of space!) and watch my classes all day. Hurray! Imagine having all these Korean people staring at you as you teach kids to sing "Do you want Pasta? Yes I do!" songs. So I had to come up with "perfect lessons" to impress everyone with. Since my classes are normally pretty good, lots of songs, games, books, etc, I decided this won't be so bad, I guess. Maybe I'll make some connections or something. So I spent half an hour before classes writing highly detailed lessons for the principal based on where we would be in the book that day. Great. No problem.
Then I was telling my Class C students (smart kids) about the open house and one kid shoots up and says, "but students not here that day!" It turns out a lot of the kids have a field trip in Friday. Good news, I thought - that many less parents to have to "impress." My wonderful assistant then goes down and talks this over with the principal and convinces her to change the open house to Tuesday next week so all the parents can come! Wow! Thanks, Cathy! So now my original plans are useless.
Anyway, I got to thinking about teaching. Not just here but anywhere, especially in America or for a regular public school teacher here. What a lot of wasted time and paper is involved. Imagine a school where all the time and energy writing lesson plans (how can you really plan a month ahead of time) and doing this and that for whoever is in a bad mood that day, was spent teaching the kids. Most of the useless crap they make you do (and I guess this is true at most jobs) has little real purpose other than to make you busy and hate your life more than they hate theirs, I guess. I am lucky because I have an assistant, but most teachers don't, of course. When I was teaching in New York State, I spent 2-3 hours a day just doing paperwork, reports, plans, making tests and getting pissed off when all I wanted to do was teach kids to enjoy reading and writing. I spent so much time worrying about such things as keeping my attendance records perfect, checking off assignments in my book, making lengthy tests, documenting when I shouted at little Bobby Hellboy to shut the hell up, filling out report card sheets, lesson plans, weekly plans, monthly plans (that you never stick to) volunteering for non-related extra-curricular duties to impress the principal, etc than teaching.
As far as my job goes, it's really not bad at all. But I just think there's too many people involved in the program, a lot of stupid ideas and rules. It seems the main goal is to ensure the principals, bosses and parents are happy. Unfortunately this distracts from the real objective, teaching kids English.
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written by shawn matthews
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11/15/2004
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KLB - Fast Shipping!
I was amazed to get this e-mail tonight:
Hey,
I just want to let you know that I got the book today. That's really
fast shipping. I'm still waiting for a prize from Arirang to come and they
said they sent it on the 1st of November. Came at just the right time too,
when I don't have much to do.
J. Amzar
Sydney, New South Wales
The amazing part is that I sent this book on Thursday of last week (Nov 11) at 5:00 PM. This is Monday, November 15. I hope all orders ship that quickly.
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written by shawn matthews
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KLB - Dwen Jang and Kamja
Julie's cooking up dinner and I'm starving. It was a long day teaching three classes, and I've worked up quite an appetite.
This is one of my favorite pan chan (sideshes). It's basically just fried potatos (kamja), carrots, onions and, of course, garlic.
Mmm. Sometimes I get on Julie's nerves looking over her shoulder, drooling, taking pictures, etc., while she's cooking.
And here's the main dish tonight: dwen jang chigae made from her mother's homeade, aged dwen jang (bean) paste. Mmm.
I almost had me a new kitten tonight. On the way home from work, I swung off at the post office to send out IOF books, and I heard, meow! meow! Actually it sounded more like, "mwack! meowack! moewooowo!" I wasn't sure if it was a cat or a dying bird. I poked my head in the bushes and saw the cutest little kitten shivering and meowing at me, its voice obviously worn out from crying. It was gray and black striped like a, well, like a minature gray and black tiger, I guess. As I was looking at it, a Korean guy came by, stuck his head in the bushes, then pulled out his phone and took a cam-phone picture, shrugged at me, then hustled off. I stood there for about 10 minutes trying to capture the little critter, but to no avail. Though it was just aboout a foot away, it wouldn't let me close enough to make the snatch.
It's damn cold and windy out there tonight and I felt bad, as I usually do when I see helpless animals cold and without food. So, I walked over to the nearby o-daeng-stall, and paid 500 won for a stick of o-daeng (boiled fish cake) for the cat. This seemed like a good idea, except you can't walk off with the stick because I'm assuming they wash and reuse them. So I stood there half eating the o-daeng imagining what an idiot I would look like to take half off the stick and walk away. On top of that, there were no other customers and the ajumma asked me a hundred questions in Korean about my job, where I live, what Korean foods I like, etc.
Well, finally, I bit off the last big chunk of o-daeng, thanked the woman, and scuttled off with the slimy chunk in my mouth. Back near kitten, I spit it out and set it on the stone wall in front of the bushes. The kitten practically screamed in delight at the smell, inched out, and chomped on its surprise dinner. Still, I was unable to get my hand on the cat and, after standing there for ages pretending to talk on my cell-phone while people looked at me oddly, I had to give up. At least the kitty had a little something to eat and maybe its mother will be back for it later. Or me and Julie!
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written by shawn matthews
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