Who Was That Masked Child??

Korea is pretty cold during the winter and people here worry quite a bit about being sick. The first cold day of the year brings in legions of people wearing medical face masks wherever they go. 2/3 of a class might have on face masks when I come to work, and for some reason I decided to snap as many pictures of students as I can. Sometimes I have to sneak, other times I they are more than willing to appear in a picture.

Swine Flu: Picture of the Week

Korea tends to take sickness seriously. In fact, the whole Asian world seems to be a bit paranoid when it comes to sickness. Images of Asians walking around with masks is normal. Here in Korea, it's pretty much a way of life. My students my wear cute masks on their face when it get's cold and people get sick here.

Now with the Swine Flu scare, Korea has gone over the top. Everyday, students at school go thru this line up and have to be checked by teachers. They check the temperatures and eyes. This has gone on everyday for the last few months. Schools have closed down here over this. And last semester a wave of public school teachers here in Daegu were put on quarintine for a week due to a scare. I wanted to share some of the images I see.








Also, I should have some videos comming up. One of the main reasons I've been so late with posts is because I'm backed up with pictures. Now that I have a new computer (!) it's a lot easier to post vids and pictures.

Seonam Middle School: Year One Done

Korea Year One at Seonam Middle School is officially over. It is summer vacation and my contract obligations will be finished once my camp is finished next week. It’s been a crazy experience and I really don’t feel like it’s been as long as it has. I got here last August when it was hot hell and I had no clue what the hell people were staying around me. Korea was a strange new place and I didn’t have a clue how to take it. My school has had it’s ups and downs, but I’ve enjoyed my time and I admit I want to see how well I can handle Year Two.

Today was the last day of regular school, so I walked around and took pictures while the kids all cleaned their classrooms and said their goodbyes to each other. One particular touching moment was when a 1st year (7th grade) girl was saying goodbye to all her friends for the last time. She was transferring and one of her friends was taking it rather hard. I got a picture of them all together (despite them all hiding their faces) and I watched them as they all walked the halls together. The girl’s mother was there with her and she seemed to understand and let her have a little time with her friends.

When I left the school, some of the boys were standing outside the gate and I talked to them for a minute. They took a few pictures and I said my goodbyes. Before heading home, I stopped into the usual corner store. The owner stopped me and had his son translate something for me. He apparently wants to give me a gift for my family before I go home. I was very humbled by the act of kindness. The family that runs that store have been so nice to me I’ve always feel real welcome there.

Needless to say, I’m not the same person I was when I came here. I hope thing will only get better from here on out.

Now that the reflection is out the way. . . time to have some fun. IT’S SUMMER BABY!!

More last Day Pictures are HERE.

Destiny is pre-ordained. . . Just like grades

Sparkling Korea hasn’t done this in a while to me, so I guess I was overdue for another headache moment.

For the next three weeks, I’ll be giving individual reading tests to students. I sit in a room and they come in one at a time. Each student will pick from a series of pre-prepared cards and read them to me. I will record and grade each student based on their ability. Simple, right?

Well, here’s the wrinkle in the system. When my co-teacher’s handed me the grading scale to use, they also gave me a set number of grades I could give out per grade. Which means if I have a class of 34 students, then only 5 can be A’s, 6 can be B’s and so on.

Excuse me????

So you mean to tell me that I have a set number of each grade to give out? This means I have worry about the fact that one student might just work their ass of and really do a good job, but because I gave all my “A’s” I have to give them a B? Are we serious?

Somehow they have pre-determined the grades for the students even before they start. How the hell?

I asked about this and while I didn’t get an exact reason, they just explained that I have to use each set of numbers. So I’m forced to be really conservative with my grades. Yesterday I found myself dinging them for every little thing. Plus, I’ve been here a year so I have a fairly good idea of who will do a good job and who won’t. But that doesn’t mean someone won’t harder.

This makes me wonder how many other grades come out like this????

Now it’s been brought to my attention that this isn’t that unusual a practice, even back in the US. To me, the idea of such a practice is insane. What happened to getting the grade you earned?

Don't Speak While You Kick Push

This week has been very laid back at least in terms of teaching. Because the students will have mid-terms soon, the second year students have to play catch up. This means that my classes for them have been canceled this week. That effectively cuts 1/3 of my classes for the week, so I haven’t tried to actually use the books to teach from.

For the first year students, I’m doing a light review. I have a tough time explaining it to some of them, but the idea is that they have to make a 4-panel comic strip using the lessons we have already gone over. I give them the book pages to use as references; but basically they have to make a comic showing an introduction between people, two friends greeting each other, one person inviting another to do an activity. I wish I had gotten to use it on class 105 (my angel class) but I had to play catch up with them. The test class was 102; a class where I don’t have English co-teacher. It wasn’t too hard to get them to understand the concepts, but I know it would have gone smoother if I had a co-teacher who could help with questions.

The third year students have a lesson that involves music. I selected two songs; one song because it is slow, the other because it’s tougher and I had a feeling they might like it. The songs are “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt and “Kick, Push” by Lupe Fiasco. I first made a lyric sheet for them for each song then I made a worksheet with words missing in the lyrics. It’s to test their listening skills. The first class didn’t go as well as I would have liked because I wasn’t able to set things up like I should have. The next class went much smoother because I found a copy of the video for “Don’t Speak” on youtube that had the lyrics. It’s gone over fairly in well in the classes. . . but it’s third years so you never know. The girls seemed to like “Don’t Speak” and the boys “Kick Push”. . . overall, “Kick, Push” is the favorite.

As I expected, the students keep up with “Don’t Speak”. In fact, I’ve caught some of the girls mouthing the words to it. They all seem to find “Kick Push” hard to keep up with. Still, some of them were able to catch on to it after listening. I eventually want to do a lesson where classes pick a song to learn and I give them the lyric sheets. I will try hard to find song with easy lyrics to learn. I have talked about it with my co-teacher and the big issue is songs that are overly sexual. Considering that many students requested “Sexyback” by Justin Timberlake, I can see this will be an uphill battle.

Pictures of the Week (April 15)

I know, the Pictures of the Week segment is a little sporadic, but I try to make up for it with more than one picture. So for this week, a few random pictures from school and around town.

This first picture is another one from the morning line-up at my school. The difference here is that these kids were all caught smoking. Their punishment: make signs and stand in front of the school all morning with them. So far, the count is three days stright. These boys have to stand up every morning while all the other studends walk past them.

This is an example I decided to use in a lesson. Korea's national baseball team made the finals of the World Baseball Classic and it was a huge deal over here. They lose to their rival Japan near the end, so I decided to use this as a part of an example. The students got a giggle out of it, however, I'm sure I misspelled Ichiro's name.

The next picture is a very random and odd picture from the subway. Me and a friend were walking around and randomly spotted this rather confusing can inside. Does this mean that ANYTHING can come out if you slect the random can? Or perhaps it's just whatever they decide to load in it's slot? Perhaps something even more insane like some random thing will happen if you pick this can. I didn't spend the 500 won to find out.

To Be (In Korea) or Not to Be (In Korea)

And so the time has come; the question of contract renewals has come up. Signing back on means another year in Korea. Another year away from friends, family and the comfort of Atlanta. No Game nights with the crew, no AWA, no UFC nights with the guys and no football. Also, no time with someone special back home I miss, no goofing with my brother, no trips to find a corner in Boarders and read and no random runs to Café Intermezzo or Real Chow Baby.

It also means, more learning Korean, more Korean children, more being stared at, and more random nights out with the expats here. It means a possible trip to Japan and who knows where else, more learning about another culture, more not knowing what people are saying around me, and more Norebang nights.

I can honestly say I’m not ready to head home yet. I feel that my time here isn’t done. Yeah, I want to see my people, but I will see them. I will get a chance to hang with them again when I go home for the summer, but I think another year is needed. Then I’ll be ready.

I just hope everything with evaluations go ok. I enjoy my school, but there are times would enjoy another school. I would like to teacher more motivated and advanced kids, but that would require moving to another part of the city more than likely. I’ve grown very attached to the kids here at Seonam Middle School. Even some of the bad ones.

But, when it comes to the teachers here, I feel lost as hell. They are nice to me at least. I like the well enough. Basically, most of them are women and it’s tough to get past that barrier here. The cultural divide is too tough. I don’t relate to them very well, nor they to me. I barely know the other English teachers here and there are days were I barely say a word at work other than my English class work. And that bothers me. A lot. Particularly when I hear of some friends who have regular contact with their teachers outside of work. Hell, I even know they were hoping for a girl and got me instead. It’s just the truth of the matter.

So the big question is will I ask to change schools or will they ask to have me changed?

Lost Entry: Visit to Korean Mom

(Originally written 4/06/08, this entry was saved and upadated later)


This past weekend I skipped my usual trip to the gym with the rest of fight club group and met my old co-teacher Mrs. Jeong (aka Korean Mom). She has a weekly meeting with a group of her friends and they practice English and she invited me to come along. I figured I would be around a group of older women teachers for the day, but I would deal with it.

I was surprised that the group was very mixed across the board. True, most of them were teachers, but it was made up of both men and women and the ages varied. They all come from different walks of life and from different jobs.The group meets to read over and discuss different new artiles written in English. The articles range from current events to And Landers. I got to join in and they had questions for me on a few things. It was a good peek into the mind set of Koreans, at least a few opinions. There were a few things discussed that kind of made me wiggle a bit, but nothing I couldn’t handle.



I was really interested in seeing them interact because in the whole time I’ve been here, I’ve rarely had a chance to interact with Koreans in a non school setting. Unlike some of my friends, the teachers at my school rarely interact with me outside of school. My social experience with Koreans in general is very limited so I feel like that's part of the cultural experience I miss out on. The biggest problem is of course the language barrier; I don't speak enough Korean and most Koreans don't have a strong enough handle of over the English language. However, this was not the case for the English Disscussion group. The majority of them speak very good English and can express themsleves very clearly. I can only hope to get a 10th of that in Korean one day.



I think what I enjoyed most about the situation is that everyone was comfortable with each other. Everyone was joking, even making fun of each other. It was a lot of laughs, both for them and me. . One of the most interesting conversations was the one about multi-tasking that led to a men vs. women debate. They also talked about dealing with cultural idea of chivalry. While it’s a deteriorating idea in the west, it still does exist. Here in Korea, it’s a new idea. There is still an idea of “women’s” work and men don’t do things like hold doors for women. I could tell the women like the idea, but they were very unused to it.

I tired not to say too much (however, I’m sure I failed once or twice, particularly about the chivalry disscussion). Still, I got to pick their brains a bit and see what types of lives they lived. In the end, I was invited to come back and I’m considering making it a once a month thing to join them. Mrs. Jeong thought it would be fine.

After everything was over and everyone went home, Mrs. Jeong took me to get dinner. Did I mention the she rocks? Then we went shopping – she needed to buy things for home and I needed food for the next two weeks. I was more than thankful for this because I don’t have a car here and because she drove it meant I could buy a bit more than normal. Trust me; lugging boxes of crap on the subway is not fun.

We got to catch up and she told me about her new school and I told her about my time at Seonam. I can see that being at a high school is changing up her life. I could see that she had lost weight (the woman is tiny as it is!) and she told me that she works longer hours and has to do more preparation. However she seems to like her new homeroom. I told her that she was missed at the school and that a few students had asked me if I liked her or her replacement better. I can also tell she missed her son (who is recently started his required military service). She told me a few times how her home life has changed between her son leaving and her new job. She says that she gets up at 3 or 4 in the morning to do house chores before going to work!!! I even got a little insight from her about the personalities of the other English teachers at my school. Most of it I guessed, but it was interesting to see her perspective on it.

One thing that was not lost on me was seeing her home for the first time. This is the first time I’ve been in someone’s house other than another westerner. By American standards, she has a small apartment good for one or maybe two people. Personally, I thought it was beautiful. She said it was plain, but I thought it was very nice. A nice view of the city and the mountains, good space, and even a nice kitchen. I could tell that she worked hard to keep it clean because when all her guests left when the group meeting was over, she immediately started to clean (She would not let me help despite me trying three times.).

Despite it being a rather low-key day, it’s still one of the more memorable. I'm glad I got to see it because I don't know when I will get such an opportunity again.

Uniform Code

So I figured out the oddball issue with uniforms here.

It's not secert that Korea (and many Asian countries) have uniforms for schools. It's just one of those trademark things here.



Well, when I got here, I found out that many of the uniform companies use pop idols to advertize the uniforms. I find this odd because many of the uniforms used in the adds are always over the top compared to the uniforms the school use.






Now you see the uniforms in the ad here. Now take a look at the uniforms my students have:


Nothing quite so colorful. I'll go out on a limb and say that this is more of the normal look of the typical uniform here in Korea. I've seen a few oddball ones here and there, but most of them look pretty standard. So to me, it seemed like a waste of advertising. Especially when I saw the uniform shops near my friend's house.







I can only imagine telling an American student they had to wear something like that everyday. The riots would be intense. Honestly, we already have issues in America with the very idea of wearing a uniform, much less one that looks like it something out of an anime. But still, the whole thing still confused me until recently. Pointless to have pop stars selling your product when it's an pretty much something you HAVE to have. I mean, the school makes you wear them, right?

Well, sort of.

I asked one of my co-teachers about this the other day when the issue of school dress code came up (more on that another time). When I told her that I figured the school picked out the uniforms, she told me I was mistaken. Apperently, the students vote on the uniforms before the school year starts. In fact, she informed that that this year the uniform changed. . . at least the brand did. The same style uniform was used, but the students decided to change the brand they bought from.

NOW the advertizing makes sense.

Which makes things even more interesting that the government recently banned the practice of using idols to sell uniforms. The reason: rising cost of uniforms. Unifroms can run you between 150,000 - 300,000 won per set (That's anywhere from $100-250 bucks USD). Now consider that kids wear these things every day from 5-6 days a week from Late Feb. to The end of the year. That's a LOT of wear and tear.

However, I feel sorry for the school that has to wear the wild hot pink unifroms. . . ugh.

Take Notes In Class

This is how I know I'm taking the idea of teaching more seriously.

I have a few kids who regularly visit my desk in the teacher's office. At some point during the day, a group of several girls will come hover around and start asking random questions. A few of them speak limited english, the rest either try or relay questions and comments thru their friends.

So one day, two of the girls that happen to be best friends start to explain their nicknames to me. One goes by Mouse and the other by the name Spongebob(When I see them together, I call them MouseBob). So after their giggle-filled explantion, they go off to class. Later in the day, I get a pair of notes from them:





Now of course, this is a cute gesture because I know both girls have limited english skills. I happy if any child shows any level of desire to try to use the language. It's technically what I'm here for afterall.

Now, being the teacher, what did I do?

I copied the notes on paper, corrected them, then gave the corrected versions back to the girls. They were actually happy once I gave them back.

However, what bothered me most is that despite the fact that there is a big name tag on my desk, they still got my name wrong.

It doesn't matter, I keep both notes stuck on my desk. Something I have noticed that the kids take pride in.

. . Try, Try, Again. . . if if that doesn't work; Cut & Paste

I feel sorriest for my Monday students. All last semester I would walk in on Monday with a set of lesson plans and at least one of them would fail miserably. The epic looks of confusion on student's faces would be all the evidence I need that whatever I was teacher or working on would need some serious revision. I each time this happened I would go back to the office (or back home if I didn’t have time) and revised the whole lesson. Sometimes I would trash it and start from scratch.

It looks like this time around I’m going to have the same issues.

Yesterday I had two lessons blow up in my face in a colossal pile of crap. I felt bad because I worked hard on them. I’ve been doing a lot better with my planning (at least I thought I was) and I really wanted to do well. I asked my co-teacher about both of them and the second year teacher, Mrs. Kim, gave me some good ideas to go with. The overall issue it seemed was that I was giving too much information but not explaining it correctly. For me, this is a tough situation because I sometimes feel like my co-teachers don’t always explain what they ask for. I can’t put the blame on them however; I don’t always ask questions. I pledged that this wouldn’t be the case in this semester because I felt I really mailed it in a few times last winter. This time, I asked both my co-teachers for suggestions and I went home and went to work. I even showed them the revisions this morning. Ms. Jeoung (unmarried) explained that I had a lot of good information, but it was too much.

I ended up cutting things down and revising my power points. It cost me some sleep, but I was much happier with the results. The students seemed to pay attention and at least understand the basics of what I said. I realize many of them don’t really care either way, but if I get the majority of their attention then I can’t complain.

I have to admit, I feel that sometimes my lesson plans are the result of my ambition combined with frustration. I sometimes assume the level for my students is way higher than it actually is. Ms. Jeoung tends to tell me to keep in mind that the students don’t know as much as I think they do. SOME do, but I often take for ranted the things a lot of things implied that someone who is native would understand. The frustration is a combination of my impatience along with laziness. If I get caught under the gun, I don’t out as much effort into the work. It results in some rather poor lesson work. As I said before, I’m working on it all this time. I’m still learning a lot about what to do and how to do it.

Brand New (School) Day: Remember To Set Your Alarm!!!

I had a lot going on recently: Brian’s in-and-out visit, Andrew coming into town, heading up to Seoul with Kathy, trying to go to Busan at some point.

But the biggest thing is that school started this week.

I tried to mentally prepare myself for going back to school. After two months of little (English camps) to no (sitting in my apartment) work, I had to face up to going in and starting up with attempting to get Korean kids to pay attention in class. No easy task when it has no true standing on their grades. I’ll admit I missed working and having something to do, but I’ve thought about a few things I wanted to do in order to make things easier on me.

However, being nearly two hours late is not the way to start things for the new semester.

That’s right, folks. Yours truly had the most epic of screw ups the first day of school. After thinking that I set the alarm the previous evening, I forgot to actually CLICK the switch on the clock to activate alarm. The ending result: me running into school around 9:45 instead of 8:10 like I had planned.

Thankfully, I had taken a shower the night before so I didn’t have to do that. But I skipped breakfast and rush over to the school. I figured that I would have to deal with odd ass stares when I walk in the office, the regular teachers knowing I was late. While I’ve been here I’ve NEVER been late for school. I didn’t count on that this particular morning the school would have Opening Ceremonies for the new school year. As I walked into the school gates, I could see over 500 students along with all the teachers and staff standing outside the school. EVERYONE could see I was late and I could hear the kids saying my name as I walked by.

At that point, I couldn’t say anything. I just took my bag up to the office, came back down and got in line. Stood there as the principal gave a speech. . . I’m assuming it was aimed mostly at the new students. I have to guess or assume because I had no idea what was said. That’s how these functions and meetings go. I sit there and have no clue as to what’s being said. So I often entertain myself by looking around and observing things. The main thing I noticed this time around is that the opening of the school reminded me of Hogwarts only no cool robes, magic or sorting hat. All the kids were lined up in neat rows and sectioned off by their grade level. The watched as all the old first years and second years became the upperclassmen to a group of scared looking kids in street clothes. All the kids in the middle section were former 6th graders from elementary schools. They didn’t have to wear uniforms at their old schools and now they had to be in an extremely rigid world. This is where they had to get serious about school if they wanted to have a fighting chance in life in this country. Middle school makes or breaks you almost for life here, and the new kids looked appropriately scared. There was a point during the ceremony where the younger kids have to bow to both sets of upperclassmen and in return the upperclassmen nod to them in acceptance. I found the ritual of the whole thing so unique than what’s done back home in the states.

When it was all over, I went to the office. I had to end up hunting down information about my schedule and I finally found out what I needed to start doing for the new school year. Once I met the new English teacher, it really sunk in the Mrs. Jeoung, my old co-teacher, was gone. I had known all along that she wouldn’t be here this semester, but she was such a HUGE part of my life here at my school. I never connected with my other co-teachers like I did her and it’s going to be so evident this time. I have to be way more independent now, and that’s not the biggest thing. I’m going to miss her presence around here. Flat out the woman is a good teacher and students did like her a lot. I don’t need to know Korean to see that. She kept my classes in order and things ran smoothly. I rarely had classes that got bad when she was in them. On a personal note, she was the one person I could talk to on a regular basis and she by far knew the most about me. It may not seem like much, but when you sit in a room full of people everyday and you honestly can’t talk to them because of language issues, you notice when things change. That will be the toughest change to deal with.

Still, I’m looking forward to this. I think the classes will not be as tough to deal with because I have a better idea what to do and how to plan things out. Oh there will be problems. . . . no question. The first thing with the students is that 1/3 of the school population doesn’t know anything about me. The older kids have seen me, they are used to me and at least know who I am. Even if they don’t speak to me that much, they at least aren’t freaked out by my presence. But yesterday when I walked down the 1st year’s hall, the kids all started freaking out as if I had grown horns and started breathing fire. That part will go away, but it’s going to get on my nerves a bit.

But one thing is for sure. I'm going to remember to set my alarm!!!