Two Days Down

Got my first day under my belt and one more to boot.
Forget about anything you heard about Asian students being respectful and wanting to learn. Don't know who made that up, but they were just like any other students, except worse, because they can all speak in code and "teacher" won't understand. The boys in particular were crazy and hard to control.

Back to the respect thing, there is a lot of it here, like you have to bow to everyone, especially the older ones and say a polite form of greeting. The have a big chain of command that governs how they act (and speak for that matter - the verb endings all change depending on who you're talking to) The Confucian "five relationships" are still a big part of society. (Ruler and subject, Father and son, Husband and wife, Oldest son and younger brothers, and Friends (elders, and juniors)). I read about all this before which was helpful in understanding it.

I think cause we're foreign we don't fit into their chain of respect. They definitely don't act the same around the Korean Teachers as they do around us. Its the same at the store too, the guy who pushes his way in front of you doesn't think anything of it, but if you were introduced and he knew your name, he wouldn't even think of it. But as it is you don't fit into his hierarchy. Similarily, I think the kids don't know what to do with us. But anyway, back to the classroom

I found the first day very tiring. The kids, especially the boys, were loud and hard to control. I already named one student Evil Jack. The fact that you don't speak Korean makes the job much harder too. They can say whatever they want and you can't understand. Most of them don't seem to want to be there either. I think there's a lot of parents wanting their kids to succeed and enrolling them in English. So, most of them seem to be reluctant learners too, which makes things difficult. If they get too bad I just get one of the Koreans to come in and yell at them. :)

Day two was better than day one, and I think day three should be better as well. So far I've taught 6 classes a day, Classes are 40 minutes. I have between 1 and 10 students. Today I teach 7 classes ( I teach an adult one in the evening) and tommorow I teach 8.

The Dark Knight comes out in Korea today, so we are going to the Midnight showing....Kyle is super pumped!