Knowing very well that a 3 month vacation was in the horizon, I made my last term the best I could. I ended up having the best classes I've ever taught. Best is very subjective because every teacher has different approaches, styles, and personalities. I am the type to do all the exercises, but keep discussion as the main focus full of jokes and sarcasm. I probably showed a movie trailer in every class because movies appeal to young people creating interest in often times very dull subjects; health care, trash disposal, or sand storms. I also like to have running themes to create "inside jokes" within each class. My first Bridge Elementary class, our topic was about phobias. Our discussion led to my fear of Stephen King's "It". These children were probably born after 1990, and had no idea about this movie. They all tried to look it up, and couldn't find it. Of course this discussion led to nightmares, which led to all things gross and horrible. Thus brought on the idea of the "Shadiyah Milkshake"; the running theme of our class. I told other classes about my fear of the clown in "It". Many classes would look up Youtube clips of the movie during break time and imitate the clown. This would translate into the critical thinking projects. In the end, my classes were not only comfortable with my teaching style, but knew how to joke, yet keep on track with the lessons.
If you ask me, my favorite students to teach are middle school students. Not to say, I don't enjoy the elementary level, but there just seems to be something challenging about those shy and apathetic junior high students that I want to break. Luckily, I broke through these "too-cool" students, by making them act during the critical thinking project. To do this, I acted a lot myself. By the end of the term, I got these students to "swim" in the coral reefs for a lesson on how to protect the coral reefs. They had to show what to do and not do when taking a tour of the coral reefs. One female student actually pretended to pee on them! On another occasion, we had a debate about slavery in the United States. The most hard-working boy and girl were paired together to prosecute slavery and the two most slacking students were on the pro-slavery side. Funny enough, the lazy students who played around during the brainstorming part ended up with the better arguments for slavery. They argued that slavery was necessary at the time to boost the US economy and that it provided many slaves with better opportunities for education and jobs then and now. The smarties were stunned and couldn't come up with anything but the tired argument of human rights. It's sad, but true.
Having a successful term cannot be all attributed to myself or the students participation. Much of my success has to be attributed to the classroom I had. I was lucky enough to have the best classroom everyday. It had a TV attached to the computer so I could show all those movie clips. My only high-level elementary class actually used the TV to show the Earth as round in a project. The lesson that day was about religion vs. science in Copoernicus and Galileo's time. The students pretended that Galileo had been called by the "future" and was told the Earth was round. Then, they prosecuted the Pope rather than prosecuted themselves by the Catholic Church as history has told. Another class used the TV to promote a commercial of Samsung investing in Africa to expand business opportunities. One students pretended to be an African and poo in the field because they think Africans don't know better. They wanted to have Samsung invest in toilets in Africa. I can't even describe the uproar in the classroom when the girl squatted and made grunting noises. That day, I actually had a new instructor watching my class for ideas. Yikes!
At the end of the term, I always take photos of each of my classes. Who knows how long my teaching career will last in Korea, but I want to keep these memories so I can reflect back knowing I made a good decision out of university. So far, it's been the right one.
Bridge Listening Elementary Monday & Friday 4pm
The "Shadiyah Milkshake" Groups
Birdie Reading Elementary Tuesday & Wednesday 4pm
The Samsung Africa Toilet Group
Eagle Listening Elementary Thursday 4pm
The Galileo Group
Eagle Listening Middle School Tuesday, Thursday & Friday 7pm
The Coral Reef Groups
Birdie Reading Elementary Tuesday 4pm
Funny project where a student dressed as a tarot card reader to help students predict the future about both personal (Will I marry a pretty girl?) & environmental affects (Like the movie 2012).
Eagle Listening Elementary Thursday 4pm
Students dressed as malfunctioning robots for a lesson involving humanoid robots
At the end of the 13 weeks, we usually have a class party. This term our branch decided to do something different. Our FM Marc found The Fun Theory. It is a VW sponsored worldwide competition for people to come up with fun ideas that change the world. We pushed their interest by giving the day's winner a pizza party. We also told them the 1st place world wide prize was 2500 British pounds.
The Piano Stairs
http://www.thefuntheory.com/
These two classes had very creative ideas. The first picture shows a class demonstrating "The Shape Run". It is an outdoor track with light up squares on the track. At the top of the track is a screen that will display a shape. Runners will run to the shape when they see it on the screen. Winners will get a card with discounts for heathy food at local groceries. The second picture shows a class demonstrating "Whack the Trash". It is machine where people will throw away bottles, cans, and trash. Only cans and bottles will pop up for the person to whack. This makes throwing away trash more fun.
I've never been more proud of my classes than this term. I had a blast teaching them and helping them come up with interesting project ideas. I hope that I will not only see them in the Spring term when I come back from vacation, but also teach them again.
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