Junggye Spring 2010: Last Term Remembered

I hadn't envisioned this day so soon.  The day that I am done with Chungdahm forever, yet unemployed.  Actually, I never imagined being in Korea for more than a year.  I came here in August 2008 with ambition to teach Korean students for one year and then go travel around South East Asia more.  It's really incredible looking back at my time spent here never regretting one moment of it.

Here are my Monday Eagle Listening Middle School girls.  This was the first time I ever taught an entire class of girls.  I actually had one boy on the first day, but he transfered out unpreppared to be the single male in class.  Nevertheless, me and the girls had a blast this term.  We could be ourselves uninhibited by any judgement.  They had the best critical thinking projects with multiple scenes and complex characters.  They would really get into their characters like this was acting class.  This class was so open.  We expressed everything from stress, to pressure, to boys.  I'm going to miss these girls so much!

This is my Tuesday Eagle Listening Middle School class.  This class was a nice parallel to my Monday girls since this group was mixed boys and girls and were all new 7th graders.  They were the top dogs in elementary level, but now are the fresh fish of middle school.  They didn't know how to deal with the pressure, so many times they would be silent.  I wouldn't take this.  Fortunately, I taught some of these students in elementary level and so I brought out their rambunctiousness out and downplayed all the pressure of middle school.  I made sure they remembered that they were just students neither classified by grade or social standing.  We were goofy, silly, and had fun during class.  It was great because they still felt that middle school pressure so I whenever I teased them, it was easy and I was still the top dog of the class, as the teacher should be.

For our last day of class, we played Kings, a drinking game I used to play in university.  However, this is an educational setting so I changed the "drinking" to points.  Whoever had the most points at the end was the loser.  This particular class decided that the loser would be squirted by a water gun.  Here's how to play:  Arrange all cards in a circle.  Everyone sits around the circle of cards and picks one after the other.  Each card is a game.

A: Say something nice about our class (No loser points)

2: You (Picker gets to choose anyone to get a point)

3: Me (Picket gets the point)

4: Floor (Last to touch the floor is the loser)

5: Jives/ Sing a song (Last to sing your song is the loser)

6: Moose Master (Last to put their hands up to their head like a moose is the loser.  Whoever picked 6 can put up the moose antlers whenever he or she desires.

7: Heaven (Last to point to the sky is the loser)

8: Pick a Date (Whoever you pick gets a point everytime you do)

9: Rhyme (Whoever can't rhyme your English word is the loser)

10: Categories

J: Make a Rule

Q: Questions (Point and ask a question.  Must answer with a question. Whoever answers or pauses is the loser)

K: Baskin Robbins 31 (Go around the circle counting to 31.  Can say one, two or three subsequent numbers)  If 31 lands on you, you are the loser.

Surprisingly enough, this game was a blast.  I'm afraid one day these kids are going to be in university and someone's gonna say, let's play Kings.  And my kids will be like I played this in academy when I was young. Eesh!

The missing picture is my hell class Thursday Birdie Listening Middle School.  I am so done with this class that I didn't even ask to take their picture.  They made my term the worst term ever.  I've never had to stop class so much to tell them to stop speaking Korea.  There were so many times that I had to lecture them about doing their homework and stop wasting my time and their parents' money.  This was the class that every instructor avoids.  These kids had been in Birdie level for more than a year.  That's pretty sad when most students at Chungdahm level up each term or every other term.  They had seen the same books so many times that they stopped buying books and just brought in photocopies.  To make it worst, there were 14 of them when most classes are 9-12.  Two of the students are really good at English and have probably spent time abroad, yet they speak the most Korean.  When I singled them out, they act like angels and pretend they are interested in today's topic.  Pebbles in my shoe!  I am so glad to be done with this class.

This is my Friday Birdie Listening Middle School Class.  This is us playing Kings and enjoying hot cocoa together on our last day of class.  Thankfully, this class was bright, alert, and fun.  They were the ideal class to end my week.  This was the first time I taught all 9th graders.  They are the oldest students at Chungdahm about to get into highschool.  They were past being too cool and disrespecting people.  They were actually very chill and made for great conversation.  I will never forget their love for McDonalds and how every project was centered around McDonalds.

I only had two elementary level classes.  This one is my Monday/Friday Memory Tera Elementary class.  This class began and ended my week.  Unfortunately, they were bittersweet.  We began together on a very rough note.  They came from teachers who let them do what they want or teachers who were boring making them boring.  It was a tough class to mold.  They spoke a lot of Korean, played with their cell phones a lot, and made fun of the fat kid in class.  I have written about this class in previous entries, but the thing to remember is that we ended up cohesive and more respectful than before.  The boring girls warmed up and the bad kids ie Jaden shaped up and even started winning every project.  He also discovered how much he loves to make webzines from his winning project.  This was incredible considering he began as a rowdy kid who broke a desk in the first week of class!  Although, they were much better than before, they were probably my worst elementary school class.  I hope I shaped them up enough for their next teacher.  *They were fighting, yelling, and hitting before this picture was taken.

This was my favorite elementary class ever!  This is my Tuesday/Thursday Memory Giga Elementary class.  Thankfully they made the middle of the week not just bearable, but fun.  They were all either 4th or 5th graders who had class together in Mega so they were all friends.  They loved joking around, but were very sharp smart students.  I taught them so much about annotating, taking speedy listening notes, and not being so serious like my other elementary class.  They would take concepts from past readings and incorporate them into their projects.  We read about mummies once and every project thereafter had mummies and an afterlife.  I found one girl who shares my love of pulling on her ears.  I noticed she had big earlobes and asked if she liked to pull on them.  She did!  I used to do this too.  We both have big earlobes.  Haha!  She wrote me a letter on our last day together saying I taught her a lot and she loved my games and jokes.  One kid always erased my instructions to study before the test.  He would write, "Don't study!  Bad duck!"  They thought bad duck was an insult.  Adoreable!  They were my youngest class and the cutest class I ever taught.  They all levelled up!  Only one student did not.  On the day they found out if they levelled up or not, Jen came up to me saying she didn't want to.  I thought this was strange because all students want to advance.  She found out she didn't and was excited.  She said I'm going to be the best student in Giga next term.  I wanted to hug her right there.  I'm going to miss this kids so much!

My last day of class was on Friday May 28th.  I've been at Chungdahm Junggye Branch since August 2008.  I've had so many good memories of fun co-workers and great classes.  I've also been cheated out of bonuses and have had disrespectful students.  Through all the good and bad, I've had such a memorable experience here and in Korea.  I know I'm going to miss teaching.  I've already looked on Cross Cafe to see if my students made an webzines, although the term is over.  On Tuesday, I went to clean out my locker, but my real intention was to go see my former Giga now Tera kids (pic above).  They were so excited to see me asking for my email address.  The entire term, I was waiting for the day I'd be finished with it.  Now, I'm enjoying unemployment till I move to Australia June 15th, but I still wonder how my kids are doing.  All my work friends started the new term just the next Monday after mine ended and it makes me miss the first week of school introducing each other and gauging who will be the good ones and the bad ones.  I ask them if they have my former students and I give them the run-down about them.  I realize I got to know these kids so well and I will miss those relationships.  In the end, I know this is the right decision for me at this time.  My teaching days are over in Korea, but I foresee myself teaching again in the future.