Friday, April 02, 2004
Teaching
Some days your classes make you want to dance through a field planting flowers, and other days they make you want to crawl through the aforementioned field planting land mines and sending the kids out to plant the flowers.
Today was one of the latter days.
My first class was supposed to be a fifty minute effort though it lasted 40 before I gave up and told the kids it was home time so they could leave. It was either that or go buy a gun and look about for a clock tower.
I have about 15 kids aged 6 years old in the class and none of them speak a word of english. Well a couple of them know "what's your name?" and that is it. Granted it is my job to teach them more, but when they are that young I may as well try finding Osama Bin Laden playing Santa Claus in a strip mall in North Dakota. The chance of success would be roughly equal. Learning a language from a native speaker who is clueless in your own language simply does not work unless you are old enough to have gained some manners and know what the word 'respect' means. From an evil 8 year old who thinks he is the centre of the world these things are hard to come by. I should clarify at this point that all the girls in Korea are darlings and all the boys are satan. Not 100% true but so amazingly close to true that it's not worth breaking from this rule.
So as well as not understanding why a foreigner is in the room, they have no manners, and are quite possibly a wonderful selection of the biggest shits in each of their respective regular classes. You see, I've been teaching in Korea for over three years now, so I know the difference between your average, 'pay a bit of attention, easily distracted kid' and your 'couldn't give a monkeys arse, I'm here to wreak havoc in front of an eager and encouraging audience shit head of a kid'. Most classes of 45 (which is how many there are in a regular primary school in Korea) has about 5 little &^$%$^%'s. Well I have all those kids in this class.
I informed my boss that I would no longer be teaching these little wee darlings any more and after hearing how it went she concurred.
I confiscated practically every item in their possession during the class and rather than behave themselves they set about trying to make sprinting efforts to reclaim these items from my desk. I did manage to get their collective attention for 3.8 seconds at one stage but it was only because I had one of them over my head and was wondering whether to let him down or else do the 'pedigree' to him. For those unfamiliar with wrestling this is the signature move of Triple H where he brings the opponent down to the ground flat on their back from a great height, usually rendering the victim immobile for a considerable period of time. Fortunately for him he wriggled free and clambered to safety.
I should be paid 500 dollars to teach that class and all teachers should be millionaires in less than a year. It is a very rewarding job and it is hell on earth all at the same time.
Fortunately the rest of my classes went ok and I am left nursing a headache and a great sense of relief that it's friday and I can finally give my cold three days to GET THE F**K OUT OF ME (Monday is Arbor Day and a public holiday where Koreans think about planting trees but don't bother and instead watch the few people who did on the 6 o'clock news).
I've been playing enough of the kids games though for the first three weeks of the teaching year and they will meet psychopathically prepared and disciplined teacher very very shortly.
I'm having one of those 'if the world ended right now I couldn't give a shit' moments. Which ties in nicely with the fiery meteor shower reigning down on the city dream I had last night, where I was running around the building screaming, trying to find safety.
Ah there's nothing for it to go and watch k-pop on TV. Now if anything made you want to end the world with your own cold hands, that would be it.
Today was one of the latter days.
My first class was supposed to be a fifty minute effort though it lasted 40 before I gave up and told the kids it was home time so they could leave. It was either that or go buy a gun and look about for a clock tower.
I have about 15 kids aged 6 years old in the class and none of them speak a word of english. Well a couple of them know "what's your name?" and that is it. Granted it is my job to teach them more, but when they are that young I may as well try finding Osama Bin Laden playing Santa Claus in a strip mall in North Dakota. The chance of success would be roughly equal. Learning a language from a native speaker who is clueless in your own language simply does not work unless you are old enough to have gained some manners and know what the word 'respect' means. From an evil 8 year old who thinks he is the centre of the world these things are hard to come by. I should clarify at this point that all the girls in Korea are darlings and all the boys are satan. Not 100% true but so amazingly close to true that it's not worth breaking from this rule.
So as well as not understanding why a foreigner is in the room, they have no manners, and are quite possibly a wonderful selection of the biggest shits in each of their respective regular classes. You see, I've been teaching in Korea for over three years now, so I know the difference between your average, 'pay a bit of attention, easily distracted kid' and your 'couldn't give a monkeys arse, I'm here to wreak havoc in front of an eager and encouraging audience shit head of a kid'. Most classes of 45 (which is how many there are in a regular primary school in Korea) has about 5 little &^$%$^%'s. Well I have all those kids in this class.
I informed my boss that I would no longer be teaching these little wee darlings any more and after hearing how it went she concurred.
I confiscated practically every item in their possession during the class and rather than behave themselves they set about trying to make sprinting efforts to reclaim these items from my desk. I did manage to get their collective attention for 3.8 seconds at one stage but it was only because I had one of them over my head and was wondering whether to let him down or else do the 'pedigree' to him. For those unfamiliar with wrestling this is the signature move of Triple H where he brings the opponent down to the ground flat on their back from a great height, usually rendering the victim immobile for a considerable period of time. Fortunately for him he wriggled free and clambered to safety.
I should be paid 500 dollars to teach that class and all teachers should be millionaires in less than a year. It is a very rewarding job and it is hell on earth all at the same time.
Fortunately the rest of my classes went ok and I am left nursing a headache and a great sense of relief that it's friday and I can finally give my cold three days to GET THE F**K OUT OF ME (Monday is Arbor Day and a public holiday where Koreans think about planting trees but don't bother and instead watch the few people who did on the 6 o'clock news).
I've been playing enough of the kids games though for the first three weeks of the teaching year and they will meet psychopathically prepared and disciplined teacher very very shortly.
I'm having one of those 'if the world ended right now I couldn't give a shit' moments. Which ties in nicely with the fiery meteor shower reigning down on the city dream I had last night, where I was running around the building screaming, trying to find safety.
Ah there's nothing for it to go and watch k-pop on TV. Now if anything made you want to end the world with your own cold hands, that would be it.
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