New School, New Heathens

It has been over two months since I have written....and I am sure my 7 followers have been itching their feet to get the latest scoop in Korea....;)

So just when I spend a few hours writing a blog about my teaching job, these more than shady and sometimes sneaky Koreans decide to shift me to a new school.

Now I will refrain from the long version as I am sure the details will resemble a bad lifetime movie BUT just to give you a preview of what goes down behind closed opaque windows at english academies I will share a shortened version. 

My director, who I will refer to as Jafar, decided to close down the Kindergarten portion of my school. That meant we only had elementary school and too many teachers. So, one of us had to go...how they decided, I will never know..Jafar posed the new job as an opportunity to teach older kids as I was the "most qualified," however, I am pretty sure it was just a scam to muster up my confidence in hopes I would take the new job without resistance. After speaking with the new school (which Jafar also owns) I decided I did not want to take the new job as I was comfortable with my current environment but thanked them for the "opportunity." Please take note of the quotation marks.

SO, in short, Jafar comes back and basically says, well it is not really an opportunity, you sort of have to. I am not sure who taught our head Korean teachers and Korean directors english but somewhere along the line translation was lost because Koreans (at least the Korean bosses I have dealt with) seem to believe that "choice" and "have to" are synonyms. Strange. Though, after spending four months here, I think they clearly know the difference but have learned to manipulate the language to their advantage. So after endless negotiating, and triumphant assertiveness............. they won and I signed with the new school. Fiesty little things.

I had to head to Seoul for a week of the most intense training of my life. Thinking about this makes me nauseas. One week of hot hot hell. Eight hours in the classroom and countless hours staying up learning english grammar, reading and role-playing classroom scenes. Unfortunately I had left my Xanax in my bathroom cupboard next to the Q-tips. 

I passed, barely. Though I did have to retake the moral conduct test..apparently I think it is okay to come intoxicated to class and that it is okay to accept concert tickets from student's parents...I still am unsure what is wrong with the latter....

So yes, now I am teaching hormonal, homogeneous, well-heeled, heathens about topics such as racism, mars, right to vote, plastic surgery, and dust storms. The pre-teen and teenage boys touch each other in ways (like picking off lint from the zipper area..if you will) that they would be beaten on the playground for back in the states...and the ladies carry around mirror's singing the only 4 pop songs in all of Korea and wear sizes smaller than my pinky toe. I am pretty much entertained for 6 hours a day. But, on a more serious note...they are more stimulating and have the ability to converse in english on a level that ignites conversation far more interesting than "Hello how are you, I'm fine thank you." 

Just recently, the topic in my class was racism, which my homogeneous heathens have no concept of and who can blame them? The only black person they know is Norbert teacher (a 6 foot plus man from Brooklyn) who they refer to as Africa teacher...charming no? But through the thick layers of ignorance and lack of cultural experiences outside their own their is hope that these students do have love in their hearts to accept those that are different. During the class, the students had to break up in groups and design an anti-racism poster. The students drew a white girl and a black boy with the slogan different colors same minds. I was touched by their innovative and perceptive minds to create a powerful poster; especially after they had just learned the word racism for the first time 2.5 hours beforehand. 

So, though the school is set up quite differently, teaching two three hour classes 4:30-10:30, I am able to optimize my day and can go to school with the mindset that I can actually teach these kids something. I can go one step further than teaching english grammar and teach them about issues such as racism, self-esteem, travel, love and culture. I can pick their minds and share a different opinion or view with them as I white twenty something liberal from the east coast. Though Sarah Palin did come up in one of the topics last week and I decided to refrain from any pro-choice speeches because I didn't want mother and father's of daughters calling up my school claiming I am polluting their minds with ideas of birth control and women's rights and choices....

So I will keep you posted as to my new experience. So far my hormonal heathens are quite entertaining though I usually am due for a bevo or 4 after a day's work.