I just finished my second day of teaching and I made it out alive. Okay, it wasn’t that serious but it was tiring. I was exhausted yesterday; I forgot how much energy kids take. I’ve also never had a job where I had to be “on” all day. No time for secretly Im’ing friends, online shopping or just plain slacking on the job. I guess that’s a good thing.
I have to teach roughly 4-6 classes a day depending on the day of the week. When I got here, I found out that I was going to be a kindergarten teacher because one of the teachers had just given her 2 week notice to leave. So, I got switched from middle school to kindergarten. I quickly learned that I would be teaching a “real” kindergarten class when I went through the orientation. I was prepared to teach elementary and middle school kids english after they finished up with their Korean school but the kindergarten program entails teaching english, music, drama, math, phonics, science and art. Korean schools start with first grade so some parents choose to send their kids to english kindergarten school so they can get a head start on learning english. Of course everything always sounds much easier than it actually is so I thought I could do it no problem.
However, the problem lies in teaching kids these subjects when the only english they know how to say is hello. They all know how to sing the ABC song but when you point to say a P in the alphabet, they go, “C”! Another thing that we have to do is give them “english” names. A few of the children are able to grasp the concept of my korean name vs my english name but most of them just stare at you blankly when you call their english name. I can’t have half blame them because if someone just started calling me Han Ming one day, I would look at he/she crazy too. The other teachers tell me that one day they just ”get it” and start to answer to their english name.
They are really cute though and extemely respectful of their elders. They bow to me whenever they have to leave the classrooom to go to the bathroom. But I’ve heard that once they get more comfortable with the teacher, the mischievious side comes out a little in some of them. Today, one little girl was fascinated by my hair. While I was helping one of the students with a word, she kept lifting my hair up and down. I kept trying to tell her no but she would still try and lift it up. I’m sure I am the first black person all of them have seen which breeds curiousity.
So far being a teacher is fun but I’ll have to wait and see if I feel the same way after preparing my 100th lesson plan…
