White Day

Thursday, March 14
Today is White day. White day is like Valentines day. Though in Korea, women buy the men presents on Valentines day, and men buy the women presents on White day. I kind of dig that equality aspect. A women buys men stuff and treat him to dinner, and then a month later he does the same for her. This year though, of course, I am not celebrating it... But it did mean that kids bring candy to school. They also bring candy for the teachers. Needless to say at my desk, I now have a lot of candy. Now that I am getting into the pace of teaching (again) there is not really to much that happens during my days... Especially on days like today when there was no drama in class, nobody cried, and everyone was pretty much on good behavior. I have one class, my last of the day. There are 2 people that do not talk, 2 that talk too much, and one that comes 50% of the time. I am trying to get the ones that do not talk to talk, and the ones that talk too much not to talk. I think one of the problems is that there are 3(sometimes 4) boys and 1 girl. The girl is the most quiet. I think that is partially because she is the lone girl in a class of boys, and there is a semi competition. I think she is shy around them, and is afraid to speak up and get the answers wrong.
I stayed after school again today. One of my students, in my TOEFL class missed Tuesday and missed 80% of my class today. I tried to tell her that I could stay with her after class to catch her up. I was not able to communicate this to her... my coteacher that taught after me talked to her, and she stayed. I actually kept her longer than I was supposed to, and we didn't get through nearly as much information as I was planning on getting through. With classes being only 40 minutes... it is tough to give students the help they need. I have a tight schedule to stick to. It seemed she was starting to get it... I just wish I could have the other students in the class stay later. When we can go into the details why something is like it is, and when the students are interested... that is the rabbit hole we need to go down. I then talked to my co-teacher, and we are going to try to adjust the schedule a little bit so we can make sure the kids learn the info.


Wednesday. March 13.
Not used to the schedule yet. Days are long. I was at work for 12 hours today. Not complaining about that though. The last hour I spent there, I did so on my own accord. The Korean teachers stay to help tutor students that are having a hard time. The foreign teachers do not. Well... I am vested in these kids. I stayed to help some of the kids from one of my classes. I know Hagwons are a business are are more there to make money then actually helping the kids... I say that with all due respect. Many kids are helped through the Hagwon system.  But all of the grades are arbitrary and we cannot fail students. If the kid comes and does no work... oh well. But if a kid stays after, I want to help them. All of the Korean teachers were impressed that I stayed. They told me that foreign teachers almost never stay.
After work, one of my co-teachers walked me to where I had to get my picture taken for our bulletin board. It was the one Korean teacher that I started about the same time with. We share a special bond cause we both observed together and are both going at something in which we have no idea. She was saying that I should look into living with a host family instead of the apartment where I live. Not only would I have more space, but I would get home cooked meals. The tradeoff would be that I would most likely have to help the hosts or their children with English practice. I do not think that would be a bad thing... but after 12 hours of that, going home and doing that too might be a bit trying.
I got home and watched an episode of the west wing.