Eric... : Jeju and the next several days.

Saturday July 27-Wed July 31
Where to begin? That is a tough question...I definitely wont be able to recount the day by day action, but will try in a fuzzy sort of way. First off I will say it was a lot of work... not as much as I thought... but just as much as I thought. I know this is a weird statement to make, but it is how I feel. We leave from Gimpo Airport. We have to get there by 9:30 AM on Saturday. We have to be there when the kids start to check in. We are responsible for checking our classes students in. They slowly start to filer into the airport with their parents. We check them in and say hello to the parents. One of Mokdongs students went. Grace. I taught her for a little while, so I knew her. I teach her sister still... Emma from my first grade class. Emma came to the airport and hung all over me. Grace, whom is normally outgoing at ECC was much more shy.
I get all of my students checked in. I was already starting to see who the leaders would be and who more of the outcasts would be. I had 13 students. Most of them were 15, but I had a few 16 year olds and a few 14 year olds. We get through the airport line super quickly. I say line... but that is an overstatement. The line was like 2 people long, then the students. The entire screening process took about 5 minutes. The check us to see who we are. We walk to the x-ray machine. We put our bags on it, take out our laptops and metal from our pockets and walk through. No removal of shoes or belts. So quick, and all of the airport people were friendly. The same process at a US airport would take probably at least 45 minutes. All of our students (52) and teachers made it through check in, in less than 10 minutes. They also had at least 5 counters open to check people.... and it was all spaced far enough apart where you do not feel at all cramped. AMAZING.
We flew in a 767 to Jeju. I do not think I had ever been in a 767. I may have been when I was in first grade and flew to Disney with my family... but I am not sure. We land at Jeju, after an houl long flight. We meet up with our co-teachers. Mine was Kelly (I do not remember her Korean name off the top of my head).. We took a 50 minute bus ride to the KIS campus. KIS is Korea International School. An affiliate of ECC/ We have opening ceremony, we get checked into our rooms (dormitory style- even the teachers shared rooms). We played a game in the gym, which I hosted. The problem was... the air-conditioner was not on. Everyone instantly was covered in sweat. We moved back to the auditorium to play the next game. After that, we went back to the gym for team building/;introductions. I started to see how my ideas about the kids were mostly true. We named our team "Team Shot" The girls wanted "One Shot" and the boys wanted "Team Name" so I asked if we could combine them... and "Team Shot" was born. We made a team poster which had everyones hands, but for me they wanted my feet. So they wanted me to take off my shoes and socks.... I did. I am decent at team building, and I know at critical points, you just have to do it for the kids. Not saying I have any problem going barefoot and having them traced. We went to the classroom just to find out where it was. We broke for the night. We had a teachers meeting then some of us teachers went to the local CU (like a GS) and had several drinks, and brought back some to sip on outside where students could not go. Just a good teacher bonding experience. All of us Foreign teachers got along really well.
Classroom teaching started the next day... At the teacher meeting the night before, I found out that the parents did not pay for the camp. The only thing they payed for was the flight... This helped me shape how I was going to teach. I could shift from forcing the students to do all of the horrible work, and let them have more fun with the work they did and more fun in the classroom. We still would get a the work done. We taught till lunch. We started teaching after lunch till 4:30, then the kids had recreation... This was the only real break we had during the day... and it was only a real break on the first day (all of the others I had to be doing work. Then dinner. Then a fun class. On Sunday it was an Egg Drop. Monday it was a Newspaper Fashion Show, and Tuesday it was the Talent Show.. So that is the teaching aspect of it. Every day it was the same order, just different subjects.
We did subjects that included writing and presenting an introduction, presentations, autobiographies, and debate/ Each of them required far too much writing... My hand would have fallen off if I had to write as much as they did.
Before I talk about my class, I will talk about the youngest class. The youngest class was 11 and 12 year olds. 4th and 5th graders. These kids are the same age as most of our oldest students at ECC. I think the oldest we have is 13, and there are not many of them. But at camp, they were so small compared to all of the other kids. It was funny. Grace at our ECC is one of the bigger and smarter students.... but here she was now one of the smallest and instead of being the top level, she was the lowest. It was so weird to see her like that... But her class, and the kids in that class all loved me. I was not their teacher.... but several of those students just latched onto me. It was so sweet and cute. When I left they told me to come and teach at their school. Grace told me on Thursday that they wanted my phone number. When I was leaving, a few of the kids in that class carried my bags out for me so I wouldn't have to. So sweet. Cindy always smiled, and when she saw a crowd of the students from all of the other classes surrounding me, she would always smile and say Eric Teacher is so popular... which I was. As I have said before, Kids just love me... One of my non-students really stands out for me. Her name was Ally and she was 11. She seemed very much different than all of the others, as if she was in her own world. She would stop to look at things, wander around and seemed to be amazed at everything. She Also preformed in the talent show where she sang. I cant remember the song... but then I asked her who else she liked and said Carly Rae Jepsen and the song Call me Maybe. She sang part of it, on her own with not background music. No fear, no shame, no embarrassment. There was definitely something special about her.
Before I left to go down, I both light up hair bow things for the girls, and light up sunglasses for the boys. When I first met the students at the airport, I was afraid that they may not like them... When I gave them out on Sunday, all were super excited about it. When we did the egg drop Monday night, everyone in the class wore the stuff. and people wore them on and off for the rest of class. It made me happy.
So my class... With the kids being older, the dynamic is definitely different. At first the class was segmented and not quite cliquish, but there were some students in the middle and some students on the outside. To big ones that really stand out for changing... One student, Daniel from the beginning said he did not want to be there. On the first day with the simple introductions, we were talking about what we dont like, and he said ECC. so I told him i would make him my special case. Then there was Julie. Smart. Quiet. During he making of the newspaper clothes for the fashion show, she made a simple top, and then sat down. She said she did not want to make anything else, nor did she want to decorate it. So instead of letting her give up. I start talking to her.... and talking and talking and asking questions and questions... Eventually I wear her down, and she say "Okay! I'll go make something else" She did, and then she won 1 of the 2 crowns for girls at the fashion show.
A lot of my students showed a lot of social improvement. Cindy by the end kept on saying she could not believe what I did. I combined them all into a team, a group, where they all ate together, talked, and had fun together. She said normally that age students is normally apathetic and do not do anything nor participate. But I got them all to. I even got the entire class to participate in the talent show. 6 of the girls danced to a kpop song. All of the boys danced to a Kpop song. The one girl that did not dance (Julie) worked with both teams on the choreography and practice.
The girls danced to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-irnl4c_M8 and I have heard this song way too many times in the last week. But I let them play it during class... During the breaks I let them practice. During my lunch break, I ate and went upstairs to let them practice. The boys supplied background vocals... if you listen for the song, listen for the part that is like ba ba babababa ba ba bababababa and all of the boys made that sound. Instead of the class going and having fun in the gym or relaxing, we worked on this. The boys did the dance from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJIADTwOcs4. Then immediately after that song they did the theme song to Pororo... In class I was playing Korean music as they were writing, and I played Pororo them song... The entire class busted out singing. I told them they should sing it for the talent show. They were going to sing it... When they were trying to learn how to dance the B.A.P. Song they had this video up. http://cafe.naver.com/ssjazzdance/5285. We it was time to start class. So after everyone was sitting down. I started that video and then played the music from Pororo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTQejqacFYM. You can try it... If you start them at the same time... the dance is close to lining up with Pororo... and it was funny. All of they boys, even the some what shy ones all had fun and were excited for it.
I hosted the first game that I talked about, then the paper fashion show, and finally the talent show. I may be being biased, but I think my classes won. I know they videoed it, and I hope I can find it. I would love to share.
The last day, we got to 'explore' Jeju. We sat in a bus. We went to a place called the Glass Castle. It is a glass are museum. Instead of getting to explore and read about the art and the people, we just walked in a line through it. We then went to the Leonardo Da Vinci Museum. It was okay. There was a tour guide for the students.... but after walking through everything, they only had 10 minutes to go through and try all of the hands on stuff. I would love to go back to that museum and read about all of that stuff (I like LdV). We then went to the beach... We got to get in the beautiful water and got to swim for an hour. I think most of the teachers had more fun than the students. I wish we could have spent more time there. We left when more of the kids were starting to venture in. We then went to a horse show. Pretty interesting. It was all in Korean... but the performance was nice. I felt sorry for the horses. We went back to camp, and the teachers got to go to our rooms and relax (or in my case pack and relax). We had the closing ceremony. Kids got awards. It was interesting, during the ceremony, instead of the kids on stage facing the audience, they faced the back of the stage. The person giving out the awards (Manager of KIS) was standing there. It has to do with hierarchy. Everyone faces him. If he were to be anywhere else, his back would be toward people which is disrespectful (because he is important).
We got to have pizza with the students in our classrooms, and then I had to leave, because I had to teach at ECC the next day.
In all it was an amazing experience. Things I definitely would change (work level and schedule) but I think it was successful.
I may post more about it as time goes on... we will see. I may just get some random thoughts. All of the kids were really bright and such a joy to teach. If I find a link to the pictures they took, I will share.

Andy 1, Alex, David, Andy 2, Daniel, Nicholas,Julie, Jenice, Julia, Selina, Stella, Ann, Faline

Classroom

Names for Autobiography

Glass Castle

I did not get the meet Detective Camera unfortunately.

Bowing to thank us for coming.

Da Vinci Museum

All of us teachers found this funnier than the students. We are immature.

LEO

Jeju Beach

Horse Show

Horse Show. The horses look dead, but were trained to lay down like they were dead.

Mine and my fellow Foreign Teachers (Joe's) room

Finally Oprah.... This picture was in a slideshow... The students had to write an Autobiography about her. They decided her name was John Smith, was born in Antartica, became a penguin breeder, got married, moved to Australia, Got divorced because she wanted to be a Kangaroo breeder and her husband wanted to be a garbage man. All the kids knew who she was... the kids were allowed to use their imagination, and that they did. I made this the background picture for my computer, so anytime I just had in on projecting, Oprahs face was looking over the classroom. It was funny. So if there was a slide show going on, and I closed it, all of a sudden there was a giant face on the screen.

Thursday and Friday August 1 and 2.
I am combing these days, because they were pretty much a blur. These were the first two days that I was actually not excited about my job. I had been working since July 22nd with no real time to relax and clear my mind. I was completely mentally and physically exhausted. They were probably my least efficient teaching days too. On Thursday nobody cried in my classes! Everyone was getting back in the swing of things and all of our classes were missing several students.
Korea class was bad. First Angel and Erica did not take the test, they just just circled all a's. I took them to Rachel. She lectured them. Then they came back and tried. I ended up kicking Dylan out of my Korea class. He fell asleep twice. The third time when he did, we were grading tests (each student changes with another). When I found out he did not, I saw there was only 5 minutes left of class. I said something, he responded very disrespectfully so I kicked him out. He was like no no no. Teacher. I said Get out of my class now. but teacher. NOW. teacher teacher. Get out of my class now.. I ended up putting his books in the bookbag, and taking his bookbag with him following to the testing room at ECC. When I walked passed the front desk, Ronnie was standing right there. The girls were happy he was out, and I think Danny was too. He is a smart student but has a bad attitude often. When I was leaving, Ronnie brought him back to class, Dylan bowed and apologized.
I got home, did laundry, then went to sleep. Woke up and went to sleep again.
Friday was a normal Friday except my heart still wasnt into it. Juliet cried (first time in like 3 weeks I think). It was because of colored pencils... All of my classes were still missing students. They day dragged on and on. I felt as if I was just going through the motions and on auto pilot. I tried to have energy and to make it fun, but I think I failed pretty miserably. The kids still seemed happy, but I just was not able to match their energy level like I normally can.
After work, I took a 2 hour nap. All of the teachers were going to have dinner at a place in Bobo... a restaurant downstairs. We had the pork cutlet pizza. 돈까스 (Donkatsu) I think I have spelled the English version different ways... Going from one language to the next is sometimes hard. Anyway it was the pork cutlet with Kimchi on top, then a lot of cheese. Cooked and then cut like pizza. I have had it before, and it is delicious. Basically a fried porkchop with kimchi and cheese.
We had a few drinks outside of the GS, but we were not out very late.

Saturday August 3rd.
I woke up far too early, but felt really refreshed. I cleaned my apartment. It is not great, but its not bad either. I have a bit more work to do (I know it is super small) but I really just do not like cleaning. The biggest messes in my apartment are from trash. Taking out the trash is really difficult for me here. Its because as I have talked about before, having to separate it all. I just can't be bothered by it... but I have to be otherwise I could get fined.
Callum said they were going to a soccer match tonight and asked if I wanted to go. I said yes. I was not a big soccer fan in the US, but it is really growing on me. Ama and Sarah decided they were coming too, but they were going to sit with some other people... But we saved them seats, and they came to where we were sitting. We were in the cheering section... I just wish I knew all of the cheers for FC Seoul...
After the game, They were all going to go to Hongdae... I was tired, hot, and soaking wet from the sweat.
I came home, showered, and then continued to type and finish this pretty long entry.