The path beside the Tancheon River which I take to school every morning. this was a particularly clear day. (I have seen two since my arrival.)
The change is within me. I go along with the suggestion that personality is a fluid thing, no matter how frequently I strive to appear consistent. The part of me that felt a strong Korean pulse two weeks ago is on leave. Consequently I am dreaming of other places that have a soul that speaks straight back to mine, whilst living in a land of proud, rigid citizens, who make for truly awful pedestrians. Yes, as my friend West has stated, "for a nation of people whose primary mode of transportation is walking, they're not very good at it!!!" It's the old people, mostly. They get on a line on the path down by the river, and they are not moving. You are. Or you will land in the river and get carried away to the Hangang and Seoul itself.
The school yard and school building. Each lunchtime, this yard fills with 700 screaming Korean kiddies.
I can excuse this behaviour to an extent: space is a luxury here, and Koreans are so used to being shoulder to shoulder with each other that minor bumps on public transport or in markets (or by the river) doesn't even warrant an apology. Consequently they're not used to moving for you. Trains during peak hour are like those images you've seen of Tokyo. No one talks yet they communicate somehow. The old shuffle and nod. Men fall asleep and dribble on you. Women hold their handbags against their arses as they exit the subway so their meagre skirts don't treat the younger men, also dribbling, to a free show of Korean panties. There is no chewing gum and absolutely no graffiti. Trains always stop at precisely the same spot and run every 3 minutes apart during peak hour. I've never run for a train over here. The government combats the growing problem of youth suicide at subway stations by constructing massive transparent screens with sliding doors that correspond exactly to the doors of the arriving train. If you want to kill yourself, you'll have to go elsewhere.
My eye was just captured by vision of a young couple fighting in an apartment across from my window. She got so worked up that her loose-fitting shirt nearly fell down. Talking about free shows... Regardless, I cannot look indiscreetly now: my blinds are open and lights are on. Ah, now they've closed their blinds and will conduct their Korean imperfections the usual way: out of sight of the foreigner. I have heard stories of guys fighting like polecats in an alleyway, only to stop and grin as the foreigner suddenly comes into view. Everything is perfect here you see. Divorce happens though. Or people don't get married. Or God forbid, they are homosexual. There are just a number of standardised fictions to explain these situations without having to face them. I wonder how many Koreans know that it is futile to try to set my Korean co-teacher up with anyone because she is already in a relationship with a man 15 years her senior? She keeps it silent because she doesn't want to marry him. I wonder if he knows that? I hope so.
The view from my staffroom.
The fiction I particularly can't stand is the one about Korean students being amongst the most respectful young learners in the world. We were told this before we arrived here and I can only assume it was made up to encourage us to sign up. I don't think a Korean student will call me names or hit me or challenge me unless it is about the material, but the endless talking amongst each other, the fighting and the general unruliness of my little mites is highly disrespectful in the classroom. I am currently struggling with the question of how much control I want to exercise over them. I know I can introduce routines and act like the successful Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop, once he'd imposed the self-regulating system on his class, but my instinct, which was to go with treating the students as if they had maturity and to use persuasion, is still the one I use now. My instincts were wrong. Individually, I've got some great kids in my classes, but put together they become a herd, and I am forever herding cats. I approach a table to put out a fire and 6 more break out behind me, Then I've lost the class and I'm telling them to put their hands on their heads. Then I'm explaining how their behaviour is unacceptable. I'm thinking of making this routine into a powerpoint presentation. They love the slideshows, and they rightly assume that computers have greater authority than teachers from strange, non-American countries. In fact there is grumbling in the ranks that my accent is too difficult for the little mites to understand. So it seems as if semester 2 is going to involve:
a) Me using fewer words (bloody words - they interfere with the audio/visual output anyway, who needs them?);
b) More powerpoint slideshows (I didn't actually think this were possible);
c) Less learning (research shows that when students are learning their teachers aren't perceived as being cool);
d) Less English (the students already know it anyway: they just pick out the keyword and shout it over and over. And over.
Anyway, this is my view, from the pulpit:
The classes I take usually have 35 students each. Capturing the attention of these little mites for 40 minutes at a stretch is a struggle and if I get 2 or 3 more students talking other than the "hagwon" kids (private academies) then I consider it a decent class.
If on the other hand, Audrey Tautou, suspended on angel wings, flies through the window halfway through class and says to me, "Will you follow me?" then I consider all of my lesson objectives to have been met at once.
I go to Thailand in 39 days. Yes. Then it's just a hop skip and jump until the Chuseok holiday. I rather think I can do this.
No comments:
Post a Comment