I have just crested what I consider to be the peak of March Semester 2011 at Imae Elementary. There was a steady build up of nerves to yesterday's "open class" - where teachers from around the area are invited to come and scrutinise our teaching practices during a class chosen by me and Kyung Hee back at the beginning of term. At that time we all agreed that 6-4 had the greatest skill with English, the most desire to speak English in class, and the best behaviour of the grade. So we chose them and locked it into the program, only to spend the next 3 and a half months watching them transform into one of the worst classes on my roster. Such is my influence.
All was well yesterday however. Although no teachers from outside Imae made the arduous 5 minute journey by air conditioned subway car to our school, we did play host to a couple of teachers within the school itself. I derived some satisfaction from having them see that it's me that carries the class and that my co-teacher is essentially, undeserving of the term.
Kyung Hee's "conduct" in the classroom has been a thorn in my side since the term began. It seems that she thinks her role as a co-teacher is to turn up to class and attempt to gain popularity with students. She has little regard for classroom technique, or even for the progress of her students (or lack thereof). She wants, as she explicitly told me after one class a few weeks ago, to be friends with the students. Was this clumsy English? I hoped so. What 50 year old woman wants 6th Graders for friends? I felt she was forgetting her primary role at the school is as a teacher, and also that I would face an increasingly hopeless situation as the year progressed (which seems to happen anyway).
How do you tell someone 20 years your senior how to behave? Tactfully, I think. I began by good humouredly saying I'm not much interested in winning their friendship and requested that she refrain from practices like having private conversations with the kids while I'm attempting to give them instructions. And that I'd also appreciate more support with helping maintain class order. So, she became overzealous in the next class and berated kids for laughing too loudly.
Our partnership is a work in progress. She's otherwise a very optimistic person (the kind that is unwilling to look facts in the face) and wears a carefree attitude (except when the authorities are around, when she shits herself) so I don't much want to be the person that brings her down with my attention to "rules" and "obligations." All changes will be implemented slowly and gently. She clearly tried after that first chat of ours after all. You can't expect to change very much in Korea anyway, and I feel that for your own sake the best thing you can do is attend to your relationships. That would be the Korean view, I believe.
The principal stopped by in our staffroom to congratulate me on the open class by the way. Kyung Hee was shepherding her around, laughing at her jokes and otherwise flattering her like one under the bonds of servitude. As they entered the entire staff stood up. I remained seated, tapping away on Facebook and listening to The Smiths on my mp3 player. Through one earpiece. I was chewing on the other one. I generally don't like sticking out like dog's balls, as I do over here, but sometimes I don't mind it.
Recently I enjoyed a trip to Jeju Island, the moderately-sized "honeymoon isle" off the south coast of Korea. This shot was taken at Andeok Valley, possibly the most peaceful locale in Korea I've yet experienced.
My travel buddy was Victoria, an American lassie teaching English in Busan. We actually met in Beijing at the Chinese Box Hostel. Here, we're enjoying a picnic of gimbap on one of the "black sand" beaches in Jeju. Tori, having lived in Hawaii for a year, assured me it was nothing like the real thing. In her hair she's wearing a mugunghwa - the national flower of Korea.
Lianne and I recently took a tour with the USO (social wing of the American military) to view the DeMilitarizedZone (DMZ). This picture is a panorama of the Joint Security Area where north and south face off against each other. It is the exception to the rule in the DMZ as the rest of it is in fact an area 4km in width. In the middle of this no-man's land, white markers stretch across the Korean peninsula and represent the location of the last hostilities at the signing of the armistice in 1953. The tension is real in this place. When I crossed into North Korea within the UN conference building which straddles the border, our U.S. military guide stated that we needed our passports to return back into the southern side of the room, and hence the free world. His delivery was terrific, and realising that my passport was in the tour bus, my stomach lurched before realising it was a joke they play on every tour. Well played, Private Vang, you utter bastard.
This is the gang whose company I value so much. The night after our DMZ tour, we rented a "pension" in the east of Seoul in some very nice countryside, took provisions of steak, wine and mozzie repellent, and sat around the barbie telling stories about stuff. From right to left is me, then Lianne, then Michael, then Yuta. I don't have much in common with the majority of the foreigners over here, but this lot, they're pure quality.
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