Korea

Reading back through my old blogs I realized that I really didn't talk a lot about why I was in Korea so much as I talked about what I was thinking about why I was there (As it turns out, a lot of the same stuff I think about in St. Louis: social justice issues, the complexity of language, the nature of friendship, and, erm... Korean boy bands). I also realized despite the fact that I vowed to myself to add more pictures, I actually posted very few. To elucidate my audience on why I was in Korea (I was doing more than just haphazard vlogging, I promise!), I thought I'd post some of my pictures with a little commentary below.

  I left for Korea on September 11th (an auspicious date, no? I flew back on December 7th, another auspicious date, but honestly my flight was so inexpensive, I wasn't about to complain) to begin a three month teaching stint. While I was in Korea, I was both teaching lessons and writing academic papers about the pedagogy behind my lessons, the differences in education between South Korea and the United States, and how globalization should affect my future teaching experience. Despite being busy with teaching and writing a lot of boring papers, I had an extremely tremendous time. I came back in December in order to graduate and begin looking for a job, but I must admit that since I left, I've felt a quiet ache to go back.

I taught at a school called Jun-Dong Elementary. Unfortunately, for the time period I was teaching there the school itself was under construction, so we met temporarily in metal bins.  Honestly, these big metal stackable bins were a lot nicer than a lot of poor urban schools I've been to, which makes me simultaneously angry and depressed, but that is a complicated, wordy topic for another time.

This is my co-teacher for the fourth grade English class (I taught 2-6th grade classes), Eun-hwa. She was entirely sweet, the type of person who you immediately feel comfortable and confiding. I had three other teachers that I worked with, two in the fifth grade and one from my second-grade observation class.

Here's my class! Even now, looking at these grainy little pixelated faces, it's hard to withstand the awwwww-dorableness.

Here are some more pictures of my students (Min Hee and Chae Eun at top, "Ladykiller" aka Min Woo,Chae Eun 2 and me, Tae Jin and Gunho, and You Moon Jung, Sun Chae, and me in the last picture).

I have a very special connection to the boy in the last picture, Sun Chae.  Even though he is Korean Sun Chae has very pale, white skin and naturally red hair. Before I ever came to class, his teacher told him I would mistake him for an American, to which he put his head down on the desk, and, I am told, "Laughed uncontrollably." Even before I got there, Sun Chae was waiting for me to come.

My first week in school, Sun Chae was very shy to talk to me. He would come stand behind my desk, so closely I could feel his breathing. When I turned around to smile at him and say hi, he would run as fast as he could to his desk, blushing with embarrassment. By the second week, he got up enough courage to speak to me--but only in Korean. He would come and show me his work, pointing out details and asking me questions, and I would give him a sad shrug and say one of the only phrases I knew in Korean, "Han gu goh moh tahm nee dah (I don't speak Korean." He would sadly shrug back, finish whatever it was he wanted to say, give a pert bow, and scuttle back to his seat. It wasn't until my third or fourth week before he gave a last-ditch effort to communicate with me by emptying almost his entire English lexicon in one excited burst. As it turns out, it was a good bank of words for connecting with me.

"Teacher," he demanded one day, "Teacher you know Spiderman? Spiderman good!."

"Yes," I practically shouted. "I absolutely love Spiderman! You know Batman?"

"Teacher, Teacher, Spiderman, Batman, Hulk! Justice League! CAPTAIN AMERICA!"

Thus a friendship was sealed.

To end the blog, here's a little video of my girls singing Super Junior's Sorry Sorry