Teaching in Korea - A summary of the first month

A picture of the school courtyard from the 4th floor

So we actually feel like teachers now. It’s been a wild ride jumping into a job where you are immediately just working alone with a bunch of kids. The Korean teachers will sometimes sit in on our lessons to see what we’re doing and also observe the kids (since they’re the ones talking to the parents) but they don’t really do any discipline unless a kid is being reallyyyy bad. And as long as we are following the textbook, we're given a lot of freedom to plan whatever lessons we want.

Cam and I found this "Welcome to Canada" sign pretty funny. Ft. ghosts cause Halloween

Here’s a summary of my realizations the past 4 weeks.

First week of teaching: “wow! This is so rewarding and exciting. It feels really good that the amount of effort you put into work correlates with how much the kids enjoy it and therefore how much you enjoy it!”

Second week of teaching: “okay so there are good days and bad days and some days, nothing goes to plan and one kid is hurt and crying and another kid is being disruptive and loud but that’s okay.”

Third week of teaching: “Alright I hate grading. The grades don’t even matter! This isn’t even real school. It’s just English school after their real school. These grades literally mean nothing for their future and a lot of these kids don’t give a crap about their grades. What is the point?”

Fourth week of teaching: “so between intensives (tutoring two students for 40 minutes before regular class) and meetings with Korean teachers (to talk about each student individually) and making monthlies (detailed outlines of our October schedule), I have very little time to prep. That’s okay, the kids are doing projects! Those will be easy lessons. Just kidding, the kids are goofing off and I am going around discovering nobody read all the project handout or listened to me explain what they’re supposed to do and they are missing half of their project and all the smart kids are done and bored and asking me questions so I am struggling to help the kids who are behind.”

This is the grade 5 classroom which is about half the size of all the other classrooms

Cam and I are still liking the work though. I feel like the work days go by so fast. There’s always so much going on. I struggle a bit with not being able to give the kids more one on one attention. And we only have 10-15 kids per class. I have no idea how my elementary school teachers did it with 20-30 kids per class.

One of the teachers who has been here for a while gave me the advice to look at every day as a completely fresh slate. And that's what I tell myself if I ever end the work day on a sour note. "Tomorrow is a new day."

Most of the classrooms as well as the teachers' office are on the 4th floor