Student surveys and gifts

Wow. My life has been exceptionally boring these last few weeks. Since Christmas, I've just kind of been not motivated to do anything. I need to get back on top of things. That's why this weekend I will at least head over to Myeoungdoung to shop or something that involves taking fun pictures. It's too cold to really go do the palace and temple tours.

Did I mention it snowed? Yeah. Cold, wet, and slippery sidewalks. Ick.

Even if life has been really boring, I feel bad for not updating.

This last week I received my teacher ranking. I suppose that is pretty exciting. The way they rank teachers is a little bit different here. In the U.S. they base how well a teacher is doing with experience, administrative observation as well as student performance on state tests. However, as far as I could tell, most schools don't have a seriously set rank for their teachers. I'm sure some of my relatives in the educational field will correct me if I'm wrong. :)

In Chung Dahm (the school I work for), they have 38 teachers and each teacher gets a rank number. Our rank as a teacher is greatly based on the student surveys and our retention rate as well as compliance and other observations made by our supervisors. None of our ranking is based on anyone EVER observing our class. While they do watch CCTV's of our lessons, they do not take such observations into account for our ranking.

I agree that student retention (how many students choose not to drop out of Chung Dahm while in your class) and what students think of their your teaching should play a part of our ranking. It is, after all, a business. Chung Dahm doesn't want teachers that don't know how to make students want to stay with the program. If students don't like the teachers then they won't stay at the academy thus taking away the money they pay for tuition and books. Chung Dahm needs teachers who can change their style to fit the attitude of the students they are teaching.

However, kids will be kids and sometimes they are not completely honest in their surveys, saying mean things just because they hate coming to academy no matter how good of a teacher they have. That being said, I wish that CCTV's (or observations of teaching methods) would play a part in the ranking system.

And so for my first term teaching at Chung Dahm I got placed 12 out of 38 teachers based solely on student surveys. I feel that's pretty decent after my first term here. I had some technical difficulties at the beginning of the term figuring out the grade input system (oops) so my "compliance score" and other unspecified factors took me down to 24 overall. I still feel pretty good about it. It's only my first term so that's not too bad. My goal is to be even better at the end of this term.

Aja! Aja! FIGHTING!!

Also last week I got my first gift from a student. It was too cute. I mean, I get food from my kids all the time. The take out snacks during the breaks and I usually end up with a small meal during my elementary classes. Last week, though, one of my girls, Sophia Kim, gave me a little metal bookmark of a crown. She made me a card and everything. That girl is adorable. She is this terms Helen. I wish all my classes were elementary.

Last week I also decided to never doodle on my notes during school. EVER. One of the kids saw my doodling and now all the girls want princess drawings. "Draw a dog!" "Can you draw me Hello Kitty?" "Me next!" I told them today that I will make something to give everyone on the last class of the term. Now I need to draw something and then figure out how to make photo prints at E-Mart or Costco (because, really, I am NOT hand drawing each of my elementary kids a picture).

A few things to look forward to in the next few weeks: Lunar New Year is coming in a few weeks; the first week of February, if I'm not mistaken. I believe we get some time off for that. I've heard at least days so let's keep the fingers crossed! I'd like to go do something for that if I can. Where else can I celebrate the Korean Lunar New Year? I will also be going to see a Broadway play on the 29th: the Korean cast of Jekyl and Hyde. It should be fun seeing the show in Korean.