My First Week Teaching

Thus ends my first week on the job.

It's been a fun week. I was able to move into my new apartment Tuesday night. I'm so happy to be in the apartment. The place is a little bit messy right now. I'm all unpacked, though. There's just a few things that I need to get from E-mart (a cross between Wal Mart and J.C. Penny's... Mom would love it) like a laundry basket and a container for socks, maybe get some real groceries. I purchased a bunch of furniture from the previous tenant so I have a futon, a coffee table, a mattress (with foam pad! Actually the foam pad is a "yo" or Korean mattress... many Koreans just use this and roll it up during the day), full length mirror, and a big dresser. He also left me a bunch of household items like pots and pans, drying rack, and a bunch of food (peanut butter!). I got it all for 100,000 won, about $85. Good deal. I'm trying to sell the dresser and get a desk and chair. No hurry, though. I'll bend over my coffee table for now.

I had an adventure buying laundry detergent. I was in serious need of doing some laundry, so I went to the grocery store for some one night. I never realized how many choices we have for laundry detergent until now. Also, it's very difficult to tell the difference between detergent and softener just by looking at the pictures.

Oh, and unless you can read the descriptive words, you can't tell what it is. I looked up different versions of the words for "softener" and "detergent" and I couldn't find anything even resembling the vocabulary I found on any of the packaging. So either I found detergent or dishwasher detergent works just as well as laundry detergent.

As far as the actual job went, it went great! I teach two different classes: Memory and Reading. I only see my reading classes once a week and so I teach the same lesson four times a week. I see my memory classes twice a week and I have two Memory classes. So, in total, I teach six groups of kids with my biggest class containing 12 students and I only have to prep three lessons! It's great. Also, my students are amazing. The middle schoolers are super quiet. Very different from my 7th and 8th graders student teaching! I absolutely LOVE my elementary students.

All of my students are super smart and I am amazed at how well they speak! Sometimes I have a hard time hearing them (got some quiet talkers), but they are able to do things in English that I would have had a hard time doing with the kids I student taught. They work so hard. Let me give you a quick idea of what these kids do in a day.

School starts at about 7:30am and goes until about 2:30, 3pm. After school, they then go to a variety of hogwans which are like specialized after school programs. There are hogwons for everything from music to history, languages to science or even business! They go to various hogwons every night until about 8 or 10pm. Then they go home to do homework until crashing about midnight or 1am (on average students get about 3 hours of homework from school a night along with their hogwon homework). Many students also participate in sports teams and the like. That's Monday through Friday. They also attend school every other Saturday! Saturday and Sunday are also open game for extra hogwon classes.

The Koreans are very driven when it comes to their education system. It's amazing and kind of scary at the same time. I'm rather torn with how I feel about it. On one hand, I love the work ethic that these kids learn at such a young age. It's absolutely amazing how hard working they are. At the same time, such a grueling pace is frightening. I feel bad for them. I mean, I worked hard in school, don't get me wrong, but NOTHING like what is expected of students here.

As far as my own experience teaching them, it has been great. I feel so much more confident with my students than I originally thought I would. I don't have as many classroom management issues as I did during student teaching, and I feel like I really have a handle on the curriculum.

That being said, I heard some great news from my group leader and faculty manager today. My group leader, Sasha told me that my kids LOVE me! She has gotten e-mails and phone calls from parent telling her that their kids love my class and really feel like I care about them and their success. That made me feel so good. I love my students and hearing that they like being in my class made my night.

THEN my faculty manager, Helene, came and told me that not only do my kids love me, but that parents are calling and asking if their student can be transferred into my class!! She said that never before has a new teacher in their first week gotten this much great feedback from parents and students.

Let me say, I was on cloud nine all night. It also helped that my favorite memory class came back for their second night tonight. Love it!

To me, the fact that parents are asking for their kids to get transferred to my class, shows just how INVOLVED these parents are!! I mean, how many parents are so involved in their students schooling that they hear about a new teacher that other students like and then try to get their own child transferred? Wow.

To make a short story long, my first week teaching was great. I feel more confident in my teaching than ever, and I can't help but thinking back to all of my professors back at BYU who helped me learn how to be the teacher I am right here right now.

Don't worry. It's just the first week. I'm sure one of my middle schoolers (or possibly a specific elementary student I am keeping my eyes on) will drive me to distraction in the upcoming weeks and I'll be back on here ranting and raving about insane children. But right now, I'm pretty happy.

I'll try to post pictures and possibly a video tour of my new apartment soon. Love you everyone!