It rained all night Friday and all day Saturday, just what I needed for a quiet weekend at the apartment to read my books, maybe catch a movie on TV, llisten to the rain outside, fix endless pots of tea–and make homemade spaghetti sauce for a few friends to come over for dinner. And that’s just what happened.

I bought a huge stack of classic books from Dover on sale and they had arrived this week. I read Jane Austen’s Sandition–I’m really bummed that she died before she finished it–and have started Charlotte Bronte’s Villette–also her last book. I loved the introduction by Elizabeth Glaspell, a friend of Bronte’s and the author of Cranford, which I just loved. She made Charlotte so real. But that’s all pretty heavy going, so I balanced it with Gone for Good by Harlan Coben that JJ sent me. You need a good mystery when it’s raining, right?

I made a quick trip to the corner grocery in the rain for fresh tomatoes and carrots and mushrooms and cucumbers and onions for the spaghetti sauce. Korea has the best fresh vegetables and fruit, and I was determined not to open a can or jar but do this one from scratch. Besides, I have a pot of basil growing on my windowsill aromatically screaming to be used. Another rainy day prerequisite: the house must smell like home cooking.

I figured out how to download movies from the itunes store and paid all of 99 cents for Junebug, which turned out to be quite good. So spaghetti sauce bubbling, hot tea brewing, and movie watching–all ingredients for a quiet Saturday: mission accomplished.

Dee Ann and Michael came for dinner. Dee Ann brought French bread and ice cream and cookies–perfect. Michael brought his sad tale that he had just been fired and had one week to find a job and a place to live. The situation at his and Dee Anne’s school, Kids Academy, is deplorable with the boss from hell. Three of Michael’s students had quit and gone to another school, so he got fired–but that’s after months of harrassment from the boss lady. This is not an uncommon situation here–impossible demands, withholding pay, not paying health insurance, yelling and screaming at teachers, keeping documents like passports, the list goes on, but it basically stems from administrators don’t administrate, they dictate. It’s all about power and profit. I hear horror stories from other teachers. But while this is not uncommon, neither is my situation of good schools that care about their students, administrators that have backgrounds in education and know how to administrate, pleasant places to teach and, hopefully, for students to learn.

The sauce turned out good–yes, I put sliced cucumbers in the sauce, Koreans cook with them like squash and they’re good, the French bread was fresh, the ice cream a treat, and the cookies were great. It was a good evening.

After much difficulty–I kept hitting the wrong buttons–I have some pictures of the school and my students. I wish I could figure this out to make it easier. Sigh…..

Nancy

I am having so many new experiences here, yet working so much, it’s hard to keep up with the blog. But since I’m using this as my journal of being here, I think I had better get on the ball. I’m going to skip all the stuff I have done in the past few weeks and talk about the place I work and the people I work with.

I am truly blessed in this experience with both. This job is in many ways a teacher’s dream. I have five students who speak some English and are learning more quite quickly. I work with a Korean co-teacher, Kim, who speaks English very well. We work together on planning the lessons, and she is there to work one-on-one with the students when they need help or encouragement or even a little bit of Korean to get them on the right track. But she does much more than that. Whenever I have a harebrained idea of how we might approach something, she takes it and makes it happen. She is quite artistic and laughs at my meager attempts at arts and crafts–as does anyone else who knows me well. Sometimes we lose a little in translation, but we always muddle through. From 2:45-3:50 she teaches the children in Korean. This is one of the things I like about this school. English is expected from 10-2:45, but from then on the children work in Korean–language, reading, writing, and math. So you can see, Kim has her work cut out for her. But the expression on the children’s faces when they no longer have to speak in English tells volumes of how hard they are working too. I, too, want them to have respect for their language, stories, and customs–to be proud of themselves and their country. Sometimes I stay over for a lesson in Korean, which turns out to be very funny since my mouth just rebels at making some of those sounds.

My students are Korean six years old. In Korea, you are one year old when you are born–that time in the womb counts. Then on Jan. 1st, everyone turns one year older. So if you are born on Dec. 31st, on Jan. 1st you are two years old. I know, very confusing, but all of my students were born between April and November of 2004, so they’re really five in American terms. I have to remember that every once in awhile when I raise the bar of expectations for learning and behavior. The exciting thing for me as an educator is that I get to see all that education theory at the ground level. When they work well in groups and then later by themselves, I’m thinking, “Yeah, Vygotsky!” Or when they look for patterns and I see them trying to make sense out of the things we are repeating, I think, “Ah, hah, Piaget!”

The school is on the second floor of a four story building. The bottom floor is a very nice Italian restaurant; above us is a lawyer and a singing instructor; above that is a plastic surgeon. The elevator can mean an interesting mix of people. All the students take the elevator up to the school. The first thing they do each day is to take off their shoes and put on either slippers the school provides or ones they bring from home. I cleaned up a pair of Birkenstocks to wear since the slippers killed my back and legs as I tried to shuffle around in them the whole day.

Nine-thirty to ten, we have kids coming in and snacks. The morning and afternoon snacks here are interesting and I often wonder how American kids would react to them: peeled sweet potato chunks, boiled eggs, fruit and yogurt, fruit pieces, rice balls, cocoa puffs with milk (a favorite), a rice and vegetable/meat porridge, French toast pieces without the syrup or sugar, cheese slices and banana. . .there really is quite a variety and it’s all so healthy.

From 10-12 we do theme, reading, phonics, and our course book. Our workbooks seem to encourage quite a bit of coloring, but Miss Kim and I have found that if we color along with the children, we get a lot of English instruction in as well as the vocabulary we are supposed to be emphasizing with the lessons. So we color as well as write, read, and play games and sing songs.

Lunch is eaten in our rooms. Each child brings his own lunch tray and fork, spoon, and chopsticks to school each day. We scrape them at the end of the meal and they take them home to be washed. The lunch is always delicious: a protein, a vegetable stirfry, kimchi, rice , and soup. I eat with the children and have learned a lot about Korean food from them. Still, one of their favorites is spaghetti, which they love even when it’s served cold!! After lunch they play in the big open room until 1:00. Now that the weather is nice, each class takes turns going to a park to play outside until about 1:15. We have to load up in a van to go, but it’s worth it to see them run as fast as they want and play on the playground equipment.

From 1-1:30 we do writing practice. From 1:30-2:30 we have either science lab, Gabe, art, music, gym, Morphum, Ravensburger, sand, clay, or cooking depending on what day of the week it is. I teach Gabe and science lab for the three classes of six and seven year olds. Linda and Alberto, the other American/Canadian teachers of these classes teach the others, except for sand/clay/cooking which Kim and I do.

Two thirty to two forty-five is snack and sticker and reflection time. Them Kim takes over and I go off to do what teachers do at the end of the day: CRASH!!

From 4-5 we all teach some after school class. Right now I only have Bible Class on Wednesday with three children, but the others have advanced phonics, English for other kindergartners, origami, speech, ballet, piano, art, and music and chant for preschoolers. Many children come after school who don’t go to our school during the day.

My bosses are Erin, Monica, and Hace: Principal, Vice Principal, and Finance and General Manager. I capitalize all of these because these ladies work so hard. This is a private school hoping to make a profit and make a difference in children’s lives at the same time. They are all very experienced in their areas of expertise. I have thoroughly enjoyed knowing and working with these ladies.

That kind of sums it up for a typical day at Spring International Kid’s Academy. I will try to include some labeled pictures to go along with this. Wish me luck!

Nancy