It's been a while since we've updated - partially because we've been busy, but mostly because the internet (or Jay's computer) was being obstinant, leaving my computer as the only one with internet access for about a month. Oh, and also, we're lazy.
So, life in Ilsan. We're now about to finish our second full month of teaching, with all the attendance sheets, daily logs, homework corrections and student evaluations that go with it. I could say there's a lot of paperwork. It would, however, be more accurate to say that there is a lot of paperwork for teachers at any school, but the plethora of useless paperwork at this particular school is quite impressive. We have daily attendance sheets (including the pages covered in every class) that are copied by the Korean women at the front desk, class lists of all our students, monthly curriculum plans that change weekly, and at the end of the month we write evaluations for every student and send it to the parents... But the thing is, only a few of those parents will be able to read the English evaluations. Additionally, since this is a private school and the enrollment of the students is entirely dependent upon the happiness of the parents, we do not ever give poor evaluations. In each category, on a scale of 1-5 (1 being "needs extra help" and 5 being "excellent), we need to consult our co-teachers before ever marking anything below 3 ("good"). Because, clearly if a child is not good at doing his or her homework, it's the teacher's fault and the child should simply go to a different school. Oh well. But it makes me wish I could teach in a school like the ones I went to - if the student is a horrible slacker, rip 'im (or 'er) a new one on the evaluation and the parents will punish the student - not the teacher.
Paperwork aside, we're both pretty pleased with our jobs - we love our Korean co-teachers, with whom we work every day, and like the other foreign teachers a lot, but we work at a separate building and rarely see them. Our students - or the majority thereof - are wonderful kids. The exceptions are thankfully few and far between and can be kept in line - they are easy to frighten into behaving. At least, for me they are. Jay has some sort of nice-guy complex and he won't kick students out of class for speaking Korean or being rude. On the plus side, he'll learn some new Korean words.
A few weeks ago, I decided to change my routine a bit: trading in the tried-and-true method of teaching English through English, I opted for a day of clucking and whistling instead. Actually, I got sick and lost my voice, but it certainly did change things! It was a true test of my kids, as my first class was a bunch of rambunctious seven- and eight-year-olds. Upon seeing that I was unable to talk loudly, they behaved perfectly throughout the lesson, did their workbooks with no arguments or distractions (and without even teasing the slower student, who takes a long time to do her work), sat silently and patiently as I corrected their work, until we could play a review game. I love those kids! I knew they were good, but I never would have imagined how well-behaved and patient they'd be - normally they can't even sit still for one minute.
But even with the older kids and the few "problem" classes, my being unable to speak made talking in Korean (even whispering) an impossibility, so it actually led to more practice of English - and an overall quieter classroom. Hmmm, maybe I should adopt this cluck-whistle-approach more often. Either way, I was impressed with the results. But I am also happy to have my voice back.
On the note of schedules, our classes changed a bit this last month - Jay has 7 ECC (non-kindergarten) classes on Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and another 6 ECC classes on Tuesday-Thursday, plus a kindergarten class of a whopping 2 students. I have 7 classes every day - one set on MWF, and another set on TTH - all at ECC. We're tired, but enjoying it. Now if only they could add a "nap time" class in the middle, it would be perfect. "Hello! Today we're going to learn about nap time. Everyone, say 'nap time'. Good! Now, how do you spell nap time? Good job! Okay, now let me demonstrate. Now, you have to be very quiet for this demonstration..."
Truly, the Korean work ethic is rather ridiculous. Our boss expects us to come in on various Saturdays for seminars/decorating classrooms/going hiking with the parents of the kindergarten kids... Actually, only Jay has to do the last one, as I don't technically teach at the kindergarten. Additionally, as ours is a private school, it doesn't have the kind of summer and winter vacations that schools in the US (or even public schools in Korea) have - there are no vacations that are even a full week in duration. This week was in fact our longest vacation - 4 days off - for Chuseok, the Korean Thanksgiving holiday. As this is the huge vacation of the year, everyone travels at this time - either out of Korea or within Korea to visit family members. Plane tickets are therefore very expensive, so we decided to stay in the Seoul area for the vacation and rest. Yes, we are lame and cheap. But on the plus side, we went hiking to Bukhansan National Park, a mountainous area just north of Seoul.
We woke up around 6AM and took the subway for about 90 minutes to Dobong-san, the station nearest to the beginning of our hike. Finding the trail was easy, as we simply followed the masses of Koreans in hiking gear past the many stalls selling food, backpacks, hats, hiking poles (we paused to buy these), gloves, hiking boots, water, soju, soda, and other random items, past a small temple to a set of various trailheads. We headed towards Jaun-bong peak, and simply followed the signs pointing in that direction at every fork in the trail. As a result of our early start and of our general lack of recent hiking activity, Jay moaned and whined for the first few hours of the hike, insisting upon rest stops every few feet. So, it was a slow climb at the beginning.
Along the way, we certainly had company. Although we knew that hiking is popular in Korea, we didn't expect so many people to be on the trail. This may have been silly, as the park is right next to Seoul, but oh well. Also, the Koreans have their own form of Smokey the Bear. I'm not sure what his name is, but he seems quite popular.
After lunch, the going got a bit tough, as the trail bottlenecked into a very narrow area that was very steep granite - including handrails! I had wondered why some hikers seemed to have rock-climbing gloves on, but I understood why when we reached this point. Jay loved this part, though. Fricking billy goat.
The view from the top would have been more impressive if there weren't so many people on all sides of us. Most of the pictures we took from here are in the Bukhansan gallery.
The way down was thankfully not nearly as steep as the way up, though my knees were hurting. Jay enjoys the downhill portion, though. I wonder how I always manage to hike with people who hate the uphill but love the downhill... Clearly they must all be crazy.
We reached the Mangwolsa temple about halfway down the trail, but didn't go inside, as we were tired and inappropriately dressed for a temple.
At the end of our hike we went through a lovely mini-town in the outskirts of Seoul that was very laid back and reminded us of a combination of Venice, Berkeley, and some city in Austria. We then proceeded to the next subway stop and the 90-minute ride home. All in all it was a lovely day and a wonderful hike, but now we're sore and tired. Maybe we're out of shape? Hmm.
Our classes start up again tomorrow, then we have the weekend, then two more days before our session ends and we have a day off on Wednesday. Hopefully we'll get another chance to go hiking sometime soon before our legs forget how to.
For now, we have to fill out student evaluations again and get ready to go back to work in the morning (and by morning, we mean 2:00 pm). Good night!
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