Yesterday was one of those days when I am thankful for my job.
As I've told people many times, this job (meaning "TEFL in Korea" – in its various incarnations over the last 8 years) is the first job of the many that I've had where I often feel better about the job at the end of the day than at the beginning. Mondays are hard days – I have six classes, strung in a row with no breaks. Several of these Monday classes are in the once-a-week-and-why-am-I-trying-to-teach-these-kids-English category.
As I went to work, I was dreading it. I felt unprepared, so I went to work early. The sky was stunningly blue as is often the case in the Fall in Korea – the only season of the year when that kind of weather is common. But I felt depressed and gloomy, after yet another weekend when I felt like I had achieved none of the personal goals I'd set for myself – as minor as they may be, I still couldn't find the motivation to do them. Clean my desk? Not checked off. Go to the big store to get some supplies? Not checked off. Fix some persistent problems on my blog site? Not checked off. See what I mean?
I was gloomy. I was dreading my six classes.
I went to work, and tried to get organized, figure out my lesson plan for each class – I don't write these down, much anymore, but I always do it mentally, and without it, I go into class feeling a bit desperate. I did this, and even was in my first class 10 minutes early. The students were there and we "hung out" which I always feel is better "English Teaching" than what we do in our textbooks, sometimes, since I always try to interact with my students in English, even at the lowest levels.
The kids surprised me later, when, halfway through the class, I was happy with how they were doing and so I offered to "play a game" for the remaining 20 minutes.
"Teacher, no. Workbook." This set the tone for the day. All my classes showed an unexpected interest in actually learning. Even the advanced class, later in the evening, where they took me up on a similar "play a game" offer that comes when everyone's done well on their homework, they ended up trying to teach me to play a game that I hadn't played before – which is probably much more difficult, from a functional English standpoint, than anything they actually have to do for the class curriculum.
Well, anyway. It was a day that felt like I was teaching English. So walking home, I wasn't as depressed or gloomy.
And that's why I do this job.
[daily log: walking, 7.5km]