Yeo-eun has been my student for more than 6 months. I think more like approaching a year, now.
We were preparing a debate scheme last night. Because it is a very small class, I had allowed all the students to form a single team, and I would "be" the other team, by myself. I wrote out the debate scheme on the whiteboard, and beside my CON team speeches, I wrote my name.
With utter sincerity, Yeo-eun asked, "Teacher! Who is Jared?"
The other students laughed.
"You don't know?"
She shook her head, clearly having no clue.
We've even had extensive in-class discussions about my name, and about cultural differences in the way students address their teachers or other adults. I have explained that in fact, from my casual American perspective, addressing me as "Teacher!" is less polite than, say, using my name. Some students even have sometimes tried out the awkward "Mr Way." But the use of "Teacher!" to address one's teacher is culturally in-grained: it's just a simple direct translation of "선생님" [seon-saeng-nim], which is completely universal. Many students never bother to learn their teachers' names, as they're not allowed, culturally, to use them.
Yeo-eun had decided knowing my name was unimportant information, and had purged it from her brain.
[daily log: walking, 7km]