Day: April 29, 2019

I went to work today.
It was the first time since I quit working at Karma last July that I’ve gone to work, or gone into a classroom.
The kindergarten teacher at Craig Elementary was sick. And it seemed like the normal person who does substitute teaching was also sick. She came and gave a bit of orientation, the first hour or so, and then left. And there was a teacher’s aide, who was essentially promoted to be the main teacher, and more or less knew what was going on. And I was the temporary teacher’s aide, along with some other helpers.
Spending 6 hours with kindergarteners is quite a bit of work. And I didn’t really know my way around the school – so it was orientation by fire. Typical in Korea, perhaps less typical in the US, but this is a small town, a small district… so I had actually somewhat assumed this is how it would go.
It was fun. I hope I made a good impression. Actually I feel confident I did fine with the kids – but they’re not the constituency I need to impress, rather, the other teachers. We shall see. I did manage at least to have learned the kids’ names by the end of the day. I felt positive about that. And I solved a three way power struggle between three girls who were fighting over a doll. I think the other teacher was somewhat surprised at my success, there – she had shrugged and said it seemed to be an unsolvable situation and was just intent on keeping them separate.