My second-grade student Alisha drew the best gorilla ever. I put a red oval around the creature labelled as "gorilla" in her picture.
She explained that it was a pari-gorilla ("pari" [파리] is Korean for "fly," as in "housefly") .
[daily log: walking, 7km]
I've been feeling a lot of stress, lately. The work cycle is at that typical September peak, as kids start their Fall semester at school, we wrap up the summer special classes, and enrollment starts heading for that hagwon-biz Fall surge. I have month-end writing tests to score, student comments to write, and new student interviews.
Further, there has been a kind of rumbling of parental dissatisfaction with the current state of the curriculum in the youngest cohorts. That means lots of wasted time in incoherent discussions and meetings about curriculum, and the resulting decisions which, inevitably, will not be the ideas I advocated for.
Layered on that is the fact that September 1 is the annual contract renewal date, which always forces me to contemplate, once again, the occasionally Faustian nature of my current, complicated, and unsatisfying relationship with my job, my host country, and the Korean healthcare system. It is easy to begin to wonder if it's all worth it.
Additionally, I was "volunteered" for some extra work, at work – of the least favorite kind, which involves sitting and mucking with a computer trying to transcribe some simply atrocious English conversations: Bad, non-native speakers talking buzzword-filled English to the worst kind of consonant-glottalizing, modal-verb-abusing, corporatese-spewing Britishers with stunningly loud background noises and interruptions. I feel like my willingness to be helpful is being abused, and of course it's hard when the utility of the work at hand seems dubious at best.
I have a hospital appointment coming up, too. I always dread those – anticipating them is much worse than just being there dealing with it. Having moved past the worst of the jaw necrosis problem last Spring, I enjoyed a relatively hospital-free summer after the Big Anniversary Scan in July. So my "just deal with it" reflex is rusty.
All said and done, I feel unhappy.
I am going to Seoul today to bid farewell (version 3.0? 4.0?) to my friend Peter, who is once again returning to the US, this time to start graduate school.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
In my low-level TQ cohort, including second and third grade elementary students, we were practicing a very low-level "interview" format, starting with "What is your name?" Beforehand, I had given them formulaic "frames" where they could fill in their answers, and had helped them fill them in.
Teacher: "What is your favorite color?"
David: "I like yellow."
Teacher: "Why do you like yellow."
David: "I like it because chickens are yellow."
… later…
Teacher: "What is yoru favorite animal?"
David: "I like chickens."
Teacher: "Why do you like chickens?"
David: "I like it because chickens are yellow."
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
Last night we had one of those post-work dinner meetings as is the Korean custom, called 회식 (which is one of the few words where I find the "official" romanization highly dubious as far as implied pronunciation: officially, [hoesik], but what you hear might be better written in English as "hwehshik").
It was unlike most hwehshik of this sort, however, in that it was spontaneous - meaning there was no advance notice. Curt even admitted this, trying to teach me a Korean word which means "spontaneous" but which, as so often occurs, failed to stick in my calcified brain.
I don't really deal well with unexpected demands on my time. I think in general, I can cope with unexpected occurrences – meaning when students do unexpected things in class, or there is a sudden schedule change at work. Indeed, some of my colleagues comment on my seeming equanimity in the face of these kinds of things. But these types of unexpected things occur within the boundaries of my normal working hours. On the other hand, after-work activities infringe on time I perceive as my own. As long as I know they're coming, I don't really have a problem with them – like a pre-work meeting or a morning parent-centered event that we all know is coming, I work them into the calculus of my "work time." But unannounced, I don't deal with them well.
Anyway, this is all to say, I had an unpleasant time, and it was unpleasant from the moment I knew it was happening, 5 minutes after coming out of my last class at 10pm. The after-work dinner is stressful for other reasons, too.
It involves eating. I don't enjoy eating, and I feel self-conscious of this fact, because the people around me make eating and the enjoyment of food such a focus of social interaction. I'm sure I've written before that I don't see this as a specifically Korean trait – it's a universal human characteristic. With my post-surgical, handicapped mouth, with my lack of taste, with my constant struggle to swallow things correctly without devolving into a fit of gagging or choking, eating is task that exists in my mind at about the same level as cleaning my toilet: not at all enjoyable and only to be done because it must.
Furthermore, of course, during these times everyone is babbling on in rapid Korean, and so my sense of shame and failure around my lack of mastery of the language impinges. At work, by nature of the work, I intereact with my students in English. That's my job, and there is no guilt in it. But for socializing in a country where I have lived so long, I feel a moral obligation (not to mention the practical necessity) to do so in Korean – so the fact that it still doesn't come easily feels like a moral failing. I'm letting the people around me down, and my fundamental incompetence is on display.
This morning I feel gloomy and discouraged, because of these things. Perhaps I should do like Grace, and simply refuse to participate – although clearly her reasons for boycotting the hwehshik are different from what mine would be.
In fact, I have always rather liked the concept, abstractly. It seems a strong and useful and important social custom, as a way to build a cohesive social unit out of a group of people who work together. But the way that it challenges me personally, I really doubt if it's useful for my overall mental equilibrium.
[daily log: walking, 7km]
I received some high praise from a first grade elementary student. He wrote, “선생님 잘했죠” [seonsaengnim jalhaetjyo = “teacher did well”]. My heart was warmed.
The note, appearing at the bottom of a quiz paper (at right – you can click to see a larger version of the paper), surprised me – because of his personality, since I have constantly struggled to rein him in even a little bit.
In fact, in terms of behavior, he is a “wild child” – never sitting still, constantly in the faces of other students, always demanding attention. But he’s smart, too, and can sometimes focus really well. I guess he is getting something out of the class, despite appearances.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
I showed some of my students this video and asked them to invent their own useless machine, and write about it.
Some students got the point of it. Others took the concept too earnestly, and used it as an opportunity for social criticism – thus, nuclear weapons are useless machines, for example.
[daily log: walking, 7km]
The Korean word 변태 [byeontae] is translated as "pervert" but I think the meaning is a milder word than the way "pervert" is used in English. Or maybe not. Certainly I have realized it's one of the common insults thrown around between elementary students, and although the kids seem to have some general idea of what semantic field it covers, they don't seem to have much idea as to what a "pervert" actually is. Mostly, they're pretty sheltered.
I was surprised, therefore, yesterday with my youngest cohort (1st and 2nd graders) when one of the girls, Hailey, announced (in Korean) that one of the cartoon characters projected onto the screen of the vocabulary website we were working from in class was a "변태". I don't know what her exact words were, but her meaning was, "Teacher! That man is a byeontae!"
I was surprised. "Why do you say that?" I asked, in English.
Hailey is a sharp kid – she's not fond of speaking English but she's good at guessing what I'm meaning. Confidently, she strode to the front of the class and drew a black arrow on the whiteboard upon which the cartoon was projected, using a black board marker. Here is a picture in which I provide a screenshot of the cartoon in question and have added in Hailey's arrow (a little bit hard to see – it looks like part of the cartoon).
I was speechless. The other kids giggled. I didn't really think the kids had any awareness of that kind of thing. Anyway, I changed the subject. But it was kinda funny, too.
[daily log: walking, 7km]
Student: "Teacher! Where is your hair."
Me: "I lost it. Mostly a long time ago."
Student: "Ohh. … Please! Find it."
Me: "Why?"
Student: "Your head too shiny!"
[daily log: walking, 1km]
My student who goes by Ken had found in the classroom one of my little square pieces of paper that I call my "baby alligators" (picture at right). I use them as points to give to my younger cohorts, which they then exchange for my alligator dollars. I added the extra step because with the younger students, I feel like I get better results by giving smaller-valued points more frequently. So they collect baby alligators during each class, and then exchange them for dollars at the end of the class for the actual dollars, at a rate of 5 baby alligators per dollar.
Ken found the baby alligator and asked about it. I explained this procedure, and he was clever enough to immediately comment that that meant a baby alligator was worth 20 cents. I was pleased with this observation.
"If I give a dollar I get five baby alligators?" he asked, as confirmation.
"Yes," I agreed.
He fished around in his pencil case, and drew out his current collected savings. "Thirty-eight dollars is one hundred ninety baby alligators please."
"Really?" I asked, surprised at this turn of events. "What will you do with them?"
He shrugged. "I don't know."
"Are you sure you want them?"
He nodded.
I opened my laptop and opened the page of baby alligators. I print them in sheets of 49 (7 x 7) baby alligators. I printed 4 sheets to the color printer, and ran out of the classroom to collect them. I brought them back, with a pair of scissors.
We were having some free time at the end of class, since he had finished his monthly speech test, so I cut six alligators out of one of the sheets and gave them to him. "That's one hundred and ninety."
Ken took the scissors and began cutting them up into their little squares. I pestered him about what his plans for them were. He said he had no idea.
"Well, anyway, I guess you're having fun," I commented.
"No." he said, shortly.
I laughed. "Then why are you doing this?" I asked.
He shrugged. After a while cutting up baby alligators, he said, of his own initiative, "This is harder than the speech test."
"Oh really?" I asked, surprised. I think he was joking.
Anyway, he cut up all the baby alligators into little squares (picture at right). I folded an envelope out of a sheet of paper, tacked together with some tape, and gave it to him for storing his baby alligators.
The bell rang and class was over.
I have no idea what he intended to do with his collection.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
I was working with a student the other day on trying to clarify that the pronunciation of the words "square" and "scare" are different. This is not, normally, something Koreans seem to have difficulty with, but for whatever reason, perhaps sheer obstinacy, Giha was unable to make the distinction.
Actually, there is, in fact, a possible, plausible cause for this. In some dialects of contemporary Korean – notably, the southwest (Jeolla), where I lived in 2010-11, and where Giha's family is apparently from – there is a strong tendency to merge [w]-onset diphthongs with their corresponding simple vowels. That is, [wa] and [a] are the same, [wɛ] and [ɛ] are the same, etc. In layman's terms, you might call it "w-dropping." I first noticed this in Yeonggwang, where I lived, because the locals seemed to inevitably pronounce the name of their town "Yeonggang" (i.e. dropping the [w]), and the regional capital's name, Gwangju, became "Gangju."
So if you think about the distinction, in English, between square and scare, the difference is simply the [w]-onset in the vowel of "square" which is missing in "scare": [skwɛɻ] vs [skɛɻ]. So, applying Gwangju dialectical phonotactics, you'd get the same pronunciation for both words.
I really wanted him to get the distinction, however. It was annoying me. For whatever reason, both words appeared in the same exercise we were doing.
So I invented a tongue twister, for which I drew an accompanying illustration. The illustration is lost – I did not capture its ephermeral moment on the whiteboard, so you will have to imagine it. However, the tongue twister is memorable:
That scary square scares that scared square scarily.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
Lately I’ve been teaching some extra classes on TOEFL writing to my middle-schoolers, because they will be taking the “real practice test” next month (that’s not really an oxymoron – it’s a real test offered through the TOEFL creators, ETS, but taken as practice, i.e. the score is unofficial).
The consequence of this, though, is that I spend two or three hours a day evaluating and correcting 300-word essays.
So. Just busy, lately. Unlike the last time I posted about “zen with a red pen,” however, this time it’s entirely my own fault – I made this curriculum.
[daily log: walking, 7km]
My youngest, lowest-level class has one 2nd-grade boy, Semin, who is quite “wild.” Not always in a bad way – he is bright and engaged, but it is impossible for him to sit still, and he only has one volume setting: maximum.
We were learning a song in the class. I had the kids sing through it a few times, but their enthusiasm was disappointing. They kind of mumbled along. So, I turned the volume down on my computer playing the song as background, and told them I wanted them to sing loud – not shyly. Because they’re lowest level, I added in Korean, “큰소리해” [do loud voice], to make sure they’d understood.
Semin got a very serious look on his face, and settled into a pose with his arms crossed on his chest, like a game-show contestant.
“난 준비 되다,” he intoned, in all seriousness. This means, “I am ready.”
I had to laugh. Of course he was ready. And indeed, he shouted the entire song.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
So I'm still sick with this summer flu. I would say the worst has passed but I still feel lousy, and basically did nothing all weekend. The only thing positive I can say about it is that the headaches and discomfort of the flu symptoms have helped me to forget some of my other chronic discomforts. It's a bit like how if you stub your toe and then pinch yourself to distract from the pain.
I really don't want to overuse this here blog thingy as a forum for complaint.
We had a hweshik (business dinner event) Friday night, bidding goodbye to a long-term colleague who is moving on from Karma. Although she is in many respects a very traditional Korean style teacher, she is one of Karma's "old-timers," and I have always respected her professionalism and dedication hugely. It is sad to see her go.
I was a zombie at the dinner, interacting even less than my normally reticent self due to cold medicine and exhaustion.
The weather has been pleasant all weekend – overcast monsoon clouds, with a little bit of rain Saturday. Less hot, anyway. My class at work was cancelled Saturday, but I was already walking there, so I got to take a bit of a walk.
Today is going to be a very long day at work.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
I tend to allow my HS2B cohort to socialize, in Korean, during class, if they’re working on some task, as last night, when I had them writing an essay. This is because they are all very good students, they all do their work, they are all good at focusing when necessary.
At least half the time, their talking is entirely relevant to the task at hand – ideas for their essays, bouncing grammatical or compositional questions off of each other, etc. I think this is quite useful. Given a task, the class can, to some degree, “teach itself.”
I like the class. The additional consequence is that I get to eavesdrop on Korean teenager conversation.
Mostly, it slips past me when they drift off topic, but sometimes I catch something fairly well.
Yeongseo (a girl) had said something to the effect of “He’s cute when he does that,” in reference to something Hongseop (a boy) was doing. Hongseop is sometimes the butt of good-natured joking, just because of his laconic personality. So this was perhaps an unexpected remark on her part.
Immediately in response to Yeongseo’s comment, Hanseam (another girl) quipped, in mock disbelief, 눈 괜찮아? ([nun kwaenhchana?] = are your eyes ok?). This is typical teenage sniping, but it was incredibly humorous in the context. And for whatever reason, I started laughing, which caused Hansaem some embarrassment realizing I was eavesdropping on the conversation.
This morning, I cancelled my hospital appointment, because this cold/flu I have is quite bad, and I don’t really want to have to lie there while they poke around in my mouth when I have a sore throat, congestion, cough, etc.
[daily log: walking, 10km]
I found a stapler on the ledge above the whiteboard in Room 204, way up high and almost hidden. I only noticed it because I was standing at the back of the classroom and happened to look up there. I was so surprised. I said, "Wow. A stapler!"
Staplers often go missing from the teacher's workroom, so although I was surprised to find it there, I also was pleased to have found it.
Without missing a beat, my student Eric cleverly said. "Oh. Long time no see!"
I asked him if he had something to do with the stapler's location there. He disavowed any involvement. "Maybe Grace put it [there]," he suggested.
Although Grace sometimes absconds with staplers, I couldn't see her putting it on the ledge above the whiteboard. I think Eric must have had something to do with it – his reaction was too quick.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
We were giving speeches yesterday in Honors cohort, on the topic "My Biggest Mistake." One student was consistently mispronouncing "mistake" as "mcsnake," so I drew a picture on the whiteboard to explain his mistake. The yellow McDonalds logo (hard to see in the photo) was Sophia's idea.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
My student Mark, who is in the 6th grade, was getting teased by a pair of girls about which one of them he liked. One of the girls, Julie, said something like, "Teacher, something is wrong. Mark likes both of us."
I think this wasn't actually true – I'm not sure he likes either of them. But the girl was teasing him by drawing me, the English teacher, into the conversation. And since it was in English, I felt compelled to join the conversation.
He was being good-natured about it, so I bantered with him a bit. Mark has a very self-confident, somewhat laconic personality. Eventually, I asked him, "Are you a Casanova?"
For whatever mysterious reason, most Koreans know the name "Casanova" – it's been borrowed into Korean slang to be used the way American teens might say "player," I think – a boy who has multiple girlfriends, either at once or serially.
Mark shrugged. "What's a Casanova?"
Julie laughed. "You don't know Casanova?" She seemed surprised. She leaned over, and whispered in his ear – presumably giving a Korean definition. When he understood, he visibly blushed. But he was quiet for a minute, as if considering the question seriously.
Finally, he said with a kind of calm aplomb, "Not yet."
He's good enough at English that I could be confident he knew what he was implying by saying it that way.
I laughed at that.
[daily log: my foot hurts]
I experienced another difficult staff meeting last night. Why is my patience so thin about the issues that come up, lately? I feel as if there has been a substantial uptick in parental complaints about my "too loose" classroom style, and these are hard for me to have to confront. Philosophically I believe in a "loose" classroom (by which I mean playful but also forgiving from the standpoint of both academic and behavioral shortcomings), and my personality inclines me toward it too, but Korean parents are almost all hardcore disciplinarians, and they don't even get why a "loose" classroom might have benefits from a pedagogical or child-developmental standpoint.
I can't win those arguments, and in fact I'm rarely presented with an opportunity to even try to present my case. I think Curt has tolerated my style for as long as he has because he, personally, does see the benefit of it – he's remarkably progressive in his methodological inclinations – but he's not much of a salesman for it, and as with many business owners, he will let the winds of customer preference push him around. More crucially to my own issues, all of the other staff at Karma rigidly lean in the "anti-loose" direction – including the other non-Korean teachers. I stand alone without support, amid proliferating demands that I adopt a more rigid classroom management style. I can do this, but doing so tends to lessen my enjoyment of teaching – and as I've said many times before, I ain't in this for the money.
My mood is dark.
Meanwhile – tangentially – some stoic comedy.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
I’ve not been working very hard these last few days – I’m in the second week of my “naesin vacation” – that break in my schedule when I have only elementary classes because the middle-schoolers are engaged in their intensive test-prep schedule. So I have a 50% class load. I think I benefit from this – it gives me a chance to “recharge” between the harder push during the regular schedule.
Nevertheless, I’ve had a rough couple of days. Not from overwhelming teaching load but essentially for affective reasons – I just have been feeling negative about my work lately. I’ve been working at Karma for 5 years. That’s the second-longest I’ve ever held a single job, and certainly Curt is now the person who’s been my boss for the longest continuous stretch of time in my life, by far.
Yet Wednesday night I sat in a staff meeting on the topic of student placement for the next term, feeling like no one really gave a damn what I had to say, or what my opinions were about the students or about what we should do. I feel like I am dismissed for being too demanding, in one moment, then dismissed for being too lax, in another moment. This is dissonant. I realize it boils down to different cultural perceptions, not just just about appropriate teaching methodology but about more fundamental questions on how child development is conceptualized and how teacher’s roles are defined.
Then yesterday I had an interaction with a coworker that reinforced this feeling of dissonance.
The very complicated background to this is a problematic student who goes by Ken. He is not academically inclined, and he is morbidly shy. Several months went by before I got any kind of sustained utterance out of him of any kind – even in Korean, not just English. In fact, he’s not that far below level in terms of his English ability, but his penmanship is atrocious, so I would describe his issue as being one of “intense communication avoidance” – by never speaking on the one hand, and by writing illegibly on the other.
Anyway, Ken nevertheless is not in any way handicapped. In testing, he tests at level, as long as there’s no production component (i.e. only short-answer writing and no speaking). Ken has one additional habit that is annoying: he frequently tries to “cheat.” I put that word in quotation marks because in fact, it has the feel of an elaborate ritual. He expects and intends to be caught. He makes these little cue cards with information he could use on a vocabulary test or speech test, and he almost flamboyantly mimes through a process of placing them somewhere “out of sight.”
The theatrics of it convinced me, early on, that instead of being hard-nosed about it, I should try for a different kind of approach. I decided to accept it as an invitation to a conversation, and, remarkably, it has in fact worked out exactly that way. He makes and places his cue cards, I inevitably find them and ask him what he’s doing, and at first he would say “nothing,” or some other monosyllable. But then he started adding things. “I need more time [to prepare].” “No, I need that.”
This might seem trivial, but I’m a language teacher first, and what I saw was that here he was, actually using English to communicate. So these little exchanges have emerged between us. I will answer, something like, “Oh, you’ve had lots of time.” “No, I need more.” “Why?” “To study. There’s too many words on this list.”
You see? He actually knows spoken English pretty well, and here was a communicative situation where he felt safe and compelled to demonstrate that by interacting with me. So with respect to what you might call the “moral dimension” of the cheating issue, I decided to just let it be. It was a kind of game, I rationalized. Perhaps that’s all it is, I don’t know. I would tease him, saying that if he put as much energy into studying as he put into creating his cheat cards, he wouldn’t need to cheat. He would smile with a kind of secret satisfaction. He understands what I’m saying, but just studying is not an interesting approach for him.
As long as this was a “game” confined to our class, which didn’t disrupt my interactions with the other students, I guess it’s no problem. But last night another teacher caught him cheating. And she asked me if I knew he did that.
I said, “of course, he tries, all the time. But… it’s complicated.” You can imagine the conversation that followed. I was faced with a wall of blank incomprehension as I tried explain all of the above.
“But it’s just… wrong. How could you let him do that?”
My point, and my defense, is that I don’t let him actually cheat. I always catch him. That’s how it works. But the other teacher had no sympathy for the idea that I was using it as a means to engage with and draw out an otherwise voiceless student.
In retrospect, of course, I have to second guess myself. Was it wrong of me to do this? The theatrics of his “cheating” always made me assume he meant to be caught, which meant that I assumed the same thing happened with the other teachers. But then, there arises the situation of a teacher who is too dense to notice. What then? Who’s been irresponsible? Me, for allowing the game, or her, for not noticing Ken’s “performance?”
I don’t have an answer, but what really has me depressed is the “wall of incomprehension” vis-a-vis my intended communicative approach, as it underscores the feeling from Wednesday’s meeting that my opinions and notions of pedagogy are fundamentally unwelcome.
When I tried to talk about the problem with Helen, the elementary section director, she was just as incomprehending. A little more sympathetic, if only because she’s become used to these weird cultural mis-matches, with me, but in the end she was mildly disapproving and, more significantly, completely dismissive of the whole thing – which redounds on my feelings about the meeting, that my opinions and ideas are ultimately sufficiently alien to my coworkers that their main way of dealing with them is to ignore them.
It’s not that I’m left second-guessing my fundamental beliefs about pedagogy or what makes for best practice in interacting with kids – I still hew to the essential idea summed up in the aphorism that “kids learn from what we do, not from what we say.” I therefore insist that haranging and getting angry at kids for bad their behavior is not just useless, but is teaching them exactly the wrong thing – even while admitting sometimes I am guilty of it, too. This is to say, it teaches them that haranging and getting angry are appropriate social responses. Yet anyone familiar with Korean society will realize that this is, obviously, in fact a belief broadly held in Korean culture. And that is because that’s universally how kids are disciplined.
The real issue, which is causing me distress in the present moment, is just a kind of despair with respect to the idea that I could ever, truly, adapt. The thing that I should emphasize is that I could easily have the same problem in some school in some other conservative cultural setting, including in the US. I recognize that this isn’t really about Korea. It’s about my own stubborn instance on difference, and my own maladaptive alienation.
There’s no conclusion. It’s just the anecdote. Life goes on.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
My student Sophia is probably the only student I have who actually thinks in English at least some of the time. And maybe it is only in the context of being able to effortlessly switch what language one is thinking in does it really become common to see dynamic lexeme-level code switching, in the linguistic sense.
I was handing her a vocabulary quiz booklet, and she handed it back to me, saying, offhandedly,
that's 동현의 것's
(i.e. that's Dong-hyeon-ui geot's)
"Dong-hyeon" is her classmate's name. Really it's not exactly code-switching, since it's a kind of "doubled-up possessive" – a Korean possessive (-의 것 [-ui-geot]) embedded in an English possessive – so more like "code layering." She was just covering her bases.
I just found it fascinating from a language-acquisition standpoint.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
Last week, I gave a speaking test to my Newton1-M cohort. The topic I’d given them was the humorous “woodchucks should chuck wood” proposition that I’d had success with before.
Here they are, giving their own reasons why woodchucks should chuck wood.
Here are the texts of their speeches (since they are hard to hear). I made major corrections to the grammar of their draft speeches, but the ideas, reasons and examples are entirely their own. I had made the requirement that they each include the original tongue-twister in their speeches.
Jerry
Hi, my name is Jerry. There is a question, “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” The answer is, “A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.” I think this is wrong. I have a reason, too, which is that the woodchuck’s teeth are not strong enough to eat wood. A beaver has strong teeth, that’s why it eats wood. A woodchuck has weak teeth. If a woodchuck ate wood, it would get hurt. Do you want a cute woodchuck to get hurt?
Angela
Hi everyone, my name is Angela. The question is, “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” And we all know that the answer is, “A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.” I think woodchucks should wood if they could. I have one main reason for this. Woodchucks like wood. Woodchucks like brown colored things. I saw a woodchuck. The woodchuck said, “I like wood!” So it’s a good situation. I think woodchucks should chuck wood if they could. Thank you for listening.
Mark
Hi, my name is Mark. We’re debating about woodchucks. “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.” Personally, I think a woodchuck shouldn’t shuck wood even if they could, because wood is not delicious. According to a survey of many cute, furry woodchucks, 90% of the respondents said that wood is not delicious. Therefore for this reason I think a woodchuck should not eat wood, even if they could. Thank you for listening to my speech.
Ysabell
Hi, my name is Ysabell. My team is the PRO team on this debate, which has the question, “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” The answer is, “A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.” I think woodchucks should chuck wood if they could, because their name is WOODCHUCK! I have a friend whose nickname is “Carrot.” She likes carrots. I disagree with my opponents, who say woodchucks shouldn’t chuck wood. It’s not true. How can the name ‘woodchuck’ not be true?
Jenny
Hi, my name is Jenny. Some student asked the teacher, “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” The teacher said, “A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.” I think this is wrong. I think woodchucks shouldn’t chuck wood. Today, when I went to school, I met a woodchuck. I asked, “Do you like wood?” The woodchuck said, “No, I don’t eat wood.” Look, everyone, the woodchuck said it, itself, and I heard it directly. Woodchucks shouldn’t chuck wood. They don’t want to.
Julie
Hello everyone, my name is Julie. We are debating about woodchucks. The question is “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” The answer is “A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.” I am on the PRO team on this proposition, because if we try it, maybe wood actually tastes good. Some wood can be delicious. For example, sugar cane is a kind of wood. It is very sweet and delicious. So I think I agree with this idea. Thank you for listening.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
Today is the big day – the annual Karma Academy Talent Show. I've been really busy in the preparations leading up to this day, with 2-3 hours extra work most days for the last 2 weeks. Now we get to see just how badly it goes.
[daily log: walking, 7km, insane-child-wrangling, 6 hours]
I have a 5th grade student named Jenny. She is pretty smart, but has a bit of a melancholic personality. In fact, I've known Jenny for a long time – she was, long ago, in one of my Phonics cohorts, when she first studied English. As a result, I feel like I know her pretty well. Nevertheless she surprised me a little bit, yesterday, by expressing what seemed to me to be some pretty deep ideas, in English.
We were having more-or-less free conversation during class, talking about how to get motivated to prepare for our up coming talent show event. Several of the kids complained that they felt too shy and didn't want to do it, including Jenny. Then she said, "I wish I had a machine."
"What kind of machine?" I asked.
"A machine if you click it, it changes feeling." She made a gesture of operating a computer mouse.
"What do you mean?"
"If I am shy, I can click it, and I am happy. If am sad, I can click it, and I am OK."
"That would be a pretty good machine," I agreed. "I think everyone would like a machine like that."
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
One of my new classes is a Tuesday special "activity" class for our lowest-level, youngest class, a combined "Basic" cohort. These kids are essentially "pre-Phonics" and I'm mostly focused on getting them comfortable with a classroom conducted in English and doing fun games and vocabulary review for the online materials we're using.
There is one girl, a 2nd-grader, who has a quite distinctive personality. Her English name is Hailey. She has a preternaturally deep voice for a child of any gender, and sometimes hearing her talk can be disorienting, as she can sound almost like an adult if you pay attention to the tone of voice and not the content of her words. This dissonance is augmented by her tiny stature.
Either because of this, or for whatever other reason, she is also fairly behaviorially mature for her age, and a little bit bossy with her peers, but strangely staid and polite with adults. She actually likes to sit and pay attention quietly in class. When we were playing a game, yesterday, she was copying down words from our last exercise, practicing her English Alphabet letters. She suddenly raised her hand and asked to go to the bathroom (in Korean). After making her repeat the request in English, I let her go.
After she came back, she resumed her writing, and I let her – I run a fairly loose classroom anyway, and far be it from me to force a child to participate in a game when she'd rather practice writing.
Then suddenly my coworker Helen popped her head in the classroom and said the class was too noisy. I assumed this was because there were some prospective customer-parents in the lobby, and having a loud, raucous classroom is not a great sales pitch – at least not in Korea. So we ended the game and went on to a more structured and quieter activity.
Later, Helen told me that in fact, Hailey had stopped by the front desk on her way to the bathroom, and had complained to her about how noisy the class was, and had requested Helen to come tell the class to quiet down.
I found this truly funny. I have never had a 2nd grader complain about a too-loud class, before. I didn't even think it was possible.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
It was a really long day yesterday, with six classes back-to-back and essays to score. I'm feeling gloomy because I made a mistake with last-month's grades. Just a stupid mistake in the spreadsheeet, but the sort of mistake that unnecessarily and negatively impacts the impression parents have.
What I'm listening to right now.
Garbage, "You Look So Fine." This is from Garbage's Version 2.0 album, possibly one of my most favorite and most listened-to albums of all time – one of those albums where I like every song on it.
Lyrics.
You look so fine
I want to break your heart
And give you mine
You're taking me over
It's so insane
You've got me tethered and chained
I hear your name
And I'm falling over
I'm not like all the other girls
I can't take it like the other girls
I won't share it like the other girls
That you used to know
You look so fine
Knocked down
Cried out
Been down just to find out
I'm through
Bleeding for you
I'm open wide
I want to take you home
We'll waste some time
You're the only one for me
You look so fine
I'm like the desert tonight
Leave her behind
If you want to show me
I'm not like all the other girls
I won't take it like the other girls
I won't fake it like the other girls
That you used to know
You're taking me over
Over and over
I'm falling over
Over and over
You're taking me over
Drown in me one more time
Hide inside me tonight
Do what you want to do
Just pretend happy end
Let me know let it show
Ending with letting go [3x]
Let's pretend, happy end [4x]
[daily log, walking, 6.5km]
I have a set of tarot cards, which I have owned for over 30 years now, and they remain in good condition. I had misplaced them during my move in 2013, but they later turned up.
Sometimes I do "tarot readings" in my middle-school classes if I have a few minutes to kill at the end of a lesson and they express some interest. Yesterday in my 8th grade HS2A cohort, they weren't that interested, but I gave a tarot reading yesterday because those kids are just zombies as far as I can figure out.
I have one of the students ask me a question, then I will "read their future" with the cards and booklet of interpretative meanings that I compiled. Some kids find it fascinating, and I can justify it since of course I'm conducting the "readings" in English.
One boy asked "What will I do tomorrow?" Perhaps he cynically hoped to get me to make a prediction he could invalidate. I don't mind this. I read the cards and told him, plausibly enough against their standard meanings, that he would have to make a choice tomorrow, and that he would make the right choice. I was pleased with this, since it seemed the kind of reading that would be impossible to invalidate.
The next question, from a girl, was about university. The cards were kind of dark and negative, on that one, but I told her - a shy and timorous girl – that the cards showed that although what university she attended seemed important, she shouldn't worry so much about it – her life could be good regardless of where she went. There was at least some support for that reading.
Finally, another girl asked, cynically, "When can I leave this classroom?" I laughed at the passive-aggressive cleverness of this question.
I pulled a card, and turned it over. It was the 8 of wands, inverted. The meaning of this card is "delay" – really, look it up yourself. "Your leaving this classroom will be delayed!" I announced, triumphantly. I showed them the booklet page under the appropriate card, to prove I wasn't tricking them.
This was such an impressive result I could see the kids were either a bit surprised, or else still thought I was tricking them somehow.
The girl who'd asked the question rolled her eyes and looked at the clock on the wall again.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Last night we had a 회식 (work dinner), that Korean institution where coworkers periodically and essentially obligatorially participate in an after-work dinner and drinking experience. I am not much of a drinker these days, and furthermore my medication contraindicates alcohol, but something made me have a couple cups of beer last night, which, given my normal abstention, left me feeling completely discombobulated.
Anyway, it was at a seafood reastaurant, one of those places where there are servings of raw, still-wiggling, chopped octopus tentacles among other less-identifiable delicacies. I have never been a fan of still-wiggling octopus tentacles, although I'm fine to eat them cooked, when they have a kind of "ok to swallow whole" texture such that they are more bearable than many other things. I had some issues with bits of clam and mussel shell in the food getting caught in my undexterous mouth.
Perhaps the pleasing aspect was that, although I didn't talk much – I never do – I was finding my level of comprehension through the evening fairly high. I followed a number of conversations more-or-less successfully, although if I let my attention wander I would become lost. As I've always commented to my coworkers, for me, hweh-sik is harder than work, not easier, and not really relaxing. It's like an intensive Korean listening comprehension class, always held late at night after a long day at work.
A picture, looking across the table – a low table, everyone seated on the floor – you can see new teacher John, Curt, and newish middle-school subdirector, Sunny (who, like many Karmaites, is an L-Bridge refugee, and thus someone whom I've known on and off for quite a long time).
What I'm listening to right now.
Télépopmusik – "Breathe."
Lyrics.
I brought you something close to me,
Left for something you see though your here.
You haunt my dreams
There's nothing to do but believe,
Just believe.
Just breathe.
Another day, just believe,
Another day, just breathe
Another day, just believe,
Another day. just breathe.
Im used to it by now.
Another day, just believe.
Just breathe. just believe.
Just breathe.
Lying in my bed,
Another day, staring at the ceiling.
Just breathe. another day.
Another day, just believe.
Another day.
Im used to it by now.
Im used to it by now.
Just breathe. just believe.
Just breathe. just believe.
Just believe. just breathe.
Just believe.
Another day, just believe.
Another day.
Another day, just believe,
Another day, just breathe,
Another day (I do believe).
Another day(so hard to breathe)
Another day(not so hard to believe)
Another day. another day.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
Yesterday the weather was quite warm. The seasonal transition from early Spring to late Spring has materialized, right on schedule. At work, the air conditioning is still not really operating yet – I'm not sure if this is due to recalcitrance on the part of those who make the decision to operate it, or some technical issue with priming it for the new season. Koreans often turn on and turn off heating and air conditioning systems based on calendar dates rather than actual weather.
Classroom 204 was therefore beastly hot. Normally, I wear a kind of casual wool blazer at work – partly because it is kind of my uniform, partly because both in winter, when heating is inadequate, and in summer, when the air conditioning is too strong, it keeps me warm. Anyway, I took it off. It was too hot.
When I went to my next class, I still didn't have it. I guess since I wear it most of the time, it was notable that I didn't have it.
"Teacher!" a fifth-grader named Jenny said. "Where is your jacket?"
"I took it off."
"Why?" she asked quite seriously, tilting her head, conveying a gravity and bafflement that seemed incommensurate with the triviality of the issue.
"It's too hot," I explained.
There was a period of silence. Then Jenny said, "Teacher! You need your jacket." Although she fishes around a lot for vocabulary, she has really good English intonation patterns, and this sounded impressively native.
I was surprised. "Need? Why?"
"It's more stylish," she explained, as if this was a critical and important factor.
"Ah. Good point."
Jenny and the other students waited for me to put on my jacket, before class proceeded.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
Yesterday during my Davinci2B cohort, we have been practicing singing a few different pop songs for the May talent show event. These boys seem to enjoy singing – unlike a lot of kids who are too shy or inhibited by the prospect of trying to sing in English. They ask to do it, and seem very at ease with it, even if a few of them don't have the lyrics down perfectly. I particularly like when Paul, in response to the lyric "Take me into your loving arms," ad libs "Why should I?" Anyway, they chose the song themselves, from the catalogue of various English Language pop songs they have been exposed to.
Here they are singing.
Here are the lyrics they're singing.
"Thinking Out Loud"
When your legs don't work like they used to before
And I can't sweep you off of your feet
Will your mouth still remember the taste of my love?
Will your eyes still smile from your cheeks?
And, darling, I will be loving you 'til we're 70
And, baby, my heart could still fall as hard at 23
And I'm thinking 'bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways
Maybe just the touch of a hand
Well, me—I fall in love with you every single day
And I just wanna tell you I am
So, honey, now
Take me into your loving arms
Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars
Place your head on my beating heart
I'm thinking out loud
Maybe we found love right where we are
Here's the original song.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
In my Honors cohort, in the debate book, the proposition was something like, "Girls should not wear make-up until age 15." Perhaps unsurprisingly, elementary students actually have some opinions about this topic, and it feels more accessible than many debate topics. But in Korea, a land of still very traditional gender roles, it is also essentially accessible only to half the students: i.e., the boys don't really care, and don't see it as relevant, even if they have opinions. Anyway, one of the "further thinking" questions, in response to the text we read in the book, was something to the effect of, "Do you think kids are maturing faster these days?"
A slightly diminutive fifth-grader named Soyeon, who had expressed that she had tried to wear make-up and her mom had gotten mad at her, immediately raised her hand. "Oh definitely," she averred.
Then, quickly and cleverly, she added, "Except for me." This was pretty funny.
[daily log: walking, 6km]
In my Davinci2 cohort yesterday, my 5th grade student who goes by the name Paul was reading a short paragraph from the book for us. His pronunciation was utterly incoherent, which was not commensurate with his normal ability, I thought – he's not great, but he's not quite so bad as to be impossible to understand. He was sounding like a drunk robot.
"What's going on, Paul?" I asked. "Why are you talking like that?"
Without pause, and now quite clearly, he said, "This is my style." He sat up straight, grinning with pride.
I had to laugh at that. "Well, uh… go ahead, then."
[daily log: walking, 6km]
Yesterday at work I was in a meeting where I was quite unclear what was going on. Someone from outside of Karma was discussing some issues with some online pedagogic software we use with some of our students, called Cappytown.
Anyway, I was at a loss – I understood some of the details, because I was familiar with some aspects of the software. However, I had no idea why I had been called into the meeting or what it was for, in broader outline. Even now, I'm somewhat confused.
During the meeting, I drew a picture on my notes.
[daily log: walking, 6km]
I have student who goes by the English name of Vona. She is a middle-school student in my TOEFL-style speaking class. A while back, we were trying to answer a question from the book with one of the TOEFL-style 45-second "personal experience" speeches. The prompt was: "Describe the most difficult decision you've had to make in your life."
These poor 8th graders were at a loss, of course. 8th graders don't like to think about this kind of thing, and most of them are pretty sheltered, anyway, so they haven't had to make a lot of difficult decisions in their lives, so far. Several talked about things like whether to study for some specific major exam, or not, as being their difficult decision.
Vona spoke fairly coherently for 45 seconds, which is an accomplishment for her. What was her most difficult decision?
What to eat at the restaurant. The menu has too many choices.
The thing is… I suspect this may, in fact, be her most difficult decision. Such is life in among the upper middle-class in Seoul's northwestern suburbs.
I regret not having video of this fine speech.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
