Category: The Wonders of Work

The other day, I had a student who really wanted to buy one of my alligator pencil cases (which I buy at the stationery store and sell to the students for alligator bucks). 

"It's cute," she said.

We settled on a price of 50 alligator bucks. She named it 'Albert.'

She ran away contentedly to play with it.

When I saw her 2 hours later, she handed me the alligator pencil case.

"I'm done with it," she explained. "I want my 50 dollars."

"Wait a minute," I said. "You can't do that. Now it's used." 

I had to explain the concept of used. "Who's going to buy a used alligator pencil case?" I asked.

In fact, Albert had managed to get noticeably dirty during his two hour fling. I pointed at the dirty white underside.

She would have none of it. "I don't want it." 

After some debate, I finally agreed to give her a refund but with an "alligator rental fee" deducted, in the amount of 3 dollars. So I counted out a refund of 47 dollars.

She seemed happy with this. 

I wonder if this could be a business model, moving forward? 

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

I have this one student, Sophia, who talks and talks and talks and talks and… you get the picture.

She is the closest to a native-speaking student I have ever had in Korea, I think, and she is quite verbal, too. She is in the 4th grade of elementary school, and has never studied abroad, so she is a bit of a prodigy – I'm sure I've mentioned her before.

She is also a bit "needy" and is constantly asking for things, wanting me to do things, needing my attention or time. I have a habit, with native-speaking kids, that I am hardly aware of, where I will say something that perhaps a lot of English-speaking parents or teachers say to kids. To these ongoing, persistent requests I will often respond, simply, "Later." If I listen to myself saying it, I hear my father's voice, clearly.

Today, Sophia came about 20 minutes early, before her class was scheduled to start. I was working in the staff-room.

She wanted to look at videos on my computer. I said, "Later."

She wanted to play a game on my phone. I said, "Later."

She wanted to "borrow" a board game from my drawer. I said, "Later, you have class soon."

"You always say 'later'," she whined. She has an amazing capacity to go from laughter to tears in less than 30 seconds.

"I'm a little bit busy," I said, by way of apology.

She made a kind of harrumph. She sat down in a chair near my desk and folded her arms, looking quite serious.

"What?" I asked, as she waited there with a grimmace.

"We need to discuss what 'later' means," she announced. Those were her words, exactly. I think she watches too many American TV shows, maybe.

 [daily log: walking, 6 km]

We had a debate proposition in my Honors1-T반, "Criminals can be reformed." One student, Roy, either misunderstood or took bad notes. He argued the proposition "Criminals can be informed." 

The reasons that he gave in his essay were incoherent. I wonder why?

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Vona is a first year middle-school student (so, 7th grade). She has been stopping by now and then to say hi, since the middle schoolers are in exam prep right now and I don't see them in class.

Today, she stopped by and she said, "all you do is rest?" I had to show her that I was actually working on stuff and not just sitting idly at my desk in the staff room all evening while the middle schoolers labor away at grammar quizzes in their special prep classes. She nodded, as if not quite believing that I was working. She asked if I had any food. This is a standard refrain from middle school students. I offered to sell her a cookie for alligator dollars, but she demurred. She started to walk away.

Then she turned and complained, as if an afterthought, "Teacher! Kevin hit me." 

"That seems believable," I said. "Well, probably he likes you," I mused, teasing.

"Oh." She considered this a moment, as if it genuinely had never occurred to her. "Well, I think it's OK, then."

She walked away.

 [daily log: walking, 6.5 km]

I had been kind of making a joke about it in class. I was trying to distinguish the meanings of “sociopath” and “psychopath,” which had arisen some time ago in a reading passage in another class the kids had and so they’d asked me.

So I said, “well, Sangjin here is a sociopath, while Jinu, well, he’s a psychopath.” The kids seemed to find this entertaining to think about, as I explained the way the two boy’s personalities seemed to match these concepts somewhat: Jinu is kind of a “wild boy” and rather impulsive and easily distracted, and Sangjin is more just the quietly watching and muttering type, talking about things to himself, but then doing these very charming speeches and showing surprising charisma.

Later, Sangjin came into the staff room.

“Do you really think I’m a sociopath?”

I couldn’t figure out if he was offended or pleased with the idea, so I equivocated.

He said, “I think maybe I am.”

“Well, you don’t have to be,” I said, not sure what tone of seriousness to assume. He’s a very smart kid, but there is something a little bit dark about his personality, for an 8th grader. He’d be a goth if he was an American teen.

“I want to be a sociopath,” he insisted, like a cross between a movie villain and cheerful puppy.

“Hmm. Well, just try to be nice to people,” I said, feeling out of my depth.

I didn’t really know where to go with it. He’s the sort where maybe he was just testing my reaction. If he was willing to work harder, he could be in our highest group of TOEFL students, but he’s not really interested in academics. He draws pictures of explosions on his note paper. This isn’t really particularly disturbing to me – I remember drawing a lot of explosions at that age.

I told him he was very smart, and should come in my TOEFL class.

“That is too much work,” he sighed. We’d had that snippet of conversation before.

[daily log: walking, 7 km]

During break between classes, a student named Jinu, a 9th grade boy with a bit of swagger and machismo about him, was standing at the water-cooler in the hall, filling a paper cup with water.

Four 9th grade girls from the HSA class, next door, walked by, giggling and carrying on, and paused to actually talk to Jinu about something. 

He was clearly much flattered by the attention. As a result, he didn't pay attention to his cup in the fill-position in the water cooler. The water kept running into his cup.

It ran into the little tray underneath, and filled that, and onto the floor. The girls kept chatting with him, and laughing. Jinu was only paying attention to the girls. The amount of water on the floor reached his shoes. The girls laughed more, and finally one of them gave away the game, pointing at the floor.

Jinu jumped back, embarrassed. The girls laughed more, and ran away down the hall.

I felt like I had watched a vignette in a sit-com.

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Two short classroom anecdotes:

In my Sirius반 of 2nd and 3rd grade elementary students, I have a student named Andy, who is somewhat hyper. He is always wiggling. He never stops. He often is contorting himself in strange ways, like an incompetent ballet dancer who drank too much coffee. Yesterday, another student, the much more staid and laid-back Chloe, was sitting in her chair and doing this weird routine of leaning forward and leaning back, swinging her legs. In Andy, I would over look it, but with her, it was out of character. "Are you OK," I asked.

Her simple answer was: "Andy style." Everyone laughed – it was clear what she meant.

Today, in my Honors반, I was pretty upset. They were goofing off and refusing to answer the speaking questions we were doing in the book. I guess the questions were boring, and after the long holiday, the kids were still in "play" mode. They would just make fart noises or shake their head or say no no no. I got mad – I said there's a time to play and a time to practice speaking questions, and now was a time to practice. "I'm really angry," I said. I was frustrated. But even when I'm annoyed, like that, I don't really yell or carry on – I tend to just get serious, stop joking around, and push the class harder.

A student complained. "If you are angry, why don't you yell at us like a normal teacher?" 

Thus I received a remarkably insightful encapsulation of how the Korean education system works.

[daily log: walking, 5 km]

My phonics student Jaehui and I had a collaborative drawing session on the whiteboard when class started today, because – due to the rain, I guess – the other students were late. 

It was fun. More fun than the TEPS-M반 that came later, because they are a bunch of knuckleheads and put me in a bad mood.

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

I have a student named Jinwon. Jinwon has never done homework, that I can recall. When he was new to me, he would give excuses, but eventually he ran out of excuses. He just would shrug and say, “Sorry, Teacher,” now.
I have even made him stay extra time, sometimes – which is something I rarely do, because I feel it’s a fundamentally unfair practice, since some parents have “Do Not Make Stay” instructions attached to their kids. I don’t think it’s good for the kids to see their peers getting differential treatment. I know, right… I’m a communist or something.
Anyway, Jinwon will only write the most desultory things, even when I’ve made him stay. He just doesn’t like to do stuff.
Then, the other day, he seemed quite proud. He claimed to have done his homework. Now… I make the students email their essays to me. I like having an electronic copy. I had not received any email from Jinwon, so I told him. He showed me on his phone, where he’d recorded my email address. He’d gotten it wrong – proof, I suppose, that after a year of knowing him, this was, indeed, the first time he’d attempted to send me his homework.
He asked if he could call his dad, to re-send the essay (I guess it was on the computer at home). I was pleased immensely that he was showing such initiative, and I also began to finally believe he really had done his homework, and wasn’t just inventing an elaborate excuse.
He got on his phone and called his dad. He talked for a moment, stepping out of the classroom. He came back, looking crestfallen. “My dad said to call later.”
“Why?” I asked, wondering if this was, in fact, just an excuse after all.
“He’s at the police station,” he said, showing what seemed quite believable concern and doubt.
“Really!? Why is he there?” I asked. “Is he OK?”
“I don’t know,” the 8th grader replied, with a distracted look. I think he was genuinely surprised.
“Maybe he didn’t do his homework,” I joked, inappropriately. Jinwon laughed, but it was a bit forced. I wasn’t sure I should have made that joke. I don’t know his family’s circumstances.
If this was a “dog-ate-my-homework” ruse, I was beyond annoyed – I was impressed. But actually, I don’t think it was.
Today, two days later, Jinwon sent his essay via email. First time, after 1 year. I felt glad. I praised him profusely, which confused his peers, I think, since they all do their homework every week, and get far less praise.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]