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]