Teaching and a Temple

Let's see...some interesting teaching experiences this past week...

Experience #1: Well, Mondays, I teach 3rd grade all day. I decided that we needed to play a game to help the kids learn different kinds of food (mainly fruits). I decided to print about ten different pictures of food off the net and hang them on the chalk board. I divided the class into two teams. Team Green and Team Red. Each team was given a color coordinating fly swatter and the object of the game was to smack the food picture that I said. If I said, "I like apples," they would smack the apple. The first person to hit it get a point for their team. If I said, "I don't like apples," and they smacked the picture, they lost a point. Understand? Good.

Well, in the first class it got a little rough. I was just having them use their hands to smack the cards. Kids were running into each other, smacking the chalk board with their bodies, hitting each other...I honestly thought someone was going to lose a tooth or something. It was beginning to get a little physical, so by the next class I found the two fly swatters. I thought the safety problem was solved. Key word... thought. Well this one adorable boy in the back so so excited it was his turn, he ran to the front of the room, slipped and smacked his face right into the corner of the teachers metal desk. I about had a heart attack as he was rolling on the floor, holding his leg and face with the swatter still in hand. I looked at my other co-teacher, Ms. Roh, in horror as she was asking him if he was okay. Meanwhile...they were having this agonizing conversation in Korean...and I had no idea what was being said. All I knew was that his cheek was beginning swell and was already bruising. He stood up, limping and holding his face. I assumed that he was going to the nurse. But Ms. Roh told me he wanted to have his turn before he went. My heart broke. It was so cute...but so sad because I felt so horrible. He did end up winning his turn if you were wondering.

Experience #2: I have one sixth grade class in the afternoons on Tuesdays. As I was walking to the classroom with Johnson, he informed me that he had a meeting and would not be teaching with me, but I would be fine to teach alone. I thought he was kidding. I had not materials! He told me to just do the reading, writing, and singing part of the DVD and that should be the 40 minute. He came into the classroom with me to set the CD up. It was not working at all and then he told me sorry but he had to leave...then he left. It was me and 33 sixth graders with a massive communication barrier. I had no material and now to CD. So I just made the whole thing up. They had n idea what I was saying so I had to act out a lot of words and draw a lot of pictures. It was finally a success when they drew me a picture of what they did on their vacation (since that was what the last lesson was about). Some students even wrote some sentences! It was a proud moment.

Experience #3: So as I was leaving school exhausted, I went to bow out to the principal when I noticed him in his sweatsuit on the front step with a few other older men. They were watching soccer practice and drinking. (Oddly enough, it's not out of the ordinary for the teachers to drink at school.) He waved me over to sit with them. I looked at my co-teacher Johnson and he told me to go. My Principal poured me a glass of "wine" in a Dixie cup. What I understood was that it was a Korean traditional wine. All I could tell was that it smelled normal and had rice chunks in it. I took a sip and he immediately corrected me and said, "one shot!" Then he shot his wine, and poured the cup over his head to prove that it was empty...however, it wasn't completely empty and it ended up dripping down his face, but he didn't bat an eye. So as they say, when in Korea, do as the Koreans do. So I drank it in one sip and they clapped. He asked me if I wanted more but I just politely said no thank you, maybe later. I had to reflect on what just happened...

Experience #4: Wednesday was teacher activity day again. We played kickball and volleyball this time...no other traditional Korean games. It was really fun and we all had a good time. Afterwards, we went and had refreshments. This included: beer of course, aloe juice, orange pineapple juice, some type of clam, and a fish fry. I am not one for fish but I told myself that I would try anything. They literally just put the entire fish on the grill...scales and all. Then put it on a plate. Once I got past their eyeballs and their scales...the meat was actually pretty good. The dipping sauce was delicious which helped.

Saturday was another 'get on a bus and pray we get off at the correct stop' kind of day. Andrew and I boarded bus number 1713, we were headed to the alps for some 'adventure' which is what the website told us. The only direction we were given was to get on either bus 803 or 1713 and get off when you are by a temple. So...after being on the bus an hour, we realized that we were the only ones left and the bus driver kept looking back at us through his rear view mirror. I told Andrew that maybe we were supposed to get off with everyone else and he doesn't know how to tell us. I began to get a little nervous. But then we saw it...a Temple! As the bus turned into a rest area/makeshift bus station, we realized that this was the last stop and our destination. So naturally we got off.

It wasn't until I asked Johnson on Monday which temple we were at that I learned we were at Seoknamsa, a Buddhist Temple located in Mt. Gaji. It is a 30-building temple of all women monks and famous for Zen meditation. The buildings were beautiful and the mountainous scenery was amazing! We noticed however a bunch of stacked rocks all over the place. I asked Johnson what that meant and he said people do that when they are making a wish or praying. We would have done it had we of known the purpose. We weren't sure if we could even touch them.

After the temple, we walked around on ground level again and came across a hiking trail. We began the hike up and after about 10 minutes we ran into a few monks on their way down. One woman said to us, "you're late." I looked a Andrew really confused. I asked her what we were late for and she just said we were late again. She was silent for a moment and then said, "It takes two and a half hours to climb up." It was already 3pm, so that's why she said we were late. Because by the time we walked down, it would be night. Andrew and I are in no way experienced hikers so we took her advice and stopped. We thanked her graciously and decided to get an earlier start next time.

On the bus ride home, we decided to get off at a stop a few ahead of our to look at some shops. I then spotted a McDonald's and had to have a fry break. When we left MickyD's, we ended up getting a little turned around and ended up lost for about an hour and a half. Mr. Andrew Directions didn't help the situation much, he just kept saying we will turn right at the next main street. THEY ARE ALL MAIN STREETS! I tried asking several people if they spoke English but it was hopeless. So after a long, exhausting walk, we spotted a familiar sight and made it home via Taxi.

As of this week...I am teaching and extra six hours a week via night classes on Monday's, Tuesday's, and Thursday's until 6:30pm. And Andrew teaches Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday night classes from 6:30pm to 8:30pm...so we really aren't seeing each other much which makes for a lonely dinner. It's for extra pay but coming up with six more hours of lesson plans for three different ages is difficult and exhausting...good thing it ends the second week in December...