Teacher!

So far, Seoul has proved to be much easier to get around in than that little island across the sea. Much more English on the street signs and subway platforms, many more people who have a decent grasp of English and can help you out if you get lost. So far, I've managed not to get lost, but I believe that is because of all those months spent trying to decipher the Tokyo subway/train system. It truly does make every other subway system in the world seem ridiculously simple.

I began teaching yesterday. Six classes, all elementary and middle school kids, though my few classes of middle school kids will soon end and then it will be just me and the younger ones. For now my schedule is kind of mixed--I have between five and seven classes each day Monday through Friday between 230pm-900pm. My kids range from 6 years old to 15 years old, and their English level varies. I can already tell that this experience will break me of the desire to ever have a Korean child. Of course, since it's still my first week, most of what I'm doing is introducing myself and then jumping around in front of them to keep them entertained for 40 minutes. Not exactly rocket science. And some of it does make me feel pretty good about myself. Many of the kids told me I was very pretty, and one class had a three minute discussion on all the ways I was better than the last teacher they had. A couple kids even gave me cookies and gum. From what I understand after speaking to other teachers, this is normal. Kids like to give presents to their favorite teachers. So what it comes down to so far is that my job is to babysit, talk to them in English, and keep them awake for 40 minutes so they can go home and tell their parents about the nice American teacher. Yay!

Of course, this isn't the entirety of my time in Korea. I also started tutoring at a prep school on the weekends. This is by far the more difficult of my jobs. Tuesday I had to teach the US Constitution to an AP US History student, and from Sunday I'm going to be teaching SAT prep to another couple high school age students. There is a lot more preparation required of me. I don't know about you guys, but it's been a few years since I had to take the SAT, and they changed the format to include the writing section the year after I tested. The English comprehension of these kids is greater, but I have to be able to explain why the right answer is the right answer and have it make sense to someone whose native language is not English. It can be challenging. Sometimes I can't even justify it to myself. This is where we get to the importance of projecting confidence. Little kids can smell your fear. Older kids feed off your uncertainty. Preparing makes it easier to pretend that you know what you're talking about.

I have another day of class ahead of me, and then this weekend I may be attending a Korean wedding. Thankfully the cold spell snapped, so I can survive with just my autumn jacket for at least another week before the cold returns and I continue freezing to death. Hopefully sometime in there you'll here something about an apartment and me not being homeless anymore. We'll just have to see...