On Teaching

My grandmother (Hi Oma!) asked a lot of questions about teaching in Korea, and I realized that I haven't addressed a subject that takes up 58 hours a week (you read that right, I teach that much. Its not healthy). So heres teaching in Korea: Preschool Edition!

Minho's excited about the blogpost!

As my cousin (Hi Elena!) said to me; getting a degree in teaching is almost pointless, cause nobody can prepare you for actually doing it. And shes right. But Teaching is kind of like skiing; you have to try a lot of different ways to stay up, but once you figure it out, you got it. This is my 3rd week with my kids, so the last few weeks have been more of a how can I get through to these kids kinda game. And it works. They know when I think its okay for them to you know, act their age, and when its time to actually get work done (Phonics class succccks. Everybody hates it, them and me). There hasn't been any complaints so intense that my bosses have had to talk to me about it (I don't actually hear complaints, somebody else deals with them and they only get to me if they are valid, or often enough). I don't really like to punish kids but we have a happy/sad star system. So If you do something that makes me happy, you get a happy star. When you speak Korean or do something thats really frusturating me, you get a sad star. I don't like to give sad stars. If somebody sees that their friend is getting heaps of happy stars, they generally behave better. So I make sure to encourage really good behavior, and I don't want to say ignore, since they know what makes me grumpy, but I don't pay as much attention to it. They're also really well behaved, so theres little in the ways of punishment

They're too much fun. I like doing art and music and gym and stuff like that with them. I feel bad having them do workbook pages and phonics and stuff, since I feel like they're too young. But I have no say in it, so I try to make it tolerable for them.

You do the best that you can, but I greatly enjoy my kids!
Who doesn't love their friendly local neighborhood expat teacher and her adorable students. I mean, look at Mary in the middle. TOO CUTE. And I also have my KT, whos my go-to gal, and too good at her job.