Speech Contest Humor

Don't be alarmed.  Yes, I changed my profile design.  It still sucks but I think it's easier to read.

Ready, Go.

The principal at my school informed my co-teacher that we would be having an English speech contest just days before he expected it to happen.  This put a lot of stress on my co-teacher as she is extra busy this time of year.  Since she is a temporary teacher and not used to everything here it is extra stressful for her.  Our school is very small compared to most elementary schools and this means that the teachers have even more work because it is split between fewer teachers.  It is not uncommon for my co-teachers to fall asleep at their desks in the middle of the afternoon.  There are also beds in the nurse's office with heated pads where teachers can go to take a nap.  My co-teacher gave me the go ahead one day and I spent about an hour cuddled up and warm, staring at my eyelids.  I don't think you've assimilated enough into Korean teacher culture until you've fallen asleep at your desk.  Yesterday I woke up when a co-worker walked into the English room to give the English teachers an invitation to her wedding.  I was a little embarrassed that I had to wipe the drool from my mouth as she was looking at me with a grin on her face.

Well this post has started to go in a totally different direction than intended.

So last week my teacher started working on the logistics of the speech competition.  The 3rd-6th graders that wanted to compete had to write a speech on various topics and recite it the next week.  They had the weekend to write and memorize their speeches and my co-teacher had that time to work everything out.  She was already stressed because she has been working on figuring out winter camps too.  Winter camps are week-long or more English camps that the native English teachers have to teach during winter break.  Last Friday my co-teacher was so stressed out and looked like she was about to cry.  I asked her, "Are you okay?"  She said yes but you know when people ask you if you are okay and you say yes but you really aren't and it makes you break down in tears?  Well that's what happened.  I felt so bad because I knew that she was really stressed out and I wanted to help but there is not much I can do without being able to speak Korean.  I always ask her to give me work and sometimes she gives me little task but usually just mundane details, nothing big.  My other co-teacher and I left for the day hoping that the weekend would calm her down a little. 

The next Monday the 3rd and 4th graders were scheduled to give their speeches.  Before the contest I volunteered to read the speeches and pick out the better ones which would be awarded more points for 'content.'  As I was reading I began cracking up hysterically at my desk at the hilarious, insightful, brilliant things that some of these students were writing.  The 5th and 6th graders gave their speeches on Wednesday and my reaction was the same while reading theirs.  Throughout the contest I just sat in the back of the room, score sheet in hand, with a huge grin on my face and seriously almost getting teary-eyed.  I had never heard my students, especially my 3rd graders, express themselves before.  In class they have to spontaneously answer questions but with this assignment they were able to take time to think, write down and practice what they wanted to say.  It was a really awesome event as it allowed me to understand the students' personalities a little bit more which is hard to experience with the language barrier.  I felt a little bit bad for scoring little elementary school kids on their English language ability but I guess that's what Korea is all about: competition.  Because some of the students' quotes were so intriguing I had to copy them down and share them with someone.  My co-teacher just didn't appreciate them the same as I did because English isn't her first language, but I hope you get as much of a kick out of them as I did and still do.  Here are a few of the quotes that I wrote down, with added commentary on some, separated by grade level:


3rd grade:

"I am so happy when I have dilicious food with my family.  Especially, I like deonjangjigae, cheonggukjang, kimchijigae.  They smell a little but they are really good."
         -The smellier the better.
        
"My dream is to be a soccer player in the future.  I'm a girl but I like to play soccer very much.  I want to inform my country in the world like woman soccer player Yeo-Min-Ji."
         -A 9 year old future feminist <3

"My mother takes care of me.  She is a math teacher.  So she helps me a lot with my math homework.  I think she loves my brother more than me.  But she also loves me...My brother is seven years old.  He is very cute.  His name is Toby, and he likes drawing pictures.  I like his hairstyle.  Sometimes, I tease him, and he yells a lot."
         -Can't empathize with ya there, brother.  My mom loves me the best.

"Flavorite food is seaweed."
         -Can you imagine the typical American child's face when he heard his 9 year old   Korean peer say that his favorite food was seaweed?

"My father is tall.  He is very busy and works until late at night.  He is a stern father but he loves me."
         -Multiple students wrote about their fathers being stern.  I thought it was culturally significant.

"My favorite color is blue, Becaus blue color makes me clam."
          -Clam or calm, it's awesome either way.


5th grade:

"Our English teacher is a native speaker and she is from America.  She is kind and pretty."
          -Had to throw that in there.

"Lastly we have to improve our a little bad things: loudly noise and playing tag, cutting in line school lunch, pushing eachother when washing hands.  If our these points change, I think our class will be more orderly and great class."
          -Future Kailey teacher.

"My classmates have a lot of nicknames.  These are so funny and interesting.  Kim-yoon-kyung is 'lazy' because she behaves like a bear moving very slowly.  Lee-eun-bi is a primitive woman, and the nickname of Park-mi-jun is a martian...I also have particular nicknames; vampire and koala.  Do you think I really look like these characters?...Anyway you can imagine how exciting and unique my classmates are by their nicknames."
          -Girl, you don't even wanna know my nicknames.

"Our class has 27 friends.  Their favorite subject is P.E. Because when they do P.E. they feel good and do their best in P.E.  But I think they do not good at math.  Because They don't answer when teacher gives a question in math class every day.  Our teacher is very scared if she is angry.  But sometimes she is funny."
           -It's bad if she even scares herself when she is angry!  I do it sometimes too.

"An English class with native speaker teacher is really exciting."
           -Oh, stop it.


6th grade:

"Drum skills of the star is so much better now cocked."
          -Your guess is as good as mine.  

"All the people's plan the daily schedule is almost same
First is wake up
That's war"
           -I couldn't have said it better myself.



And now an ode to the Korean educational system:

The test

I had midterm test a few weeks ago.

I wanted to do well on my test.

I was very busy preparing for the test.

Before the exam I reviewed what we learned.

The test give me a lot of stress.

I was very nervous before the test.

My heart was pounding.

I did my best,

finally the test were over.

After the test I felt free.

The test results came out.

I did well in English and Korean.

but I messed up in the science

I rank in the middle of my class.

I didn't want to show my report card to my parents.

I need to improve my grades.

Ill study hard from now on.

I just thought this was brilliant.  This puts into English words the stress that many Korean students feel.  This begins at the elementary school level and continues up until the university entrance exams and beyond.  So much pressure is put on children and adolescents to succeed in school, otherwise it is thought that one will have no future.  This speech, which I see as a poem, was written by one of my best 6th grade students.  I love the rhyme and repitition and feel that she needs recognition for this.

Have a good Thanksgiving everyone!  I wish I could be at home with you, family!

Koreans Say the Darndest Things---About My Hairstyles Pt.1

Any female teacher in Korea can tell you about Koreans' amazement with foreigners changing their hairstyles.  I have long hair and can do a few different things with it, so I quite often am amused by the comments I receive from students and other teachers about my change-ed hair.  I also have a particularly large collection of bows, headbands and hats that give everyone that much more joy when they see me at school in the morning.  Because most Koreans naturally have straight, dark hair, my long, curly hair makes me an anomaly.  Apparently Koreans rarely change their hairstyle, so when someone does everyone notices and it is a huge deal.  "Teacher!  Your hair change-ed!!  So beautiful!!"  I hear multiple times a day.  My students love to touch and play with my hair.  I'll be sitting in my desk on Facebook having an inappropriate-while-at-work conversation with someone when I feel something tugging on my long locks.  I'll turn my head around 180 degrees and look down to find a little twerp squatting in that oh so familiar stance, looking up at me grinning with her hand caught in the unintentionally grown dreads in the back of my hair.  I'll oblige her and allow her to continue for a while longer until i feel my hair/head being threatened, then I'll start pulling her hair so she sees how it feels.  She usually thinks it's funny and keeps going.

Anyways, this series of posts is going to be a documentation of the funny/awkward comments I receive by various people on my hairstyles.  They will feature a photo of the hairstyle and a list of the comments with a little explanation, or whatever I want to do.  I don't want to hear your negative comments about my hairstyles, so keep your mouths shut.

My neighbor and the first person I saw this morning: "Your hair looks different today!  It looks like you just got out of bed and put your hair up!"
        Me: "Thanks." Unamused.

My coteacher as she walks in the classroom and sees me: "Wow!  Your hair is sooo beautiful!  Your headband is so big and beautiful!"

A 5th grade student before class:  "Teacher!  Your head looks like pineapple!"

A 4th grade student in the lunch line:  Leans over to my coteacher and says something in Korean.  Coteacher laughs and says, "She says your hair makes you look like Princess Cinderella!"
          
Later that day the same student:  "You are Princess Cinderella!"

Today my coteachers and I left school early to go to the salon so I could get my haircut.  I had initially considered perming my hair but then kind of freaked out when I thought about putting chemicals in my hair and the fact that many Korean stylists have probably never worked with my hair type before.  Because of this I decided I would just get a cut.  This caused a problem because apparently my coteacher had already told the principal that I was going to get a perm and that we needed to leave really early since perms take a long time.  While in the teachers' room today I was 'talking' with the head teacher and principal and they were really excited to see my 'even more beautiful' hair after it was permed.  Since I had decided I just wanted a cut, and my coteachers still wanted to leave really early from school, we have to make up some elaborate story about why my hair isn't as beautiful as they had expected.  I told them I could crazy curl it on Monday before school so they would think I got a perm but they said this wasn't necessary, as the principal is old and probably would forget or not notice anyways.

The stylist took a few inches off and layered it.  We'll see what the students and principal (if he remembers) say on Monday.

Open Class Illusions

This post is for all the teachers in my family back home.

In Korean public school systems exists a phenomenon called 'open class.'  It is well known to all native Korean teachers and foreign teachers alike, as everyone must participate throughout the school year.  Open class is basically when people are invited to come observe a teacher 'teach' a class.  Sometimes the visitors are the vice principal, principal and coworkers from the teacher's own school.  Other times they are parents of the students in the class or teachers from other schools.  But on occasion the people that come to watch the class are people in high-up positions at the Office of Education.

Open class is basically a Korean teacher's worst fear.  The nerves that build up over weeks of preparation are enough to break a person down.  When a Korean teacher finds out the date and time of her open class she will spend weeks planning and preparing.  Unlike in the U.S. this is not a time when the principal comes in, sits in the corner unnoticed by students and takes a few quick notes on what the teacher is doing.  It is far from that.  Instead, the teacher creates an extremely elaborate illusion of what their class would look like in a perfect world where the teacher has an infinite number of hours to plan and prepare for their classes.  And this is what it is expected to be.  It is no secret.

Let me give you an example.  Three days ago one of my fourth grade classes was cancelled due to the fact that our head teacher, who is a P.E. teacher, was going to have an open class the next day.  The head teacher and his class needed to 'practice' the lesson the day before so they would be prepared for when the important people from the Office of Education would come the next day to observe.  Yes, they actually practiced the exact class that they would be having the next day and held their students out of my class to do it.  The next day I walk up to school having completely forgot about the head teacher's open class, but am quickly reminded of it the second I step foot on school grounds.  Groups of students are scurrying around with little brooms and dustpans sweeping up all the fallen leaves and dirt off the driveway.  The dirt field in front of the school, which is used for P.E. classes and sports, is completely covered in sports equipment.  Let me just tell you that I have NEVER seen anything on this field besides the two permanent soccer nets that it houses and elementary schoolers playing various sports.  On this day the students would have the greatest P.E. class of their lives.  They would get to participate in an cornucopia of sports ranging from badminton to bowling to balance beaming.  On the field were various types and sizes of nets, mats, stools, big, wood things that looked like a bean bag toss without a hole in the middle and special equipment at each station.  Someone had even gotten out chalk they use on baseball fields to designate each area. I too had to sacrifice for this class.  My coteacher and I were asked to haul our oversized dry-erase board down three flights of stairs out to the field.  Who uses a dry-erase board in the middle of a dirt field?  When the decorating was finished all I could really do was laugh at the ridiculousness of the whole affair.  But I was the only one laughing.

To make matters even more extreme, the school apparently bought over 20 two-foot potted flowers.  As we were lugging the dry-erase board outside the vice principal would stop every 10-feet to indicate where the students should place each pot.  It was someone's genius idea to place these directly in the middle of the hallway, as if it was totally natural to have barriers in the middle of the hallway of an elementary school where students are constantly running, jumping, sliding, hitting, kicking and participating in outrageous activities I've never even seen before.  There is no way that on a normal day these flowers would have lasted 10 minutes without getting knocked over and destroyed.  At the end of the line of flowers there was a table set up with various books, binders and student creations all on the subject of P.E.  The Office of Educationites could explore the wealth of knowledge belonging to our beautiful, perfect school, students and staff.

And the next day the beautiful illusion ceased to exist.  (How'd you like that one sentence paragraph, Jay?)

 The school's field on a normal day. 

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera on open class day but you can imagine.

Now I'll briefly tell you about my own open class, which I have yet to do.  Well, originally I was supposed to do it on the 6th of October.  Then it changed to the 13th, then the 12th of November and now it is scheduled for November 19th.  Since it was originally supposed to be the 6th of October my coteacher and I will naturally be teaching the lesson that we would have taught would it have been that day, 4th grade Chapter 11 Part 2.  Instead, when we actually teach our class, our students will be on Chapter 14 Part 1.  Oh, and did I mention that November 19th is a Friday and I don't even teach 4th graders on Friday?  Yes, we will be having a class that day that doesn't actually exist.  We will be teaching a lesson that the students learned a month and a half before and that we already practiced with them.  I'm sure we will practice it for a second time the day before.  For this class my coteacher spent hours creating the lesson and laminating and cutting out paper and I pretty much did nothing.  This is not because I am lazy or don't care.  It is because Korean teachers take this so damn seriously and get so stressed out over it that they won't let their coteachers do anything because they could screw it up.  If they screwed it up then what would happen?  Probably nothing.

I just have to mention again the fact that EVERYBODY knows that this happens and it is expected.  If a teacher's open class lesson didn't look so overtly outrageous the people at the Office of Education, and everyone else, would have a fit.  I'm sure the whole school would learn about it as soon as it happened (or before) and everyone would be talking about it.  Maybe my criticism is too harsh because I come from a different culture and am used to things a different way, but I really have thought long and hard about this trying to think of the reasoning and I just don't believe it is the best way to evaluate a teacher's ability and success as an educator.  It also causes so much stress on the teacher and takes time away from the students' learning, as they have to practice the same lesson multiple times in an unnatural fashion.

On the plus-side, students will be so well behaved there will be no corporal punishment in the classroom the entire period.

The next day the flowers (this is only half) had been moved to a more practical location.

Maybe I'll get to take one home with me.

House Warming Korean Style

My coteachers and I have a really awesome relationship.  Every Wednesday and Friday when we are all at the school we sit in the English classroom and talk about hilarious topics while drinking coffee and eating yummy treats.  One of such topics was the ritual of gift-giving when a couple moves into a new house.  In the Western world we call these gifts 'house warming gifts.'  This topic came up because I informed my coteachers about a dinner that I had been invited to by my neighbor lady.  I wondered what would be an appropriate gift to bring to thank her for inviting me for dinner.  I told her I was thinking about bringing a bottle of wine because this would be an appropriate gift in the U.S.  She said this would be fine and then we somehow moved from this to gifts you give when someone invites you to their house warming party.

Apparently in Korea the most common house warming gifts that are given are two things: toilet paper and laundry detergent.  The first time I heard this I laughed out loud for a long time.  My coteachers must have thought that something was wrong with me because I was just imagining what people in the U.S. would think if they received toilet paper or laundry detergent as a gift.  If this happened to me I would probably be thinking, "Oh, no.  Did Mrs. Johnson notice the skid marks in my underwear that were on the floor the last time she was here and figured I was out of tp?"  Or, "Harriet must have seen the huge pile of dirty clothes in the laundry room and thought I was out of detergent."  If someone gave a big package of toilet paper as a gift they would definitely be begging for their house to get toilet papered.  Here in Korea there is actually a brand of toilet paper that, when translated, literally means 'house warming.'

When asked the significance behind the gifts my coteachers informed me of the common interpretation.  When one gives TP as a gift they do not necessarily need to worry about the number of rolls in the pack (apparently 6-8 is a good amount).  What is more important is the length of paper on each roll.  This is because the act of pulling the paper off the roll is a metaphor for acquiring wealth.  The more paper you pull off the roll, the more money you are receiving.  This is the same with laundry detergent except the bubbles the soap makes are a symbol of wealth.  The more bubbles, the more money.  Don't ask me how you know which detergent makes the most bubbles.

So here goes my not-so-insightful interpretation.  The two obvious factors in giving toilet paper and laundry detergent as gifts are hygiene and money.  Hygiene because it is literally what these two products are used for and money because of, I already explained why, dammit.  My guess is that this custom stems from the Korean War when money was scarce and people could hardly afford even the basic necessities of life.  When the Koreans began to rebuild their country and economy and people started to earn money, toilet paper and laundry detergent were luxuries that some people could begin to afford.  They were really practical gifts that the receiver could use and it was a way for the giver to share his/her wealth with the receiver.  In many cases the receivers were probably young couples who had just moved into their first house together and did not have much money to purchase non-essential items.  I'm going to keep analyzing this and interrogating my coteachers and see what else I can come up with.

 It's not a stretch to say that Koreans are obsessed with money.  In one of my teacher-classes I had asked my coworkers to discuss dating rituals in Korea.  Two out of three of the women in the class said that they had rejected men because they were 'poor farm boys.'  They described their homeless type garb and that they just couldn't date someone like that.  One woman even admitted that after 'communication,' 'money' is the most important aspect of a relationship.  Koreans are obsessed with having the latest gadgets and many dress to a T at all times.  Designer clothing and accessories are a must if you are to give a good impression, and a good impression is everything.  Does this obsession with money stem from the rebuilding of Korea after the Korean War?

After much analysis I came to this conclusion:  Koreans need lots of toilet paper and laundry detergent for one reason and one reason only.  Because Korean women buy underwear and bras to match their man's underwear, they need to be able to wipe their asses really well and wash their undergarments often so they don't stain them.  If one party ends up staining his/her underwear both parties will have to buy a whole new set of undergarments so they can still match (this is very important).  If they continuously had to buy whole new sets of matching underwear (which are not cheap may I add) then they would not have as much money to buy things that other people will be able to see, like designer clothes and electronics, that will positively influence their status in society. 

Wow, my brilliance amazes me a little more each day.