Becoming a teacher: A Metamorphosis

Greetings from the Orient!

This week we have seminars on preparing lesson plans, acclimating to the teaching environment, relating with our Korean co-teachers, etc. There are people here who have been teachers for years in America, Canada, etc. There are people here who have taught overseas before, in China or Korea, etc. There are newly-graduated Education majors who have student-taught and have some classroom experience.

And then, there's me. No education classes. No professional teaching experience. Never had my own classroom (unless you count Sunday School).

This used to stress me out.

However, I'm beginning to see that all of this may be to my advantage. I don't have any expectations. My only concern is that perhaps, in some kind of sugar-induced craze (EVERYTHING HERE IS LOADED WITH SUGAR), my students might go berzerk and start stabbing each other. This is worst-case scenario, of course. Anything else is minor.

I won't have to test the kids (they're not tested on English, weirdly enough). I won't have to discipline the kids (that's my co-teacher's job). I have a text book. I have a website with over 1,000 powerpoint activities and games. I like children (may feel differently by the time I come back).

And so, I don't have to worry about fitting "my technique" or "my teaching style" into everything. And that's good, because I don't have either one of those things. They keep stressing that our main job is to have fun with the kids, and hopefully they'll retain something. That works. I can be a dancing monkey for 22 hours a week and not feel like I'm wasting my precious professional educator time. Because I'm not a professional educator. Nothing is beneath me. Kind of like being an intern.

My main goal is to survive without embarassing myself (amongst adults) too much, and to just enjoy being with these kids. Hopefully that's attainable :)

By the way, these people try to sneak fish into everything here. I have to be very suspicious about what I eat - the menus are only in Korean. I found a tentacle floating around in what I had judged to be vegetable soup yesterday. Sneaky.

Tomorrow we get to visit the National Korean Museum. I'm sure they'll have a kimchi exhibit, and you know I'm looking forward to it.

Au revoir,

Jess