And now, just like a pole dancer or a millworker...

I'm down to the daily grind.


Day in and day out, beleaguered reader, I deal with the likes of the sweet boy pictured here. We'll call him Raiden, to protect your innocence.




"Geoffrey Teacher, later today I will sit with my head on the floor and talk to you out of my hind orifice."





Yeah, I was just as surprised as you when he used the word orifice.

Or whatever.

There's a battle raging in that classroom. The Apple classroom. The Apples. We all shudder with fear upon hearing the name. We actually convulse and soil ourselves when we enter the room. I feel impotent, redundant, null as the French would say. I have become the educational equivalent of my student's favorite feature on my neck: a skin tag.


NO, THIS IS NOT MY NECK! This is the anatomical avatar of my career thus far.

I have tried everything within my power to get them to settle down, to listen, to join me in their education.





Some, like the girls here, traipse down the corridors of knowledge and learning with aplomb, their childlike laughter reverberating as they learn a new phrase or use an old phrase in a new way.



A chosen few threaten each other with scissors, clandestinely severing random locks of hair from friends and occasionally doing a worksheet about how many sides a triangle has.

This is as advanced a case of Lord of the Flies Syndrome I have ever seen. Admittedly, there are a couple of kids who may not be able to help it and, due to the that's-just-how-things-are-edness about Korea, parents choose not to believe that anything is wrong with their child. Instead they blame the teachers for their child's inability to sit still without turning themselves into a human washing machine. You just enjoy that mental image.

=


And now: the Spin Cycle

For the few that pills won't help, they're just easily distracted. Noisy kids, whispers, bits of errant string, breathing things or shiny objects: anything and everything can set them off on a course of actions that end in their removal from our little society of knowledge and into the diet coke bottle-riddled confines of the teacher's room.

Sometimes, hindsighted reader, I wish I'd done things differently. Reacted faster, had some kind of brilliant solution, called upon the unbridled power of an impromptu tapdance to reign them in. But the truth is, when it comes to kids, I just don't have any resources. I haven't had to deal with them for ages. And really I had become sort of disenchanted with them in the last 10 years, not having had to deal with them at all.

The point is: today I yelled and almost cried. On Monday we're having an early morning meeting (-sigh-) regarding discipline and behavior given by our fearless leader and a pretty inspiring guy, our principal.

I don't know what to expect or what the outcome will be but...I'm hoping for more tools.

I'm hoping for deliverance.

I'm hoping for cattle prods.

The Escape Part II

And now...the REST of the story:

Simultaneously with all of this hooplah, fair and decent reader, I was being groomed, nay...even courted, by the job which had started this whole fiasco ages ago. The first time I'd even thought of going overseas, a friend of a friend (KaRyn, friend of Jon), suggested that I apply to take the position she was leaving.

"Where is this job?" I asked.

"In South Korea," said she.

"That sounds dirty and possibly behutted," said I.

"And stinky," she thought to herself, but instead offered the four and a half most intriguing words a freshly graduated wanderer can hear:

You'll. Make. Good. Money.

I saw dollar signs, mostly because I didn't know what the currency was in Korea. Rupees? Yen? Tourquoise agates?

However, when the time came down the road to connect with KaRyn (emphasis on the RYN, thank you) it turned out that she'd decided to re-up on her contract and so I was left to my own devices, scouring the internet for a free ticket out of the Home of the Brave.





Here, you look hungry, famished reader. Have yourself a Coke zero and a bag of Doritos, to ease any emotional distress you may be feeling.










T I M E P A S S E S

Once I saw things at the i-Sponge taking an El Nose-o Dive-o (Spanish for "nose dive", proud Latino readers) I quickly went in search of alternatives. KaRyn, now nearing the end of her contract, began to drop hints which, like good underwear, were gentle but firm.

The new job was far more intriguing. An American system school where the teachers and the principal have the power, not the mothers. Where the children learn to speak and listen before they learn to read and write (just like real life!). This is a land where English is not taught explicitly but via content-based curricula: Art, Drama, Language Arts. And it's ALL. IN. ENGLISH.

You should know, ye readers of the arched supercilius, that the speaking of Korean is not villified, but honored and accepted as an important part of the children's lives. The classes are disciplined with clear behavioral methods. The school serves the child, the whole child, rather than its own money-grubbing agenda and desperate, melodramatic mommies. The principal is very available, affable and always has amazing suggestions and insight into dealing with children and understands the difficulties of getting a six-year-old boy to just sit the hell down and shut the hell up while you're trying to give him the Judas-priesting lesson that you spent all rassafrassin' morning planning. And he's gonna like it. And sit nicely.

Or risk certain death/dismemberment.

The transition was only slightly awkward. I had to stay for two weeks in the basement mews of my principal's palatial residence. It was glorious and tiny. But I loved it. I took me a trip to Japan to get a new visa (it was forfeit once I left my old job) and witnessed me some sights and breathed me some clean air before coming on back to the land of constant nasal offenses.

A week later, I moved out. It strikes me that I've spent a considerable amount of my life moving in and out of basements.

Weird.

Like the other job, I was worried for the entire first month here at "Creativity School" that I would be fired. As you can imagine, this resulted in a goodly amount of swamp ass. But after time, I saw that was not how things work here. Teaching is also seen as a learning process here and the teachers are not expected to do anything other than work hard and do their best with what they've got.

Here, settled into the daily routine, I am constantly encouraged, uplifted and supported by those around me. When I have a problem, I have people to go to. When I need to punish a child, I can (and do, you'd better believe). When mommies come to the school, I rarely see them.

It isn't bliss, fair reader. It's often arduous and trying. But there's so much I want to do and so much I am now doing that it boggles the mind.

Needless to say, I am happier here at 창의 학교.

I love hearing from you all and hope that this blog finds you healthy and happy.

Best,

Geoffwah