Back to Kindergarten

I came to Korea under the impression that I would be a Winter Camp teacher here at the English Academy. The Winter Camp is a 4-week program for all of the hagwon students who want to continue their studying over the holidays, while many other students are either traveling or just taking a break from school with their families. For my first two days, I was teaching the Advanced section of the Winter Camp - a group of very bright eleven year-olds who are probably more informed of current World News than I am. But because the Academy has lost many teachers in the past couple of months for various reasons, our supervisors told us that we should expect frequent changes to our schedules, and to just be flexible about these changes. On Tuesday afternoon, I was informed that I would no longer be a Winter Camp teacher, and that I would instead spend my mornings teaching English Kindergarten, which consists of small groups of six year-olds, some of whom are already fluent in English, or are well on their ways to to becoming fluent.

So suddenly, I've become a kindergarten teacher. And because I have to do most of the same activities as the students in order to demonstrate them, it's kind of like reliving kindergarten all over again. I am coloring in between the lines, working on my upper- and lowercase scripts, and reading stories like "Biscuit's New Trick" and "Goodnight, Sleepy Dog." The first thing I do each morning is to write a "Good Student/Baby Student" list on the board, and establish two "Baby Chairs" in the back of the room. Amazingly, this is all it takes to keep the kids in line...no kindergartner wants to be a baby student.

The sections of the English Kindergarten are all named after Ivy League schools in America - talk about pressure at a young age. I teach Cornell class. My students call me Dan Teacher. Everything about the English Academy is state of the art. It's kind of incredible really. I teach a section of English computer typing, and each student has his own 23-inch monitor and brand new processor. At the front of the class, the keyboard is linked to a huge monitor so that the class can follow my fingers as I type. I never learned how to type properly, so my students are all going to learn to type as I do - with two pointer fingers and a thumb. But for some students, this was still quite a struggle. One boy named Jim couldn't quite figure out the art of pressing the keys without holding them down, so if the program asked him to type "ADSFSA" it would come out more like aaaaaaaaaaaaaa ddddddddddddddd sssssssssssssss fffffffffffffffff sssssssssssss aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. We're going to have to work on that if this guy's headed to the Ivy League like everybody else...

Along with the advanced technology comes advanced control. In every classroom, there is a little black security camera on the ceiling in one of the corners. And you are being watched at all times. There is literally a "control room" in the school, where a staff member sits and watches a live feed of every classroom. I'm not sure if this is used more to monitor the students or to monitor the teachers, or both equally. But in any case, I've had to go easy on the students when I beat them for bad behavior. Just kidding. As far as you know, anyway.

We get snack time for 20 minutes everyday; unfortunately it is almost always gluten. Glutenous spaghetti, glutenous tuna sandwiches, glutenous gluten, etc. But I've made the school aware of my allergies, and during this time I take a break and walk down the street to a "Mini Stop" convenience store and buy an individually wrapped Kimbap to eat as my snack. It's an inconvenience, but it's better than going all morning without eating. Needless to say, it takes a LOT of energy to keep up with thirteen kindergartners all morning.

By the end of the morning, most of us are ready for a nap. Some of my students actually do take naps. I miss being a little kid. The major concerns in your day are things like what game the teacher lets you play, what time snack starts at, etc. And while my day is not nearly as carefree as that of my students, it's still quite easy to feed off of their youthful energy. I'd have to say that spending so much time around such young kids has actually been rejuvenating. I can only hope I'm feeling the same way in a few weeks. For now, I'm enjoying going back to kindergarten.