Graduation

Today was the English Kindergarten Graduation ceremony, basically just one huge spectacle to impress the students’ parents. My kids in Duke Class had to do something like 15 different things up on stage, including acting out a play from memory, reciting a story from memory (with hand motions), performing a song as a percussion ensemble, playing the cello, reciting speeches...even yodeling. I wish I were kidding. Their graduation was more elaborate than any I've ever been to.

I had to write report cards for all of my kindergartners this week. The possible grades are E (exceeds standards) S (satisfies standards) P (progressing towards standards) and N (novice) across a number of different subjects and behavior points. The school emailed us out the template for the report cards, which conveniently already had the grades written in…of course, every student receives an E for every single grade. We were told that we could change the grades and give out “maybe one S” if a student was particularly bad. It was a little disheartening for me to have to write "exceeds standards" in the area of Maturity for one of my students who on consecutive days earlier this week, pooped his pants and vomited (as you can tell, the other students were not impressed). It’s such a joke…but anything to keep the parents happy I guess.

The past couple weeks have been a never-ending photo shoot. Each student receives a DVD to bring home for the parents, complete with all sorts of video footage from inside the classroom and other activities as well as a number of photographs. The students are filmed playing musical instruments, playing basketball, etc. Also, I had to pose individually with each student at a bunch of different places around the school. Now I assumed that these photos would just be used for the DVDs…but I was wrong. I walked outside of my classroom earlier this week and stumbled upon a pile of pillows…with my face on them.

Apparently my face is going to be on pillows in the homes of a bunch of Korean families from now on. I’m not sure if I should be flattered, or utterly creeped out by this. Maybe a little bit of both.

My hagwon classes in the afternoon had their bimonthly examinations today. I made the exams for my 4 classes – 15 questions each, all multiple choice, and we were told that we must make the exams easy enough that every student will score at least 13/15. Again, gotta keep the parents happy. It doesn’t matter if the students are learning or not, just that there is the illusion of them learning. That’s all that matters. Anyway, I took the questions straight from their books and even went so far as to tell the students which questions to study for earlier this week. I realized that no one really cares how much work gets done, so we’ve been playing a lot of scrabble lately. It’s kind of bizarre how my kindergartners have it much harder than the older students do. But that’s Korea for you…it doesn’t make much sense sometimes.

Duke Class has been really stressed out lately. It feels a bit wrong to think that six year olds could be stressed out...but apparently they had good reason to be. Here's a sampling of what they had to perform this morning, all from memory:

Percussion Ensemble

Synchronized Ballet Dancing

Gong Line

"Genie Puzzle". Still waiting to hear from the Academy on my original screenplay.

And finally...yodeling. Taken at dress rehearsal yesterday.

That's about it. I get a fresh batch of kids next week. Congratulations, Duke Class. It's been real.