Good Job!

The weather was cloudy again today. Only one adult (Nicole) today, so we talked for about 25 minutes then when it seemed that no one else was coming I got one of the books I read for In2Books and we read it together for the rest of class. A book by Jean Fritz that I read with a 5th-grader, the vocab was OK in most places, but the sentences were pretty long and of such varied structure that it challenged her. We got through perhaps 10 pages before the class finished.

Because tomorrow is Children's Day, Mr. Kim bought gifts for all the kids. For the elementary school students it was a cutesy pencil case—Winnie the Pooh or some Korean deer character. The middle school students got a more sophisticated mechanical pencil set. The first class (Dominic, Mark, Billy, the two Tims, and Brian) were so exited with their pencil cases. Then when they opened them and saw some pens, pencils, and mechanical pencil lead, they were even MORE excited. "Teacher, good job! Wow!" They kept saying, "Good job!" because I guess that's all they knew how to say to express how great they thought it was. The next class was also very excited, and kept saying "Thank you!" That's Miro's big class. When I entered the class carrying a tape player, my papers, my book, and 11 pencil cases, they rushed me. The few students who remained seated were left with few choices. Jake (5th or 6th grade) was left with pink. He's so quiet so he didn't complain or anything, but I later asked him if he wanted to trade colors—yes. As I was taking role scratching Kevin's name off was wonderful—no more disrespect and lack of trying and filthy language all from one kid.

At 5 quite a few students were absent because of the middle school tests. Rookie was his usual talkative self—talking about food and cooking when we were studying something else. The other kids are so DENSE—I explained things multiple times and they still didn't do it right. At 6 ALL of the kids had done their homework—my threat to keep them after class if they hadn't done it really paid off! Then at 7 they're doing a little better, but only because I'm acting like a dictator.

Matthew and Tanya have agreed to work at our school, but they are so picky. They've been doing too much reading online about the horror stories that happen at some schools. The latest is they want certain things changed in the contract. Sandra explained to them that the contract is worth VERY LITTLE here, but they persist. With their background in education (they'll be graduating with degrees in education a few days before coming to Korea) I hope they'll be flexible and able to adjust to the way we do things. We certainly don't need two anal people who know the best way to educate children running around.

Mr. Kim was around briefly, but again preoccupied with other things. The pay issue will have to wait.