Focus on students I
The best and worst part about teaching is working with students.
Most of them have small, yet fully developed personalities that are, like their adult counterparts, a mix of the delightful and damnable.
For example I have one junior student that I teach who is convinced that I dislike her and that I punish her in disproportion to her misdeeds. She is what one teacher calls 'bipolar'; jubilant and rowdy one minute, and then, stinging from a rebuke, real or imagined, she pouts the rest of the class and can't be coaxed to answer any questions. I hope I'm not prejudiced but she uses her mood swings as an excuse to be lazy in class, to not do homework and to encourage others to misbehave by picking fights with boys and so forth.
...
I am not one of those teachers who believes that through superhuman application of my will that I can force unwilling students to learn. Some of them are too young to understand that learning is their decision, and some of them will come around later in life; some of them never will. Some of them just plain hate English class, and that is not something that can be overcome. The parents who are forcing Nicole to come to the academy every day are plain foolish to think that it's doing anything besides ingraining her future distaste for language learning, and they're wasting their money to boot. Get these kids out of academic classes - get them working as mechanics, nail artists, salon owners, professional golfers, or whatever they were meant to be. Why do we (West and East alike) cling to the idea that all our children should be skilled pianists, bilingual ballerinas with pre-med degrees? Pick what you're good at, pick something you like, and stick with it.
...
A few days ago I roared at my entire class of Junior 5 students. They are my only 3 hour class, and unfortunately, they are the most difficult to control. I scared them, and they behaved a bit better the next class, but I felt rotten for a day afterwards. I know it's irrational to feel bad about something that they forget minutes after leaving my class, but I have a deep-rooted hatred of yellers. There has to be a better way to manage a class than by shouting. Mr. Babin never had to yell to keep his class in line, but then again, that was High School.
...
Now that it's summer time and I'm wearing short sleeves, some of my students have developed a fascination with my arm hair. Koreans don't really have any body hair to speak of, so when my students first see it, their usual reaction is wide-eyed astonishment. When they touch my arm, they're usually repulsed, but then, like a cat, they can't wait for me to pass their desk so that they can pet me. One of my Basic students tries to generate as much static electricity as he can by grabbing my arm and rapidly rubbing it with the palm of his hand. Another boy has noticed that I occasionally dye my arm hair blonde but he isn't sure if I am shaving it or what. I'm not letting on, since I have no idea what parents would think about such a bizarre weiguk fetish.
Most of them have small, yet fully developed personalities that are, like their adult counterparts, a mix of the delightful and damnable.
For example I have one junior student that I teach who is convinced that I dislike her and that I punish her in disproportion to her misdeeds. She is what one teacher calls 'bipolar'; jubilant and rowdy one minute, and then, stinging from a rebuke, real or imagined, she pouts the rest of the class and can't be coaxed to answer any questions. I hope I'm not prejudiced but she uses her mood swings as an excuse to be lazy in class, to not do homework and to encourage others to misbehave by picking fights with boys and so forth.
...
I am not one of those teachers who believes that through superhuman application of my will that I can force unwilling students to learn. Some of them are too young to understand that learning is their decision, and some of them will come around later in life; some of them never will. Some of them just plain hate English class, and that is not something that can be overcome. The parents who are forcing Nicole to come to the academy every day are plain foolish to think that it's doing anything besides ingraining her future distaste for language learning, and they're wasting their money to boot. Get these kids out of academic classes - get them working as mechanics, nail artists, salon owners, professional golfers, or whatever they were meant to be. Why do we (West and East alike) cling to the idea that all our children should be skilled pianists, bilingual ballerinas with pre-med degrees? Pick what you're good at, pick something you like, and stick with it.
...
A few days ago I roared at my entire class of Junior 5 students. They are my only 3 hour class, and unfortunately, they are the most difficult to control. I scared them, and they behaved a bit better the next class, but I felt rotten for a day afterwards. I know it's irrational to feel bad about something that they forget minutes after leaving my class, but I have a deep-rooted hatred of yellers. There has to be a better way to manage a class than by shouting. Mr. Babin never had to yell to keep his class in line, but then again, that was High School.
...
Now that it's summer time and I'm wearing short sleeves, some of my students have developed a fascination with my arm hair. Koreans don't really have any body hair to speak of, so when my students first see it, their usual reaction is wide-eyed astonishment. When they touch my arm, they're usually repulsed, but then, like a cat, they can't wait for me to pass their desk so that they can pet me. One of my Basic students tries to generate as much static electricity as he can by grabbing my arm and rapidly rubbing it with the palm of his hand. Another boy has noticed that I occasionally dye my arm hair blonde but he isn't sure if I am shaving it or what. I'm not letting on, since I have no idea what parents would think about such a bizarre weiguk fetish.
posted by Vivec at 5:33 a.m.
1 Comments:
Yeah, same goes with tattoos, something which only gansters have in Korea. My Canadian roommate had a bunch of them on her back. All went well until some rotton wee bugger decided it would be hilariously funny if he snuck up behind her and looked up her shirt.
When he caught sight of the snake and scorpion body art, he fled the room screaming 'ganpei teacher!' (ganster teacher!). And a still small smile spread across the faces of the teaching faculty ;-).
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