Charpie's Travels

I am no longer a Pre-Kinder teacher. The semester (for my school) ended Friday, and I've been assigned to a Kindergarten class for the new school year. I'll have a couple of my Pre-K students again, but the rest will be new faces. Considering that I haven't even been here three full months, I didn't anticipate saying many goodbyes already. Starting next week, we all have different afternoon (elementary) teaching schedules, so I have no idea which kids I'll see again. The last couple days were rough for some of my youngest kids. Rebecca sobbed through the entire last class, and Andrew hid in a corner. When my co-teacher congratulated the class for moving up to kindergarten, Grace snapped. "Stop saying kindergarten! I do not want to go!"  The foreign teachers are all paired with different Korean teachers for the new semester. So, while we do still work for the same school, it felt like I was saying goodbye to my co-teacher. She was super. Also, Friday was ...

For Valentine's Day, my fabulous parents sent me a box of chocolate-covered potato chips. Someone brought me the package during class (my mail is sent to work), and my pre-kinders were beyond excited about it. Grace ran around shaking the box as hard as she possibly could. I promised them that, if they finished their work quickly, we'd open my mail. Maybe this just shows how little I know about Korean kids, but I really expected them to be grossed out by potato chips dipped in chocolate. Even after they begged to try them, I still expected someone to spit out their chip. Not the case. The first word they uttered after tasting the chips was "delicious!" I walked into class after a three-day weekend and my kids were still bitter that I hadn't given them each more than one chip. "Teacher, you are not good," Diana announced. "You do not share your chips." I promised to bring these kids a treat for some class-wide accomplishment. I made the...

I've spent a considerable amount of time testing different threats and bribes and rewards and punishments on my different classes over the last two months. Some succeed, some flop. Some work for a day or week and then nosedive. I suppose that's half the fun of working with kids...figuring out a million different ways to deal with 60 very different little people. I hope I'm not speaking too soon, but I think I have found IT. The one thing works on every one of my classes. Even the rowdy kids are suddenly very interested in completing their work and answering questions. My students are magically more alert, quieter, and still.  Ann in Pre-K first spotted IT in its hiding spot when she ventured somewhere she shouldn't have been. "There's a very ugly toy in there!" she announced. In most of my classes, kids stared for a moment before a light went on. Then they exclaimed, "Ah! Toy Story!" Thank you, Pixar, for introducing Mr. Potato Head to my...

This week's story is about King Midas. You know, the one who turned things to gold simply by touching them. The Pre-K version of the story omits a whole lot of info but includes really tough words like "ping!" An hour or two after reading class, Andrew and Diana planted themselves on the ledge in the back of the room. I made some general reminder that everyone should be in their seats, and everyone except Diana and Andrew sat down. These two remained perched in the back, not moving, not smiling, not looking at me...or anything at all. So I walked to the back, got right in their faces, and repeated the order.  Nothing happened. Only when I started poking and helping them down did Diana (still stiff, straight-faced, and robot-like) explain, "I am gold!" They at least should get points for staying in character. And for listening two hours ago...never mind the present. 

The loudest, hyperest, and happiest pre-k kid is Justin. Keeping him in a chair is nearly impossible, but he's great. When I lost my voice, I had him "be my voice" for a while. He sat right in front of my desk that day, so I'd tell him something and he'd yell it at everyone else. The only problem was bringing him back from his power trip. "Everybody! Teacher says you must listen to ME!"  Each week I give a vocab test. Then they all draw on the back of the paper while I make the rounds and grade the tests. I was kneeling in front of Justin's desk, circling all his correct words, and he started laughing. One of those quiet, but hard laughs that makes your entire body shake. His face was all scrunched up so you could barely see his eyes. It wasn't a mean laugh either. Whatever happened, it was just that hilarious. "What's so funny?" I asked, not sure whether I really wanted to know. "Your nose..." and he started l...

Today was not my favorite. It consisted of class observation and the threat of unannounced observation. Really, it wasn't all that awful. But at the end of work, I walked away with a mental recording of everything that went wrong and a bit of befuddlement over why in the world even the good kids act up when a visitor is present.  But that's not my reason for posting.  I walked into my first class this morning and one of my girls ran right into me.  "Teacher, here!" she yelled as she shoved an envelope at me. I took the sticker-sealed envelope and thanked the her. I couldn't tell you if she heard me; she was already halfway back to her seat.  I opened the envelope at break. Inside was a pink pen, a pink fold-out ruler, and a sheet of paper. On one side was a drawing of a girl (possibly me?) and on the other side was a note: Elizabeth teacher, Thank you for teaching me and loving me. Love, Grace Given the other events of the day, I'd nearly forg...

My pre-kinder kids are learning about contractions in Phonics class (how old are kids in the US when they learn this??). I've never had an opinion - good or bad - about contractions before this week, but now I love them. I love them because I get to hear 11 little children try to say "apostrophe."  Apparently, this was a new word for my class. They just called it a "comma" and made gestures to show me that it belonged on the top part of the word. I can sympathize with my kids when it takes 10 seconds to sound out a new word. That's what happens when I try to read Hangul. And 98% of it still means nothing to me, even after I sound it out.  Some Hangul letters cover for a couple different English letter sounds. Korean also doesn't cram together as many consonant sounds as English does (like the "str" in "apostrophe"). So, for my little kids, "apostrophe" comes out more like "uhh-potrow-pee." And whenever one st...

Work was pretty different this week. That sounds like I actually know what “normal” is here. I just know it wasn’t this. The students have these big tests every month, and all the teachers have to do for those hours is pass out tests, make sure no one cheats, and find puzzles or games or videos to fill the post-test time. I bought fruit this week. I got a couple pieces that looked like they might be sweet limes (like we had in India). They were not. More like weird grapefruit. I picked up a pomegranate and noticed when I got home that it’s from California. I bought banana chips, and I don’t care what you say … they count as fruit. I tried to buy oranges. If you bag your own fruit, you’re supposed to take it to the man at the scale who weighs it and slaps a sticker on the bag. Who knew. I did not visit the scale man, and so my oranges stayed at the check out. I also bought some beef, which is nothing like fruit. It tastes much better. Also, rice here is ridiculously expensive. On ...

My Korean co-teacher had my students make these cards for me.  Christmas Cards