Possible changes to come…..

This past week was overall a good week in terms of teaching and my students, but something felt off all week for me and I couldn’t really verbalize or understand it. Toriann and Casey were having a hard week in terms of teaching, and so on Thursday after work, which happen to end on a really bad note for us all, we went out to get a beer and basically complained to each other. While were we out together we all discussed our frustrations with teaching here, all of which we had heard before, but still needed to say it out loud to each other. In the end we realized we simply just care too much about our students and whether or not they are learning. There are many people who come to Korea simply as an excuse to travel and party. Others come here to truly understand a new culture and teach children. The three of us all came here for the latter reason. Some of our co-workers, who thankfully we don’t directly work with, did come here for the first reason. It frustrates us because while we are really trying to teach and care for these children, they are doing the bare minimal and complain about how other teachers have it way easier in terms of teaching. After we finished complaining about what we don’t like about co-workers, staff, and how things are done at our school, we decided to actually come up with solutions to the problems.


The six year floor is set up right now where each class rotates to all four of us, and has one elective at the end of the day. Back home, these 6 year old children, are actually 5, and thus would be kindergarten. Those of you who are teachers reading this can understand how difficult it would be having kindergarten students changing classes every 45 minutes. Having 4 different teachers, all with different expectations and ways of teaching is hard on them. Not to mention the fact that they really don’t know English all that well, and are having to hear 4 different English accents throughout the day. Since I have some classroom management skills and teaching background it is easier for me handle the changes and help the classes settle down quickly. It is also easier for me to understand you need to be tougher in the beginning and by doing this you end up having more fun in the end because they know the expectations. If you have never taught, this lesson comes later and it is harder in the beginning. I tried to reassure both Casey and Toriann they are doing a great job, but I understand the frustrations too. In the end we decided it would be better for us teachers, and students if we went back to how the schedule was last year where they only switched two times in the day and had only two teachers. This would mean a change in what we all were teaching. Part of the struggle now is feeling a connection with all the students in all the classes. It is easy for our homeroom because we see our class in the morning for snack, first period, lunch and the end of the day; as well as one elective during the week. For the rest of the classes we only see them for 45 minutes. It is not a very long to build a connection with the children individually. Now, I know eventually this would come, but at the moment Casey and Toriann really aren’t that happy, and want to be making a difference. All of which I find admirable and can respect. Also, I do agree it would be easier for all involved in the long run and be more effective. After our brainstorming ended 5 hours after we had begun and we were proud of our idea but realized we needed Gordon’s input in this change since he is in our teaching group. We all respect Gordon a great deal because he has been doing this for a while and is an amazing teacher .Somehow I ended up being elected to be the one to talk to Gordon first before we all went to him. I think because I was the least emotionally about it, and Gordon and I think more alike when it comes to teaching. I agreed and said I would arrive to school early the next day to give myself time to speak to him.

Friday morning came and I arrived to school early to get some work done before Gordon and I talked. For those of you who know me well I get nervous in any kind confrontational setting regardless of who the person is or what the issue is. I almost bailed and didn’t talk to him because I know Toriann well enough to know that the next morning she would have gotten over her frustration and probably been okay if we didn’t change how the classes were set up after all. But, I also knew everyone would be unhappy in another few weeks and we would be right back here complaining again. So, I sucked it up and talked to Gordon. I am not sure why I was nervous because we all get along so well and Gordon is by no means a threatening person, but I think because I respect him as a teacher, I got nervous. Our talk went well, and he said a lot of the same things to me that I had already told the other two about how change takes time and everyone involved would get the hang of the rotation and the kids would settle down after some time. He also agreed he would support us no matter what we wanted and was fine with going back to the old way of teaching. He admitted he was a little sad he was not involved in our original conversation and hoped we would all always come to him with concerns. I explained the other two would talk to him later in the day, they just wanted me to explain our idea first. While we were talking Toriann and Casey arrived to school, and it became slightly awkward for us all knowing I had just had this talk with Gordon and they knew what it was about and yet we weren’t all talking together. So, Gordon, being Gordon, said, “can we have a group pow wow and just talk this out all of this?” In case I never mentioned before Gordon is what the school calls the head teacher. He has been at the school for almost 3 years now, shortly after they opened and is respected a great deal by the director. Because of this Gordon has many meetings with the director and will all us teachers. He informed us during our pow-wow that the director always comments on how we are doing a great job on our floor and she is very pleased with us. She is aware how hard we work and can see how much we care about the students. This made us all feel better, and was encouraging to know our hard work is noticed. I think Casey and Toriann definitely felt better, and we agreed to go to the director with our idea and see what happens from there. I did tell Gordon I didn’t want to give my phonics to him though, since he taught phonics last year. He agreed I could keep it if I agreed to take over math, which I am more than willing to! Wish us luck on our talk with the director!