A Week of firsts

This week was full of firsts not only for me, but for my new student Brian. Brian’s first day was Monday and I quickly learned he was not as mature as the rest of my class. Within the first few minutes I learned he had never used scissors before. This fact alone is not that uncommon, all of Toriann’s class needed help too learning how to use scissors, again, a reason Brian should be in her class and not mine. Then came lunch time, where I learned his Mom would feed him! His first day at lunch I couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t eating, but then I saw him try and hold his spoon and realized he didn’t know how to do. I sat by him and helped him, but he really had no interest in trying, he wanted someone to do it for him. This mentality translates to everything he has to do in class, he never wants to do anything from himself. On Tuesday when we had our ice cream party I figured it was the perfect motivation to get him to use a spoon. Instead he chose to sit there for about 45 minutes and only tried once to use his spoon to eat his ice cream. By Friday though he managed to use a fork to pick up his chicken and eat it. I have to keep reminding myself that it isn’t his fault he is this way, he has been babied his whole life and that he will eventually learn how to be independent. But, it is going to be a long process to get there! He actually threw a real temper tantrum in class on Thursday because his chicken was too spicy at lunch. I was shocked at first, and then afterward all I could do was laugh with my co-workers because the whole situation is too ridiculous. It will be an interesting time being the person to teach him everything, but at least he will finally learn how to eat by himself!

Next up is my first time being on Korean television and standing up for myself at work. I wrote about how I was upset about the camera crews coming on Monday. Well Monday morning came around and I arrived to work not really knowing what to expect. It turns out Julie was sick, so the camera crews were not coming anymore. Instead they came on Thursday. But, before school on Thursday one of the administrators came down to talk to me, the one I don’t really like very much. She doesn’t speak English, so she had the teacher down the hall translate. I guess Julie’s mom called that morning and explained that Julie had been crying in the morning more than she ever has before about not wanting to come to school. But, the camera crews were at her house too, and she doesn’t like them. The administrator told me all this and then asked “what can you do to make her not cry?” Well this just set me off because the whole reason I have all the new students is because of her. I told her; 1)Julie needs to come to school for a full week. 2)Don’t give me 4 new students in a month, one who shouldn’t even be in my class. 3) Don’t give into her when she is crying and then I ended with telling her she was crying when she was eating ice cream on Children’s Day. What child does that if not for attention? I was so annoyed with this, but proud of me for standing up for myself and not just taking what she said. This is something I would not have done After she left I asked Joanne, the teacher who was translating what she thought I should do about Julie, who everyone now calls the crying girl. Joanne had no ideas either, and said, really if a child cries when they eat ice cream, there is really nothing you can do! So, Julie comes on Thursday and I was mentally prepared for the worst. Turns out we had to change our schedule around to make it look more enjoyable for the camera crews to film. They wanted to film Gordon teaching drama class. Pine and Oak class went downstairs during second and third period to do an impromptu drama class and then free time on the play structure. I was also informed I had to do an interview with the camera crew. I really had no idea what I was going to say about this girl who cries and doesn’t even talk to me or anyone else. To top it off I was having a weird allergic reaction and my eye was all red and watery, and I randomly developed a large red zit by my lip. I was not very thrilled about this idea. Also, I am not too fond of being the center of attention when it comes to these types of things, making this whole incident even harder for me to handle. Toriann and Gordon gave me a little pep talk and we all headed down stairs for drama class. The kids were a little confused as to why we were having drama in the middle of the day and not at the end of day, or why we were doing it on Thursday not their normal day of Tuesday. But since the week had been so out of order anyway due to children’s day, they just went with it. I enjoyed being able to see what they do in drama class, and Toriann and I participated, which the kids thought was great! Afterwards they wanted us to play with the kids, so we did. Then they pulled Julie and I aside and asked me a few questions. While they were filming this, the rest of my class thought this was fun and came by and climbed all over me. I had to kind of makeup answers, since really I didn’t know Julie all that well; she has only been at school about 5 days total. I did a good job making everything sound great and then we continued to play. All in all, it ended up being just fine and Julie didn’t cry once! In fact she was great! On Friday she came to school and didn’t cry either. I found out that at her last school she would cry and the director would come down and give her lots of attention and presents. I had told Liz the day before to tell the administrators to stop coming down and giving Julie special attention because she was crying more just to get that attention. I think it helped because on Friday she was perfectly fine and she even talked to the other kids in class! At lunch Ray said to me “Miss Alison, Julie smiled and talked!” He was so proud of himself that he got her to smile and talk, it was really sweet. Julie even talked to me more; I think she is finally becoming comfortable in class and with me.


My last first for the week was yoga. I was really nervous because I have never done it before and I get anxious doing things I think I may not be good at. Turns out I did just fine and the teacher is amazing. I plan on going back on Tuesday and signing up. I figured no better time to learn yoga then here in Seoul. When I go back home I can finally try the yoga class at the gym I was always too scared to try.