General Update

Not much new to report.  School chugs on as always.  I'm still enjoying teaching, despite the mischievous children.  Most kids are good and even the ones who are harder to control are after all, just kids.  There are a few who just don't seem to take us foreign teachers seriously and that's where the problems start.  Nothing too terrible, but a lot of time taken away from the lesson to repeatedly discipline these kids.  I've heard stories from other teachers about kids who throw temper tantrums every day at other schools, so I thankful I don't have to deal with that.  Another issue about children here is that Korean culture doesn't like to confront learning disabilities.  Many children might have special needs or shouldn't be placed at the level they are in, but as teachers we can't really approach the situation with the parents.  First, because we don't speak Korean well enough to talk with the parents.  Talking to parents is handled by the Korean teachers.  But mainly it would just be terribly rude and disrespectful in this culture.  There is one boy in one of my preschool classes, Henry, who a few foreign teachers are convinced has some kind of autism.  I'm no psychiatrist but I looked up information about Asperger syndrome and many of the pieces seem to fit together.  Granted, he's only about 6, but that's when some of the first signs become noticeable.  He's very intelligent when it comes to retaining information, but he has almost zero social skills.  During break times he won't talk to or interact with other kids at all.  Instead he will seek out teachers and just repeat information that he's learned in class or tell me about his favorite things in Lego Star Wars (a video game).  But the format is usually as follows:  "Evan Teacher, comparative is -er, superlative is -est!"  It's great that he's learning it and he retains it better than most of the other students, but we worry about his lack of social interaction.  So if we try to bring this up, it will most likely taken as rude or be ignored because he's just a "different" kid.  Our job is just to teach, so we do, but we can try to accommodate students like Henry as best we can. 

My Korean studies are continuing.  It's fun studying and learning all these new things.  It really makes me miss Spanish and that I had kept it up.  Seeing all these people around me (most of them kids!) that are bilingual or trilingual gives me inspiration.  I mostly study on my own or with my friend/co-worker Max, but on Thursdays we go to a private lesson with some other friends.  In the class we focus more on pronunciation and speaking, which is good because I don't practice that enough otherwise.

This weekend I'll be traveling to Seoul for the first time.  One of my Australian friends, Woosung, is Korean and he's stopping through for a few days on his way to America.  So we'll meet up and have some adventures up in Seoul.  One of my other friends, Ashley, is living and teaching in Incheon, near Seoul.  I met her when we were both studying abroad in Australia.  So I'll be meeting up with her as well.  An Australian reunion of sorts!  Looking forward to exploring a new place.  Though I don't think one or two days in Seoul is really enough.  After all, there are more than 10 million people living there.  I'll post again chronicling my adventures there.