March 22, Monday Buzz

I don’t know what on earth the sixth graders were on, but they were incredibly juiced up for a Monday.

One of the target phrases from the chapter was “I like flying a kite.” Since we had a few extra minutes, I proceeded to tell 6-4 a story from a few weeks ago.

“I was walking at Jinhae-ro. Jinhae-ru?” Ru, they confirmed.

“I was walking at Jinhae-ru and saw a boy flying a kite.”

The star of the show was the power line, but I had no idea how to say this in Korean and my drawing was eliciting guesses of “soccer goal” and “fence” so I took a stab and said the Korean words for “power” and “line”.

Amazingly, I was correct. The homeroom teacher GJ who has been friendly since day one confirmed and I replied my guesses were almost always wrong.

“Your guess was right, you are a genius!” She encouraged from the back of the class.

I continued, “The boy was flying a kite and…” I demonstrated that this poor kid’s kite flew right into the power line and got stuck.

The homeroom teacher and all the kids giggled and I felt proud of my ability to tell this story with bits of English, limited Korean, and hand gestures.

Helen asked how my kids were later that afternoon.

“They were really energized… especially for a Monday.”

“Ah,” she nodded, “they are starting to reveal their true selves.”

I think back to the silent apathy of my Seoul sixth graders and I’d take “hyped up on Mountain Dew” over the alternative any day!