Have you ever tried to teach a reading portion of a chapter to a group of students who don’t know how to read? That was my Wednesday. I broke down the reading into smaller chunks knowing many students at my travel school struggle: I introduced the topic with a real video to stimulate background knowledge; students circled new vocabulary in the text and then wrote definitions by each circled word; students did think pair share with questions about the topic for prereading; students listened to the text, listened and repeated the text, then read aloud as a group; students answered the post reading questions. I did my best but it…

Today was chaos. 5-6 was frustrating and my notes from the last month show that they have always been frustrating, namely because of three loud boys who don’t stay on task. I don’t mind loud boys, but I cannot tolerate rude boys. I might just send them out of class next time, since their peers and my class time suffer because of their poor behavior. 5-5 was, to my absolute shock, on time today! The homeroom teacher stayed until 10AM to ensure all the students were seated with books out before he took off presumably for the teacher’s lounge. I commended their preparedness and felt my heart shed the gloom…

This morning I called my mom en route to school and she told me that the neighborhood bear had quite literally invited itself in through the back porch door to eat MnMs on the kitchen counter. My parents have a security camera on the front porch and I showed the fourth graders an older clip of that same bear moseying through our front yard. I continued the story in Korean: “My mom and I talked. Yesterday, that same bear came inside the house.” There was a collective gasp and even I got goosebumps. “Do you know the candy ‘MnMs’? It came to eat the MnMs. Our dog was very angry…

Due to some unknown traffic fate, not a single one of my seven possible morning buses arrived for twenty minutes. I sat there as the bus stop slowly became more crowded and agitated. By the time I finally got on, my ETA would be exactly when class was starting. I accepted the fate and texted Yana with the PPT files. But the bus situation was a bit like waking up on the wrong side of the bed. Yana did her introduction and review with the class and then asked if I had prepared for the book dialogue. Huh? What dialogue? There is a dialogue section but I hadn’t used it…

This morning before class, I groaned quietly and looked away from my computer that had blue screened once again. Little did I know I’d need the same stress tactic for later in the day. 5-5 was once again late and unprepared. They had trouble singing our class song and setting up for class. I was so disappointed and frustrated that I had to take a moment to look out the window of their classroom and remind myself that they are kids and no one will learn if I hold my irritation against them. I reminded them again about being prepared and arriving on time and the rest of the class…

Due to what I can only describe as a freak accident, all the wind patterns aligned in such a way that the fine dust (pollution) and yellow dust (sand from deserts of China) amalgamated to the maximum to produce the smoggiest day I’ve ever seen in my nearly two years here. I left the house this morning in a standard surgical mask but I should have worn a KF94. I exclaimed to myself, is there fog or something? Why are the mountains in my little town suddenly covered in a weird gray mist? I checked the AQI reading and almost missed my crosswalk signal as I stared at my phone…

By now, it’s a well-established fact that Jack has a special place in his heart for bananas. After hearing him recount another childhood banana story, I asked if he eats bananas everyday now that he has affordable access to them. He replied. “Actually, I don’t really like the taste.”

My tiny travel school is up a mountain as the groaning of my thighs reminded me. At the school locker entrance, I proudly slipped on my Emart slides and cast away the school slippers that were so loose I tripped going both up and down the stairs last week. These kids are definitely a little more rough than those of my main school. Yana and I talked at length about who is lacking and what we can possibly do to help. “Those two boys,” she pointed at a now unoccupied table, “are from the orphanage. They don’t know how to read or write English. The orphanage doesn’t have academy classes.”…

“Teacher, we love you!” Three girls of 6-1 claimed as they suddenly back hug tackled me in the hallway. I then proceeded to act like a quarterback and stomped my feet down in order to trip them. They had fun trying to slide me down the hallway. On top of being really sweet, this was something reminiscent of the Before Times. I like to think it’s a mark that things might be returning to some sense of normalcy. My sixth graders are overall affectionate and clever. Today I taught 6-2 “glamping”. I really love 6-4 and 6-2 for the supportive and engaged homeroom teachers and 6-1 for their wild affection.…

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…