Captain Dunsel's blog...
I wonder why I like Korea so much, because there sure are times where it seems like it doesn't like me. I do think it funny how there is constantly the flow of murmurs about how much education is valued and respect your elders, blah, blah, blah.
I used to think that Korea really walked that walk as opposed to Red Lake, where I first taught, and how they basically talked the talk without the walking. You hear a lot of the same things in both places. Reverence of elders, respect, politeness, educate, keep the language and the traditions alive.
Yet as a foreign teacher, it is getting more and more difficult to believe the mumbles. Maybe I drank too much kool-aid and took myself too seriously. I think in education you have to have that fine balance of goofiness and seriousness. Because the minute one gets too much weight, things go out of wack and you get slapped with either the 'you're 2 minutes late police', or the 'quit being such a slave driver police"
I should have known it would blow, when the winter camp I was supposed to do was parred down from a week to 3 days, and then with just a few days to go, it was cut down to 2 days. I don't mind, if only because the students have put in a full year and the last thing they really need to do is come to school for 2 days of, 'I'd rather be somewhere else."
That being said, don't tell me 11 kids will be here, only to have 2 show up on time, have 3 others trickle in over the next hour or hour and a half, and have all the food I prepared to have them prepare, and the lessons I prepared to have them do while food was cooking just basically becomes pointless. It makes me go to the opposite end of the spectrum and take myself too seriously for a little bit and just wonder why the fuck I am here.
Which of course makes me want to compensate by swinging over to the goofy end of the spectrum and drink a bottle of something. After all, the admin staff was drinking soju at lunch, why not?
Meh. Because they can. That's why. I will just do a little thinking.
I used to think that Korea really walked that walk as opposed to Red Lake, where I first taught, and how they basically talked the talk without the walking. You hear a lot of the same things in both places. Reverence of elders, respect, politeness, educate, keep the language and the traditions alive.
Yet as a foreign teacher, it is getting more and more difficult to believe the mumbles. Maybe I drank too much kool-aid and took myself too seriously. I think in education you have to have that fine balance of goofiness and seriousness. Because the minute one gets too much weight, things go out of wack and you get slapped with either the 'you're 2 minutes late police', or the 'quit being such a slave driver police"
I should have known it would blow, when the winter camp I was supposed to do was parred down from a week to 3 days, and then with just a few days to go, it was cut down to 2 days. I don't mind, if only because the students have put in a full year and the last thing they really need to do is come to school for 2 days of, 'I'd rather be somewhere else."
That being said, don't tell me 11 kids will be here, only to have 2 show up on time, have 3 others trickle in over the next hour or hour and a half, and have all the food I prepared to have them prepare, and the lessons I prepared to have them do while food was cooking just basically becomes pointless. It makes me go to the opposite end of the spectrum and take myself too seriously for a little bit and just wonder why the fuck I am here.
Which of course makes me want to compensate by swinging over to the goofy end of the spectrum and drink a bottle of something. After all, the admin staff was drinking soju at lunch, why not?
Meh. Because they can. That's why. I will just do a little thinking.
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