Another Week Gone By

I felt like this week went really good for me. This was the first week I was teaching science and I loved it. First of all I loved it because unlike math (which I’ve been teaching every other week), the science concepts and lessons are given to me. I am not given vague ideas of what I am suppose to teach like, “Just teach multiplication and division” or “Teach something about angles,” I am actually given a specific topic and experiment to do and I love it. I wish I was given this kind of information for every subject I teach; it would make my experience here much less stressful. So this week was wonderful. All of my lessons were taught in the science lab and they went great. The first lesson I taught was about separating salt from a mixture of salt and dirt. We did this adding water, then filtering the dirt, and then evaporating the water so we would be left with just salt. I felt like this kind of experiment was a little advanced for fourth grade students, but they really seemed to understand the material. I knew there would be a lot of English vocabulary that the students were unfamiliar with so I prepared several posters that I put on the board that had the English vocabulary and beneath it the word in Korean. This really made the lesson go much more smoothly. The only issue I had with this lesson, was that part of the experiment required the students to evaporate water over an alcohol burner. So the students had fire/flames at their table and of course some of the boys being the mischievous 9 year olds they are tried to light some things on fire such as their flame gloves and paper. This issue was quickly resolved as I made them sit out for the rest of the experiment; actually they had to stand at the back of the classroom. Their teacher had a few words with them as well and made the boys cry. This happened in one of the first couple classes I taught this lesson with, so after that I made it a point to talk about safety and rules before we began the experiment and I didn’t have any more problems.

The second experiment we did was about mixing oil and water. With this lesson I was able to have a little bit of room to add my own creativity. So in addition to the required experiment of the students having to try and mix oil and water and seeing what happens, I did another activity. I taught them through a PowerPoint about real life situations of oil and water mixing such as a ducks feathers, salad dressing, gasoline in rain puddles, and then ocean oil spills. I was able to relate the oil spill to their real life because of the Taenen oil spill that just happened in December. All the students knew about it because it is so close to South Korea. What I had the students do after I introduced oil spills to them, was I gave them a goal. I said the first group who can remove all the oil from their water and oil mixture experiment would win a prize. So the groups quickly started trying to remove the oil with an eye dropper. Several groups would call me over and say they were finished, then I would show them the oil I still saw in their mixture. Of course no one was able to remove all the oil, and that was the point I was trying to get across to the students. I wanted them to understand that when we have an oil spill in the ocean, it is impossible to remove every drop of oil from the water, so oil will always remain in the ocean. After doing the competition, I showed the students some pictures through PowerPoint of how people helped out to remove the oil using a method similar to the way they were removing the oil. This lesson went so good and I was just really proud of it.

The third lesson I taught this week was about using chromatography to separate the ink from markers. This lesson went really well too, but I didn’t have the chance to add much creativity because I had to include so many things in a 40 minute timeframe. Even so, the lesson went really well and students enjoyed it. This was another lesson I felt was a little advanced for this age group. I didn’t do this kind of experiment until I was in high school. However, the students really seemed to understand what we were doing and were able to answer questions concerning the process and results of the activity. I just feel really good about how my lessons went this week. It makes it so much easier to be at school when I feel good about what I’m teaching. I’m not really looking forward to next week because I have to go back to teaching math and once again I have been given vague instructions on what to teach. But then after that I get to return to science which will be wonderful.

Even though I am enjoying the teaching, I am feeling a little overworked and having a hard time to rest and gain energy. Every week I teach 22 classes in 4 days. That’s a lot of work and preparation. Then in addition to teaching I am trying to get all my assignments done for UMSL as well as get everything prepared for my portfolio. My days are so long, I leave for school around 7 or 7:15 in the morning and then I don’t return to the dormitory until around 6:00 or 6:30 at night. Then I go have dinner and then work on school stuff and go to bed. This kind of work makes me long for the weekends just so I can sleep more, rest, relax, and enjoy myself. I just changed my departure day from May 31st to June 14th and I am so excited. This will give me three weeks to travel around Korea and get to experience some more culture. I am so looking forward to it.

One of the English teachers at the school, Eric, and me started a new tradition last week. We decided every Tuesday after school we would go out to dinner. All the teachers are invited and we will just have a good time getting to know one another. Last week the only people who came were the English teachers. This week we had two Korean 3rd grade teachers join us and it was a fun time. Just being at the school teaching, you don’t really get to form relationships with the teachers; however, at this dinner we learned a lot about each other and I feel like I’ve made new friends. They said they would come back next Tuesday and bring more teachers. I really enjoy this kind of thing, because it helps me to feel welcome at the school, which I usually don’t feel. I often feel like I am a burden at the school because on several occasions I have shown up to my scheduled class and the teachers didn’t know I was coming. A couple of times they have just told me to leave because they needed to finish their lessons and the other times the teachers appear frustrated because they have to stop in the middle of their lessons and let me teach.

I feel like everything is going so great both inside and outside of the school. However there is one thing that had been frustrating me a lot and that is that everything is a competition here. This is true both in the classrooms with the students, who are always playing some kind of competing game and outside of the classroom between the teachers. My cooperating teacher has made me feel like I should be competing with Michael. Michael and I have very different personalities, teaching styles, and amounts of experience. Michael has a lot of experience with teaching due to both his internship and his job with an afterschool program. On the other hand, I don’t have a lot of experience. This is my first experience of teaching. My internship consisted of me grading papers and walking the students to and from their special classes, recess, and lunch. I’ve never had any kind of teaching job…the ones I could get wouldn’t let me pay my bills. Since Michael has so much experience, he knows exactly what he is doing and how to do it best. I am still learning a lot about teaching and I know I am not as good as teacher as Michael, but I don’t feel like I should be competing with him and I feel like my CT thinks I should. Having Michael at the school has made my experience there very difficult. I am constantly getting compared to him and because he does such a good job he makes me look really bad. I work really hard to be a good teacher and have good lessons and I always put forth the maximum amount of effort, but I get the feeling this isn’t good enough for my CT. I have tried to talk to her about this and this issue never really gets resolved. I would love to improve with my teaching, but the only way I can do that is to get some feedback from someone. My CT is so busy that she never has time to meet with me and discuss my lesson plans or my lessons. The only feedback I have been able to get is from the other teachers, but it is very limited due to their English speaking abilities. This is the first time I have ever felt inadequate. In high school and in college I have been extremely successful. I’ve always gotten good grades and my teachers always realized how hard I worked. Being at this school in Korea, I feel like a failure. This is first time I have ever felt this way and I don’t know how to resolve this issue. As of right now, my goal is just to continue working hard and hope that others will see that I am doing my best. This has been bothering me since I arrived here, but I try not to let it get me down. That’s why I don’t take this into consideration when I think about how my week went. So if I pretend this issue isn’t there, I can enjoy the teaching experience and that’s what I’ve been doing.

Since I have been enjoying my time in Korea, I don’t feel like I want to go home yet. I would love to stay for another year. I have been talking to the English teachers at the school about it and one of their English academies that they work at is hiring new teachers this June. I am thinking applying to teach for a one year contract here. I have talked about it with my husband and he’s on the fence about whether or not he wants us to do it. I feel like this is what I want to do for the next few years. I would love to just spend a year or two in a country teaching English and then move to another country and just travel and teach until I am ready to go back to the states. I’m sure I would enjoy teaching in the states, but not yet.