A few days ago, we had parent-teacher conferences at our school. I was kinda concerned about this because 1. I had no idea what to expect and 2. I knew almost nobody in my town spoke English. So I went into the meeting room that night, and about thirty or forty parents were there, along with all the teachers. The principal and VP started in on this giant lecture (all in Korean, of course), which meant I got to zone out for an hour. But out of the blue, somebody started calling my name. “No-AH. No-AH.” The head teacher motioned me up to the front. I walked up to the little stage and stood right next to the VP. She said something, and the entire crowd cracked up. I stood there smiling and (I’m sure) looking incredibly uncomfortable.
“No-AH. Introduction,” said the head teacher.
“Umm…” I said. “My name’s Noah Pearlstone. I am from America….I mean…USA. This is my first time in Korea. I’m very happy to be here.” Everyone applauded, and then the VP said one more thing, and the whole crowd was laughing again. I went back to my seat feeling pretty embarrassed. Only later did I find out that she’d said, “We like Noah because he is tall and handsome.”
The rest of the conference was a little on the uncomfortable side, too. Some of the parents had students in my classes, so it was nice to meet them. But the thing was, they'd always introduce themselves and then say their child's Korean name. I had given all the kids English names on the first day (and never learned their Korean ones) so I had no idea who they were talking about. Sample conversation:
Other teacher: “This is Min Soo Kim’s parent.”
Parent: *smiles, waits*
Me: “Oh wow! Very good student! Very good!”
And that scene repeated itself for the rest of the night.
But what are the students actually like? They’re wild and full of energy and they have two-second attention spans. Basically, they’re just normal kids. Teaching them has been challenging at times, but it’s always a lot of fun, too. I have three classes: 1st and 2nd grade, 3rd and 4th, and 5th and 6th. 1st and 2nd know the alphabet and that’s pretty much it. 3-6th are all on about the same level- they have decent vocabularies, but they have no idea how to string sentences together. I have a classroom assistant to help with the younger kids, but for the older ones I’m on my own. At the beginning of the term, I also got to design my own curriculum and I make all my own lesson plans, so I can do whatever I want, more or less. It’s actually a little bit more work, but it’s nice to have that freedom.
I’ve also gotten to know some of the other people at my school outside of my classes. There’s one other younger teacher here who can speak English, and he’s become my pretty good friend- we’ve gone out for dinner a bunch of times (often for pizza), and I’ll stop and talk to him when I see him at school. Well, I guess his 3rd graders saw us talking and got curious about me, so they started asking him questions. At some point, he must’ve mentioned that we ate pizza together, because the next day twenty-five 3rd graders swarmed me. They had this crazed look in their eyes, too.
“YOU LIKE PI-JA?!!” they all screamed.
“Yes, yes, I like pizza.”
“PI-JA!!!!!!!”
“Yeah, pizza’s good.”
“PI-JAAAAAAAA!!!”
And then they ran away laughing and yelling.
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| My grade 1 and 2 students. They're adorable. |
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| My grades 5 and 6. It's a little blurry because they're never standing still. |
After a month of teaching here, I still have only good things to say about my school, the people I've met, and my experience in general. Like I told everyone at the conference, I’m just happy to be here. It’s been like a dream come…
Oh, give me a break. I’m not that corny.
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