Landon's first day of school

Yesterday I had my first day of classes. It was a long day: I taught 10 classes that were each 40 minutes long. Wednesdays are even longer: I teach from 9:30am until 7:45pm with short breaks for lunch and dinner. I have far fewer classes on Thursdays and my Tuesday schedule is almost empty, so it works out. Yesterday was tough, but not nearly as bad as I expected. I did my best to learn all of the kids' names, in addition to preparing for each class and getting used to the curriculum, not to mention this whole teaching thing. I actually rather like it and am pretty good at it (so far). The kids like me and know what they should be doing (even if they don't always want to do it). In the morning I teach kindergarteners, and in the afternoon I teach elementary and junior high aged kids. They are actually fairly well behaved in class, which surprised me since they were completely wild on the first day that I was observing classes. They were probably just wound up from having been on break for Christmas and New Years. My one class of teenagers is the hardest because they don't ever want to answer the questions and are generally unhappy to be there, but I know how to be strict so I kept them on task.

All of the students know more English than you would expect. The kindergarteners can write and spell in English better than most first graders in the US can. It probably helps that they start school at age 3 and that the expectations of them are high.

The teacher student relationship is far more physical in Korea than in the US. The kids are always touching me and hugging me, and a lot of the other teachers will ruffle the hair of the students, pick them up, etc. I'm still pretty uncomfortable with that, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. One kindergartener is fascinated by the fact that I have hair on my wrist and always grabs my hand to look at it, and a lot of the kids come up to me on my breaks and hug me.

I am sure I will be sick of the curriculum soon. The rough format is the same from kindergarted on up, and rereading this post I can tell that it is already influencing my thought processes, making my sentences more stilted: 'Landon Teacher writes a blog entry. He is wearing a blue shirt...'

Hopefully I will have internet in my apartment soon (I am writing this from work). I am in the process of getting an imigration card, which I need in order to get a bank account, and it makes sense to have a bank account before I set up my internet and phone accounts. I will update you more frequently when I can do so from home.