I did it!!!

Well, I feel so accomplished! I have been very successful the last 48 hours...from the process of cleaning my room, to grocery shopping, to making things feel like home, to starting my first real job, to officially moving into my permanent housing for the next year...oh my! (BTW, Josh, you were right, I do miss not having a picture of my first day, at my first real job, and in my first real classroom ;-))

Seriously, the first day of school was extremely busy, but I managed to contain myself and not become stressed like all of the other teachers around me. Here's how it went down...We got to school at about 8:40 (15 minutes early because I had some things I wanted to do before school started), when we arrived, all of the Korean staff was in a tizzy. They were running around and speaking so quickly in Korean. They all had this look in their eyes that said "Oh No, can we do this?? We're not ready!" I'm serious, every single one of them! It was actually kind of humorous. So, as soon as I got there, my Kindy partner teacher Hannah brought me the final draft of my lesson plans for Friday and next week, along with the "Theme Box" which had the whole first period's worth of stuff in it that I should have made copies of before class. Then she asked me if I would help her get the books from the playroom. So I got my lesson plans and the un-named books for the class less than 45 minutes before the kids were scheduled to arrive to learn. No worries, I just looked over the lesson plans, ditched the copies, and started labeling the books with the kids names, all while listening to Bethel Worship music. Praise God!

As I'm labeling the books, (side note: I did get one of the three or four tasks that I initially came to do finished before the day...) my supervisor Nicole rushes by and sees that I'm in my classroom. She stops and asks, "Are you busy? Could you come help me get the clean toys to the different classrooms?" You see, Wednesday when we were prepping for school, we had some helper teachers (they don't actually teach, they just help during the day with snack, lunch, etc.) come and clean all of the classrooms and toys in preparation for the new year. Again, they clean with water only, no chemicals. Seriously, Koreans don't get the concept of germs making people sick. Nicole was shocked when we told her that door knobs were one of the most infected surfaces out there. And they wonder why the kids and teachers keep getting sick? I really think Koreans have such a community oriented society that they believe 'your germs are my germs, and my germs are your germs.' and have no problem with it. Unfortunately, I do. Hence the multiple days of cleaning my apartment...(story to follow) Where was I? Oh yeah, Nicole! So she breezes by my class, and asks me if I could help her. I replied with "Let me finish putting names on my books, and I'll be in there shortly." (Madison's Boundaries: 1, Korean Teacher Pressure: 0. Score!) So when I finished I went and saw the PILE of toys completely unorganized that had been drying on cardboard for a couple of days. We quickly dumped them into the bins and gave each bin to a classroom. So check, my classroom was complete. Lesson Plans, books, and toys; and then the bell rang!!! At the last possible minute everything came together. Whew!

So then the rest of the day was a blur. Kindy was difficult because the students were very talkative. Understandable, it's their second year together. But I'm going to have to figure out how to help them come back under a structure, because that's not acceptable in Korean Elementary School. They'll get eaten alive by a teacher who may or may not use some sort of capital punishment. (Which some of us still wish was allowed in the U.S. haha!) So, I didn't really know what I was supposed to be doing, and I felt like a failure standing up there because I wasn't fully prepared and secure in what I was supposed to be doing. So we just went through the lesson plans, which actually consisted of work. So different from American schools. Good news: my kids are very fast workers, very independent, and they speak English pretty well. I love getting to see their little personalities, but I don't know how to do that and maintain authority and control of the classroom. I don't want to be controlling, but I need to know that when I lead, they will follow. Dunno how to do that yet...but I'll find out! After all of the morning classwork, we had lunch, then a half-hour break that I used to look over my special activity lesson plan. The whole lesson plan right before I teach thing is so different, and it makes me uneasy. But I taught situational english about going to a convenience store to Kristen's class. They were well behaved and sweet, and I really enjoyed it! They got so excited to learn about what to do at a convenience store, but I can tell I'm going to have to beef the conversation up a little bit because I ran out of stuff to do with them. So I sang songs about food. I wasn't sure if I could sing the "Fruits of the Spirit" song, maybe I'll just do it next time and say 'whoops!' ;-). It was quite enjoyable :-)

So then the kids left, and we switched to the afternoon Trophies classes. Trophies is just a reading program that LCI uses to help the students learn English. My first Trophies class just graduated from LCI kindy on Wednesday. They were so cute, when it was time to go, they were so puzzled because they had no lunch, special activity, and that the class was so short! But they are very sweet, and catch on quickly. Then my second Trophies class came in, they are 10 years old. They have two sections to their period because they only come on MWF. Their previous teacher wasn't very exciting for them, so they were nervous having me. But I just goofed it up and acted silly and when it was time to go, they were chatting and playing with me. I really enjoy that freedom :). So by the end of the day, all was good, I have lots of stuff to still learn and figure out before school next week, but that will come. I am sure of it! I am nervous and excited to teach this year. Nervous because I don't know how I'm going to do it, and if the kids and parents will like me, but excited to figure all of that out and have even more experience than I already do. I know I'm a good teacher, and I know I'm creative. It's time to see it now.

It's late, I'm tired, and we're going to a church tomorrow that's supposed to be really great! I'll blog about cleaning, HomePlus, Daiso and church tomorrow. Be looking for it!

Love to All,
Madison