Graduation, Snow White, Saying Goodbye...

Yesterday, my kindergartners performed a live theatrical production of Snow White and the Six Dwarves. This was something we spent the last two months preparing (a very stressful two months!), and I’m happy to say that the play was a success, and it’s over! I now have tremendous respect and sympathy for any elementary school teacher who has to prepare young kids for plays every year.

When we were told in December that each kindergarten class would be performing a play for graduation, we were told we had to make sure the script allowed each student an equal amount of lines. In other words, there could be no main character, otherwise parents would get upset that the main character is not their child. My initial reaction was, Now how on Earth am I supposed to find a play with 9 equal characters?! After some careful thought, I decided on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and planned to give each dwarf many lines so Snow White would not steal the show.

We were also told that each play had to be 15 minutes long. That may not seem like a lot of time, but when it involves kindergartners memorizing 15 minutes worth of lines and stage movements, 15 minutes can seem like an irrational request! I wrote my script, with no clue how many pages 15 minutes should be, and decided it was long enough.

Now came the casting. I only had three girls (of 9 students total), and only one of them had the speech skills to be Snow White (the “not” main character). She has a lively personality and speaks with such clarity and poise. I knew she would nail the role. Then came the fun of casting each dwarf. Luckily, each of my students has personalities that already fill the personalities of the dwarves. My student who is consistently low-energy was Sleepy, my brilliant student was Doc, my student who never gets upset was Happy, my shy student was Bashful, my least hygienic student was Sneezy, my silliest student was Dopey (who also played Prince Charming), and my strong-willed student was Grumpy. It was almost as if my class was meant to perform this play! That left the last girl to play the Queen, a role that she does not personify, but I knew she’d like wearing a pretty dress and crown.

I’d like to say my students were thrilled about their roles, but at least half of them had major protests. The girl who played the queen was not ok being the enemy. Prince Charming was embarrassed about the kissing scene, especially after students teased him about it. Grumpy could not grasp the fact that his role was a funny role, and we were laughing at his lines, not at him. Doc thought his role was boring. After being so excited about how seemingly perfect these roles were, I started fearing that this play might not work out.

After a month of rehearsing and memorizing lines, one of my girls (the queen) dropped out of our school. This gave me no choice but to cast the only other girl (who was perfectly cast as Bashful) to play the queen. This worried me, because as mentioned before, this girl was the shyest student in all of kindergarten, and had the lowest speech skills. Could she pull off such an aggressive and scary role as the queen? I then had to fill in the role of Bashful, so I decided to get rid of Dopey (according to my kids, “Dopey is die.”), and have that student play Bashful. This was another unfitting match, since this boy is the silliest and farthest from shy in the class! Then again, it was an opportunity for him to take on a challenging acting role and perhaps earn himself an Academy Award.

My students quickly grew bored of practicing the play, especially the students who disliked their roles. But we had to practice frequently. Surprisingly, my students memorized their lines quickly, without me even telling them to start memorizing them. (Perhaps this is more evidence to back up the theory that children at their age have sponge brains and can learn anything quickly.) The challenge was getting my students to take the play seriously. Half of them would say their lines with silly, incomprehensible voices, or would say their lines with little to no enthusiasm, or would make jokes, or would say other kids’ lines, or would not pay attention to when it was their turn to speak, or would have side conversations with friends while rehearsing. You can imagine my frustration as these things occurred almost every time we practiced!

I tried drilling in their brains how important it was that we got everything right for the actual performance, but I also felt torn because on the inside, I knew that this should just be a fun experience for them, and it should not be as stressful as the parents and directors were making it. I hated that the parents seemed to care more about this play than their kids’ academic achievements or behavior in class. I struggled to find a balanced approach to getting them to take it seriously, but not stress them out so much that they feared the final performance.

So finally it was show time. The two other kindergarten teachers and myself spent two months worrying about this day, and at the same time couldn’t wait to get it over with. I just thought to myself, If my kids can just get through the play without forgetting many lines, falling on their faces, crying, or looking miserable, I’ll be satisfied. I’m proud to announce that I am more than satisfied with their performance. All lines were remembered, they spoke clearly and loudly (for the most part), parents laughed, and my kids appeared to be having a fun time. I even found myself having a good time, smiling and laughing while narrating. I was genuinely proud of my students, each and every one of them. I hugged them all, and felt overwhelming joy.

Then, sadness.

It occurred to me, this is graduation. After today, they are no longer my kinders. Most of them will continue coming to Poly School in the afternoons as 1^st graders, and I may be able to continue teaching them, but it’ll be different. I feel differently about my kinders than I do for my afternoon elementary school classes. I see my kinders 5 hours a day, and I am their only teacher. They are my kids. And I really do love them.

After the graduation ceremony, the kids, parents, and teachers went upstairs to the classrooms for pictures. I stood at the back of the class while parents took photos of the students and me; some of the whole class, some of just me and individual students, some of the individual students, their mother and me, some of a few of the students and me, some of the individual students, my co-teacher and me. And it all happened in a whirlwind! I just stood there, putting my arm around whoever stood next to me and smiling. Some mothers even held my hand for the picture. I felt like a wax figure at Madam Touseau’s Wax Museum, just standing with the same pose and smile.

And as quickly as the students and mothers cycled through the various group photos, the mothers and students left, and before I knew it, my co-teacher Jane and I were standing alone in an empty, cleaned out classroom. The most disheartening thing about it was neither of us felt like we got to have a proper goodbye with the children. I wanted to tell them one last time how proud of them I was, how much I enjoyed being their teacher, how impressed I am with their English skills, and how much I will miss them.

What was upsetting to Jane and I was that very few of the parents took a few seconds to thank us. I understand that at least half of the mothers speak little to no English, but my co-teacher is fluent in both languages, and they didn’t think to say any final words to either of us. I felt entirely unacknowledged by some of them. One mother, who I see and say hi to frequently, bought Jane and I some nice chocolates, and another took us out to dinner that night, so at least we felt appreciated by a few of them.

So next week marks the start of a new chapter in my life in Pohang. I will have a new schedule of classes with new students. Poly School is also relocating to a campus across town, so we will spend the week getting the new school ready. We will also be moving to apartments on that side of town, so we’ll be busy packing, moving, and unpacking. This new neighborhood (called I-dong) has a lot more going on than our current one (called Jangseong-dong), so it will be nice having so many restaurants and fun things to do in our own hood. At the same time, we’re a little sad to leave our quiet neighborhood. There are a few establishments here that are dear to us, like a family-owned bakery that makes great wheat bread (something that is hard to find in Korea), our favorite galbi restaurant (Korean barbeque), and the only authentic American restaurant in Pohang, owned by a friend of ours. There are also friends that live very close that we will miss seeing frequently. But our new neighborhood is close to other great friends, so it’s all about trade-offs I suppose.

To see their performance of Snow White:  http://youtu.be/RKjiEq39Dro

Until next time…

Memoirs of a Kindergarten Teacher, Pt. 2

Unexpected Experiences

Since my teaching license is for High School Social Studies, I never expected to find myself teaching a class of kindergartners. And because of that, I also never expected to have some of the experiences that I've had over the last 6 and a half months. I never expected to be encouraged to hug my students, or hold their hands as we walk to the library. I never expected to be singing Raffi songs to my students. I never expected to help a student clean up after he pooped in his pants.

I also never expected to have to say the following to students:

"Hands out of your pants please."
"Don't poke each other there please!"
"Put that back in your pants please!!"
"PLEASE don't grab me there!!!"

No Smoking!


How do you teach the dangers of smoking and drinking to children who grow up in a country where the vast majority of adult men smoke, and where the amount of alcohol consumption is quite possibly rivaled by no other country? In Science class a few weeks ago, I had to spend a week educating my kids on the negative effects of smoking and drinking. I began telling them about the serious illnesses you can get from the two. Within a few minutes, most kids' hands were raised, eagerly waiting to inform me that their fathers smoke and drink A LOT, and they are healthy. How do you tell a child that their fathers are probably not as healthy as they'd like to think? How do you tell a child that smoking leads to deadly illnesses, and then hear them talk about how much their fathers smoke? Do I tell them their fathers are wrong in believing it's perfectly ok to drink themselves into oblivion and chain smoke? Do I tell them not to make the same choices when they are adults that their fathers made? With each comment made by a student, all I could think of was to say, "Oh. Ok. Well... huh. Does your father only drink a little? Oh, he drinks a lot. Ok, and you say he's healthy? Uh huh, hmm..." I felt like the only good thing I could say was in response to a question asked by one student: "Roman Teacher, do you drink?" "Nope, I think it's yucky!" Unfortunately, that response was followed by, "No, beer is yummy!" Sigh.

A Confidence Boost


One thing I've learned is that teaching Kindergarten can be great for raising my self-esteem. For instance, when a student is struggling to twist open their orange juice bottle, I twist it open for them with such ease that they excitedly exclaim, "Whooooaaa! Roman Teacher, VERY strong!" Aw shucks, you guys!

Or when I draw something on the board that would not pass a middle school drawing class, and my students yell out, "Ooooh, Roman Teacher, VERY good drawer!" Blush.

Or when I jokingly start singing an improvisational song about taking out their text books and pencils, and they clap and say "Whooo, Roman Teacher, VERY good singer!" Oh stop!

Or when one of their writing assignments is to write 8 positive qualities about a teacher at Poly School, and one of them writes about me, "Very handsome." Gosh!

Chinese New Year in Hong Kong

Gung hay fat choi! (Happy New Year!)

On Saturday January 21, I flew to Hong Kong with four friends and stayed three nights for the Chinese New Year holiday weekend. We had booked a hostel right in the heart of the city, but had not arranged any sort of itinerary. We just showed up and figured out what to do. Even though our stay was really just 2 and a half days, I felt like we saw enough of the city. Overall, I'd say the experience was good, not great.

I think Hong Kong would be a great destination for any traveler who has never been to Asia. I felt like it was Asia-lite. In Hong Kong, you're submerged in a very densely populated country where 90% of the people are speaking Cantonese. Many restaurants have roasted ducks hanging in the windows and chinese lanterns are hung outside all of the shops. On the other hand, everyone also knows English, the city is very modern and developed, it's easy to get around, and you can find any kind of cuisine there. So in many ways, it feels like any major modern city like San Francisco, but kind of like if all of San Francisco was Chinatown. It would make a perfect stepping stone into other parts of Asia. Since I've lived in Asia for 6 months now, I experienced no culture shock in Hong Kong, which made the overall experience slightly underwhelming.

The temperature was a nice escape from the bitter cold of Pohang, staying in the 50's for the most part. Unfortunately, the sky was gray the entire time, so it hindered the potential beauty of the city and the islands. We spent a good portion of our first full day just walking around and exploring. We found a few outdoor markets that were fun to walk through. They were insanely crowded, and at times overwhelming. I bought a few cheap items for myself, like a shirt that has Chinese characters with English translations in very poor grammar and spelling, a pair of salt and pepper shakers that are hugging each other, and an oil painting of one of the city streets.

That night, we dined at a Chinese restaurant for some dim sum, which is essentially just a variety of small dishes that we all passed around and shared (I believe we ordered about 10 different dishes total). Some were delicious, like the sweet beef buns and the fried squid tentacles, and other dishes were questionable. After dinner, we walked to the harbor that overlooks Hong Kong Island and the main skyline. Every night at 8pm, the skyscrapers display a light show, so we thought that would be a fun thing to see. We got there about 15 minutes early, and noticed a sign advertising the "symphony of lights" that were were about to see. Ooh, a symphony of lights! we thought. How exciting! So the light show began, and each building had some lights that flickered on and off at different times. Then spotlights shined from the tops of some of the buildings, and green lasers shot into the sky at random moments. 10 minutes later, it ended. Was it entertaining? Sure, for about 30 seconds. Was it symphonic? Absolutely not. I felt like declaring shenanigans on this false advertisement!

After we had a good laugh about the disappointing light show, we walked down Hong Kong's walk of stars, which is similar to Hollywood Blvd's sidewalks with famous actors' stars in the pavement, except Hong Kong's walk of stars profile China's biggest stars, like Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. They even had a life-sized statue of Bruce Lee in one of his action poses. Although I always despised Hollywood's walk of stars, it was fun reading the unfamiliar names of countless Chinese actors and realizing that there's a whole world of fame completely unknown to the Western world.

The next day, we were unsure of what to do. We didn't want another day of walking and exploring, but we didn't know of any interesting sights/activities that sounded particularly interesting or fun. We ran into another English teacher from Korea that we knew, and he recommended we check out the New Years fair on Hong Kong Island. So we made our way over there only to find a whole crew of workers tearing down the fair. Ok, now what? While wandering around the park in a slight drizzle, Nathan did some careful investigating of the tourist map and found out about a fishing village on one of the smaller islands that offers a more traditional and cultural experience. Great, we thought, let's get out of the city and try something different!

One streetcar, ferry and bus ride later, we arrived at the fishing village. We're very glad we decided to check it out, it was probably the most interesting thing we did/saw. Similar to the "floating village" I saw in Cambodia, a large part of the community lived in homes on stilts over the water. The homes were incredibly modest and poor, yet the people did not appear to be poor or struggling. We were free to walk through the community. It was close to sunset, and most homes were full of large families preparing their dinner. It seemed very family/community-oriented, very warm. We got pretty hungry after awhile, but none of the dried fish hanging outside every restaurant looked appetizing. We weren't THAT hungry. We decided to head back to mainland Hong Kong and get some dinner.

Later that evening, we stumbled on the New Years parade, which included several traditional Chinese dragons that seem common for Chinese parades. We also saw the characters from Star Wars marching in the parade... I'm guessing that wasn't traditional for Chinese parades. We had a very early flight back to Korea the next morning, so I called it a night not long after the parade to get at least a little sleep before heading out.

Like I said earlier, my experience was good not great. I certainly didn't love the city, but it was cool nonetheless. It was probably the most densely populated city I've been in, which was exciting most of the time, and overwhelming/annoying once in a while. My time there helped solidify my feelings that I am not much of a big city kind of guy, and really need natural beauty to look at. It is a wonderfully diverse and multicultural city, with people from all corners of the world practicing all religions of the world. It also has a nice East-meets-West feel to it since it was a British colony for 100 years (cars drive on the left side of the road, and the street cars are double-deckers like the buses in England).

I won't be traveling internationally again until I leave Korea. I've definitely made good use of my vacations so far, visiting Japan, Cambodia and Hong Kong in the last 6 months. I'm now going to focus on saving money, but will try to do a small adventure each month, like going to Busan or Daegu (some of Korea's biggest cities besides Seoul) and I will try to visit the DMZ (de-militarized zone) that separates North and South Korea. When I leave Korea at the end of July, I am hoping to spend a week in Mongolia before heading home.