First Day of School

Jason picked me up at 9:20 and took me to school. Break Away Academy is on the sixth floor. It was filled with red, pink, and white balloons in honor of Valentine's day, which is apparently the theme of the week, or maybe just today.

My first two groups of kids were a lot of fun. I gave some kids some English names - Annie, Pete, Dan, and Tyler. We drew pictures of ourselves, I acted out animals, and we had a great time. I met Andrew, the only other native English employee of the school. He's been there since last September, and is leaving at the end of November.

The school has about ten employees, mostly Korean English teachers, and one chef. I had lunch at school - bulgolgi (thin cut pork) with rice, kimchi, soup, and vegetables. After lunch, I had a class with three girls - Sally, Sophie, and Linda. Sally and Sophie liked to say "no" a lot. When Sally put her feet on the table, Sophie copied her. Then all of sudden, all three of them were screaming at the top their lungs. Jinna burst into the room and took the girls out to discipline them. Jinna told me that she asked them if they liked me, and they said yes, and she asked them if they would behave now, and they said yes.

They were quiet when they returned, and Sophie looked like she was ready to cry. I tried to read them a terrible story called Dirty Dog, which was less of story and more like ambiguous pictures of things that start with "D". In a couple minutes, they were acting hyper again. They tried to block the door when it was time for me to leave.

The next class was the low point of the day. I was trying to get them to pronounce words, which was fine when I asked them directly. But as soon as I focused on one of them, the rest of the class mentally checked out. I granted one of them a bathroom break, and soon they were all taking them, and banging on the windows. A Korean teacher came into the room, and order was mostly restored. I taught the rest of the class with the Korean teacher in the back of the room.

My next duty involved calling students at home, and asking them about the sentence of the day. They would say "I will go to the market" to me, and I would say "thank you," and that was it. The last phone call I made was at 7:42, while I was out to dinner with Jason, Jinna, and their 2-year old Joshua.

I replaced a 40-year old teacher named Tim, who was let go after working for two months. He was apparently very mild mannered, and had no repoire with the kids. While we were eating, Jinna told me that she knew I was the right replacement as soon as she saw my picture. That felt pretty good.

I have freedom to run the class any way I please, as long as their assignments get finished. It will be a challenge to get some of the kids to stop acting up. Jason says I need to have an iron fist with them in the beginning.