From the moment that I first stepped into a classroom, I was a step behind. I had watched how several of the Korean teachers had conducted their classes and I decided to model my approach as being the antithesis of theirs’. This was a mistake. I saw the manner in which they answered questions like robots, did their assignments like robots, and even kind of looked like little robots. I saw all of these things and I decided that I would be their savior. I would be the one who would allow them to explore their creative juices and experience life to the fullest. I would be the one that they would remember when they were famous artists, and musicians, and writers.
When they messed around, I would laugh at their antics and encourage them to full around more. If they were overly quiet, I would carry on like a clown until they broke into a smile and eventually started laughing. I thought that I was breathing life into them but without realizing it, I was planting the seeds that would lead to my ultimate demise.
My Parade 5 class was a prime example of this situation. When I walked into the class on my first day at my Hawkwan, the six students in Parade 5 looked at me as though I had blood red eyes and horns. They sat upright in their chairs, refused to speak unless I asked them a direct question, and generally looked miserable.
The daily lesson called for me to teach them the meanings of the words “healthy” and “unhealthy,” and to get them to make sentences out of these words. The teacher’s guide recommended making sentences about different types of food, such as “eating fruit is healthy,” “eating candy is unhealthy.”
I would draw a picture of a food, such as an apple, and then ask them, “What is this?”
“It is an apple” they would respond.
I would continue our stimulating conversation by asking, “Is this healthy or unhealthy to eat?”
They would reply in a robotic tone, “eating an apple is healthy.”
I would follow this response by drawing a picture of a lollipop on the board and asking, “what is this?”
They would then respond by saying “it is a lollipop.”
Of course, my insatiable curiosity would compel me to ask, “is this healthy or unhealthy to eat?”
And they would then answer, “it is unhealthy to eat.”
I began to feel an intense anguish simmer within me after proceeding in this manner for several minutes, and then a little devil crawled onto my shoulder and forced my hand, which had been drawing a picture of a healthy banana, to instead draw a picture of a little robot.
“What is this?” I asked them.
They looked at each other in confusion, and then Jessica, one of the brighter students in the class answered, “It is a robot.”
“Good, now, is it healthy or unhealthy to eat?”
Complete silence filled the room. I looked on the faces of my Korean students and knew that I had accomplished what I wanted to accomplish. I answered for them:
“Eating robots is unhealthy!”
The class stared at me, completely befuddled by this strange foreigner who had just walked into the room and insisted that robots did not compose part of a healthy diet. I narrowed my eyes at the unfortunately named Steve, and asked him, “Do you eat robots?”
He began to look frightened and his head darted to the side where his friend Eric, a heavyset boy who slightly resembled a sumo wrestler, was seated.
I followed his gaze to Eric and asked Eric the same question.
“Do you eat robots?”
Eric shook his head but did not say anything. Finally, I turned to look at Jessica, upon whose face had slowly crept a hint of a smile.
“Teacher, eating robots is unhealthy,” she said as her smile grew in proportion. She followed her sentence with an oddly leprechaun-like giggle and then promptly fell silent.
“That’s right Jessica! Eating robots is unhealthy.”
During the remainder of the lesson, I managed to discern that amongst the various food items that one feel inclined to consume, the following were considered healthy: snow, rain, trees, cows, monkeys, and grass. Conversely, my Parade class felt that the following items were considered unhealthy to eat: robots, houses, cars, trains, and for some odd reason, rabbits.
During the course of the lesson, the smiles eventually grew and slowly evolved into mild laughter. Soon, the entire class was raising their hands enthusiastically. I left the class feeling thoroughly satisfied that I had managed to both entertain and enlighten my students at the same time.
Not all of the classes went so well. My last class of the day was entitled “Expressways 2.” The class was composed of twelve thirteen year olds who had just gotten into the Hawkwan system, meaning there English was slightly above non-existent. I walked into the class and was suddenly immersed in a whirlwind of hoarse laughter and high pitched squealing.
Still disturbed by the display that Augustus had put on earlier in the day, I decided to attempt to discipline the class independently.
“Excuse me,” I said. They did not even look at me.
“Excuse me,” I repeated, this time in a slightly raised voice. Once again, I was completely ignored.
“Hey!” I blurted. To my utter astonishment, even my exclamation went completely unnoticed as they sat and proceeded to ignore me with stunning efficiency.
I shrugged my shoulders, sat down and opened up my book, turning to the lesson that they we were supposed to review that day.
“Okay everybody, lets turn to page 75″ I blared in my loudest and most dominant baritone voice. A few of the girls opened up their books but continued to look at one another and talk.
I managed to struggle my way through 40 minutes of being completely ignored by an entire class of students and was utterly relieved when the bell finally rang at 8:15 at night. I felt absolutely defeated as I walked into the teacher’s office. I threw my things down on my desk (which had finally been provided for me), and marched over to Mona.
“Mona?” I began. “My last class completely ignores me, what can I do to get them in line?”
She sized me up for a few minutes and then told me, “If they act up, give them a warning. If they act up twice, I usually let them stand in a corner for a few minutes.”
This was an idea that had not occurred to me before. It was brilliant. If they were facing the corner of the room, then they could not talk with their friends. I smiled and thanked her and went about my business.
The following Wednesday, I walked into the class and was again greeted by being completely ignored. I marched straight to the board and proceeded to write every student’s name down. As I was writing, I became cognizant of the fact that the entire class had quieted down and were watching me very carefully.
I turned to find eleven pairs of eyes were faced in my direction.
”Okay, one,” I said as I held up my pointer finger, “and you get this.” I drew an X by the first name on the list. “Two, and you’re in the corner.” I gave them a moment to let my edict sink in. “Do you understand?”
Although they didn’t say anything, they nodded their heads. Ryan, one of the louder students in the class, turned to his neighbor and muttered something in Korean.
I instantly wrote an X by his name.
“Okay, that’s one.”
He responded by looking down at the table. I opened my book and turned to the daily lesson.
“Okay, turn to page 75.”
Ryan turned to his neighbor and muttered something else in Korean. My response was immediate: I barked three words in rapid succession, “Hey! Ryan! Corner!”
Ryan slowly gathered his things together and walked towards the corner of the room in silence.
Just as I was beginning to think that my strategy was working, one of the other students shouted something in Korean, and the entire class burst into laughter, including Ryan.
My vague façade of control had dissolved almost instantaneously and I was immediately aware of how ridiculous I looked, standing at the head of the class with a vacant look upon my face, wondering what I might possibly do next.
Within a matter of seconds, the entire class had reverted into its original state: gossiping, looking at comic books, and ignoring the strange silent foreigner who was quietly seething. I came to dread my Expressways 2 class, and it was not an unreasonable fear, they were quite terrible.
Still, I decided to avoid bringing in the Gestapo. I felt at some point during my teaching stint, I would have to achieve autonomy or be a complete failure, always seeking the aid of authors to help me because I lacked the authority and strength to do so myself. Also, I was a little scared of Augustus.
My growing fear/dislike of my Expressways 2 class was probably the means by which I came to know the other foreign teachers at my Hawkwan.
At the front of the teacher’s office, Justin, Robin, and Greg sat in close proximity to one another. I was seated facing them and I began to develop a distanced fondness for their antics.
Robin would consistently come to my Hawkwan wearing blue jeans, black chucks, and an assortment of punk rock t-shirts. He was lean back in his chair, facing the teacher’s room and keep a rolling commentary as the various teachers entered the room.
Greg was seated two tables down from Robin, directly next to Jane, a vaguely unattractive Korean teacher who spoke in a rough staccato. The two of them would relentlessly hound Jane as she walked into the teacher’s room every day. Robin would say in his sweetest voice, “Hi Jane, how are you doing today?” To which she would respond my shooting him a dirty look.
She would place her books down at her desk and immediately, Greg would begin hounding her.
“Jane?” He would ask in a tender voice. “Why don’t you ever talk to me?” Feigned dejection would gradually begin evident in his voice as he would ask, “Jane? Why are you ignoring me? Jane?”
Jane would brusquely huff and turn to him and ask, “what?” Her Korean-English would begin with a high pitch and quickly drop in intonation, so that it sounded more like “Waa - uhhht?”
At this point, Robin’s New Zealand accented voice would begin beckoning to Jane: “Jane, will you go out with me? Jane?”
Greg, who would be staring at Jane’s behind at this point, would slowly pan his gaze upwards and tenderly say, “Jane, I just want to be friends.”
Usually by this point, Jane would stomp off towards the bookshelf and Robin and Greg would enjoy a rude cackling laugh together. It was all quite amusing.
Rob, who was seated directly behind me, and Justin, who was seated in front of me would occasionally throw in a crude comment or two. For some reason, they were not overly receptive to my attempts to make friends with them during those first few weeks and it took some prodding on my part to get them to say anything.
When they did talk, all they seemed to do was insist on how bad the conditions were at my Hawkwan, and how much they hated teaching their classes. I avoided buying into their pessimism for as long as I possibly could, a span of about two weeks, but eventually I began to crack as a result of the traumatizing experience that my Expressways class had become.
It was a little difficult for the Korean teachers to empathize with me, seeing as how they managed to somehow keep absolute control over their classes with the greatest of ease, so I inevitably turned towards the dark side of the force.
After our morning classes, Jake and I would sometimes have a cigarette on the back stoop of the school before we headed to the PC-Bang. On the Friday after I had arrived in Seoul, we were standing outside discussing what possible measures I could take to try and gain back at least a small measure of authority in my class. Jake had been telling me how earlier that day, he had taken one unruly student’s bag, and hurled it into the hallway. I was a bit shocked to hear this coming from Jake, especially considering he seemed like such a gentle, passive guy.
At that point, Greg and Justin walked outside and joined us.
“I was just telling Jake how one of my classes is an absolute nightmare,” I told them as Justin lit his cigarette. “How do you guys deal with difficult students?” I asked.
Greg turned his eyes skyward as he pondered the question for several moments before responding, “What was the student doing?”
“Well, it’s pretty much the whole class.” I said, and then quickly added, “There is this one student in particular who just doesn’t do a thing except talk to the other kids during the class.”
“Have you sent him to the corner?” Greg asked.
“Yeah, he just keeps talking.”
Justin, who I had heard say about three words since my arrival in Korea, interjected at this point.
“I carry a marker around and hit the kids on the head with it.”
I looked at him, a bit shocked. “You hit kids on the head with a marker?”
Greg seemed to find my reaction amusing and said, “We can get away with a lot more over here than back West.”
“I can’t believe you hit a kid on the head with a marker!”
Jake chimed in at this point, explaining, “That isn’t nearly as bad as what their Grammar school teachers do to them, or what their parents do to them.” He began to shake his head nervously as he continued, “Sometimes I get kids coming into class with black and blue bruises all over their arms and legs.”
“Sometimes on their face,” Justin added.
“It is just a different standard of punishment over here,” Greg said and for the first time, I noticed a weary, drained look in his eyes. “The kids are used to a lot more than what we expect.”
