Drift Reality > South Korea > Teaching English 1

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.

1 | 2 | 3