Just felt compelled to write real quick blog about a couple little moments I've had teaching in the last few weeks. This week and last I've really been trying to slow down, forget about how much I work, and all the stress, and try to enjoy where I am right now. It's easy to get worked up, stressed out, and miss things in life.
In my kindie class the other day one of my students spilled her water on the table while doing her work. I rushed to get tissues to clean it up and scold her for not closing the lid and she begins to play in it with this huge smile on her face and exclaims "Pretty!" It reminded me of all the times and ways I looked at water and how it moved. Especially long car rides in the rain. I could stare forever at the little pellets of water and how they raced off the edges of my view as the car moved. And I thought... wow why is water such a big deal in such the opposite way now? Why is it always such a "mess" or an annoyance when it used to be so fun and beautiful?
I later in a book store I wandered to by following my instincts (a whole nother story) read a good portion of the follow of book to "Who Moved My Cheese?" called "The Present" and in it an old man was trying to explain to this boy as he's growing over the years what the present is. And he asked the child, as an adult, about a task he had performed. The boy described mowing the lawn and how he really enjoyed it being outside and trimming tight corners, and just the overall feeling of success after a job well done. The old man tried to explain that that is why he was happy. He was completely focused on the now and what he was currently doing at that time.
Seems so simple but I'm trying to adapt that to my life now.
The other moment I wanted to talk about came today. Mondays and Fridays are my worst as far as packed schedules, and rowdy classes. Well in my afternoon class of my oldest kids (pre-middle school) I had only 2 out of the 3 girls today (the one missing being the most talkative of the 3). The last 5 minutes or so of class we were done and they got out their books for the next class to study and one of the vocab words was "rude". So I went to grab my notepad of Korean words and phrases to jot it down because its one I always want at hand to explain to a student when they are not being respectful. In any case one girl took an interest (as they do every time I have it in class) in my notepad and flipped through it, correcting mistakes and explaining things here and there about Korean. Then she said "Teacher you are..." and quickly grabbed her phone to use the dictionary. She showed it to me and it said something like "dedicated to study" and a few other definitions. I said yes... and she confided pointing at herself "Me too. With Japanese." I was baffled... "You go to another hagwon (private academy)?" No, she studies by herself, and made a gesture that kind of made me realize that was part of the meaning of the word she had attempted to translate for me.
It didn't really sink in until later what that meant for her to study on her own. She doesn't leave my school until 8:20 MWF, much later than me, and probably starts studying earlier than I go to school and comes home to mountains of homework. Not to mention regular exams to study for. Where does she find the time? Where does she have the passion left to teach herself something on top of the piles of information squashed into her head every day? I think it was a really nice moment. Its good to show the kids that we are kind of the same in some ways. I think the kids that are old enough to get it appreciate the fact that I'm studying and trying to learn a difficult and foreign language too and I'm not just sitting up on a high horse beacuse I know English. I know teachers are not supposed to try and be friends with students, but we are supposed to be humans.
Today was great. It was a coteacher's birthday and we all went to her house for cake and champagne (though I didn't partake in the latter) and talked about life and politics and cultures. We were so invloved it took the clock going to 12:59 for us all to realize... wow. Time to work tomorrow.
anyway. Just wanted to share!
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