January 7th
I woke up
excited. Today was the first day of my first Winter Camp and I was going to be able to work with the 2nd grade students, who are a group of children I hadn't had the opportunity to work with before. 2nd graders have always been described to me as
adorable, fun and easy to work with. I had planned a very active and hands on winter camp for my students so I was expecting this to be an enjoyable week long walk in the park. But instead today marked the beginning of a
week long walk through hell.
I had arrived at school early to set up my classroom. Today we were going to introduce ourselves, create little posters about our favorite things and learn some new emotion words. ( I am on a crusade against the response "I'm fine thank you" that
EVERY SINGLE student in
ALL OF SOUTH KOREA responds with when asked how
they are doing). I had Mr. Bean clip to show, 5 different games for the kids to play and a arts and crafts project planned.
I sat in the classroom going over the materials for the day when I heard a
rumble. It was a ways away so I ignored it at first thinking that some
unfortunate teacher got stuck teaching the
animal-like 6th graders over the winter. But the rumbling
got louder and
louder and
louder until finally my classroom door swung open as if it were bashed in by the SWAT team. Tumbling over one another were a group of boys screaming and shouting back and forth in Korean. They all loitered at the back of the class, some wrestling, some hitting, some watching but they had one thing in common, they
ALL were shouting. I sat there waiting for them to notice me sitting at the desk thinking that it would make them quiet down. I gave up after the chatter didn't die down and rang my bell.
Nothing. Rang it again.
Nothing. Once more.
Nothing. It was like they were
immune to it's sound. My other classes responded to my bell like well bred dogs, if I rang the bell they knew to shut up. Finally I stood up and yelled
SIT DOWN!!!!
They didn't stop.
It took me
physically placing myself in the center of their mayhem to get them to cut it out. To get them to sit down was another 5 minutes of me having to guide them to the chairs by their shoulders. The rest of the period with them
0 learning was done. I spent the majority of my time in failed attempts in trying to discipline the boys who were throwing anything they could get their hands on, tormenting each other and the girls, screaming, refusing to do work and anything else they are expected
NOT to do in a classroom. By the time the day was over
I was beat and at a loss.
January 8th
Day 2 was worse than day one. I had planned on briefly teaching the students the phases "You should" and "You should not" followed by games and an arts and crafts project.
None of that happened. 10 minutes in to my 80 minute period with them one of the girls
slapped a boy. The boy was sitting behind the girl and was tormenting her, pulling her hair, throwing papers, ext.. I was one more disruption before I was going to move his seat but apparently the girl I didn't believe I was acting quick enough. Midway through a demonstration I was giving the girl turned around and slapped the boy.
I was stunned. This was a
grown woman "I just found out you were cheating on me" or "you grabbed my behind in the club," slap. She slapped him full palm to the face
with follow through, his head snapped back and he let out a cry of pain. For the first time the entire class was silent and then as if they were all on cue,
all eyes then turned to me. My first thought was to
pretend I didn't see it but the students caught me staring right at the situation. To top it off the boy began to cry.
I didn't know what to do, the boy
deserved it. If he were my child I would have told him "suck it up, that's what you get." But he wasn't my child and I had to be a "teacher." I looked at the girl and pointed to my office. Her and I both walked
so slow we could have been walking backwards. I was trying to figure out what to do,
I didn't want to punish her, if it were me (and I were 8 years old) I would have slapped him too. If she were my daughter, I would have bought her ice cream. She was walking as if I was taking her to the guillotine, her eyes were welling up with tears, the girls all grabbing her hands as if it were the last time they were going to see her alive. The boys were laughing and chanting
"TROUBLE, TROUBLE, TROUBLE." We finally made it to my office. I closed the door, handed her a tissue and said
"Pleaseeeee don't cry." She wiped her eyes and looked up at me, waiting for a punishment.... and then I said,
"it's okay."
I know, I won't be winning any teacher of the year awards.
January 9th&10th
By the middle of the week I was exhausted. I couldn't handle another day like the 2 before so I
enlisted some help. My favorite 5th grader is the class bully. She is one of the smallest girls in the class but she packs more spunk than any other student. I asked her to come to my winter camp, translate a few threats for me and hang around to help me for a bit. Before we started the activities for the day we went over a few rules and punishments.
I am 100 percent sure what she translated to the kids was A LOT more harsh and vulgar than what I originally. The 2nd graders kept gasping and looked terrified.
Did I ask her what she said? No.
Did I care? No. They finally were in line and when they even toed slightly out of line she would say something to them that would get them back on track.
Unfortunately she was only available those two days. But those two days were very much appreciated and went smoothly.
January 11th
I knew I had to come up with a game plan if I were going to
survive my last and final day with the devil's spawn alone.
Mr. Bean it was. If you have never heard of Mr. Bean and you are a teacher, thank me now. Mr. Bean
never fails to captivate students. They find him absolutely hilarious and he is a guaranteed 40 minutes of entertainment for students of all ages. After Mr. Bean all I had was 40 minutes until I was free from this torture. I couldn't lose to 2nd graders, I'm better than that. So I devised the
perfect plan. A word search. I told the kids this was a competition and the student who completed the word search the fastest would get a chocolate. They all got right to it, racing to complete the puzzle faster than the next, shielding their puzzles from the person next to them. But this was not just
ANY word search. This was a word search that
couldn't be solved. In the list of words that the students had to
find, there was a word I didn't put in the puzzle.
Judge me, I don't
care. I HAD WON. The students spent the
entire 40 minutes searching forwards, backwards, up and down trying to solve this puzzle. They even started making bargains to help each other and split the chocolate. I just sat back, sipped my coffee and waited. 20 minutes to freedom. 10 minutes to freedom. 5 minutes to freedom. By this time the students were begging for my help.
"TEE-CHA PUUUUUH-LEEEEEZE, pleeeeezeee, pleeeeeze." 3 minutes. 2 minutes. 1 minute. When I finally announced that time was up you would have thought the world was ending. They all begged for more time, unwilling to accept defeat. But that was it. I was finally finished.
I had survived hell week.
#CHEERS2BULLYINGCHILDREN
