Shingwang Middle School

In the mornings, I walk about 5 minutes up to my school in high heels, just like everyone else.  But I now know the reason why Korean women can stand to walk around the streets in their heels all day: they don't wear them at work!  Just inside the front door of my school (as in Korean homes, most restaurants and some offices) is a large cabinet of shoe cubbies.  I pop my heels into the cubby with my name on it and put on a pair of nice, comfy sandals, which they call slippers here.  My first day, I just wore the slippers with bare feet, but I noticed that everyone else was wearing tiny socks or stockings (hence the abundance of cute sockies that I see in stores everywhere).  That night I went to the Home Plus and picked up my own pair.  So now I have Korean feet, if nothing else about me fits in!

Grades are divided by school, rather than in consecutive grade levels as in the US.  Thus, I teach middle school grades 1-3 (elementary school includes grades 1-6 and high school has 1-3).  My students are anywhere from 11 to 14 years old, as Koreans count age differently than we do in the West.  They basically count the time that you are in the womb as one year, so you are one year old when you are born.  Then you add a year to your age not on your birthday, but on each New Year's day.  I would be turning 30 this New Year's in Korean age, so I will be sticking with my western age, thankyouverymuch.

I have a desk and a computer in the grade 2 teachers office, which all of the grade 2 teachers share.  I'm not sure if the male teachers have a different office, or if all of the grade 2 teachers are women, but it's all women right now.  The office also serves as a break room for students between classes, where they can get a drink of water from communal cups, wash their hands, and bother their new English teacher.  They peer at my computer screen to see what I'm working on, not that they can understand any of it. (Though to their credit, they have a far better idea of what's going on with my Korean operating system than I do. Once again, thank God for pictures where they appear.)  Some of them come to me several times a day with new questions, to brag about something ("I've been to the US," "I'm a fighting champion!" or "I am number one in the class!"), or to tell me something (usually uncomplimentary) about one of their friends ("She's a pig!" "He's crazy!").  This is far better than when they try to brag to me as I walk by to check on them in the middle of class, when they're supposed to be doing group work or something of the like.  The compliment of the day today seems to be "pretty eyes!"  Koreans all have brown eyes, and I can just imagine them talking to each other in the hallways, telling each other to go check out the new English teacher with the freaky green eyes.  I haven't had the question yet myself, but other native English teachers are often asked (by elementary students the most) whether they see green or blue because of their eye color.

With the exception of classes that require a special classroom, such as music or P.E., students stay in one room and the teachers rotate around.  I tried this, but since my Mac doesn't hook up to the projectors to allow me to use PowerPoint (I need a special adapter and I'm not even going to try to get that question translated at the electronics store), I have adopted the English Lab as my own classroom.  It's a very nice room, with a retractable screen, a desktop computer, lots of pictures and English quotations, a huge white board, and plenty of English-language books and DVDs.  The back of the class has a huge English map and a couple of couches.  The room is called the "English Only Zone", though that doesn't seem to keep the students from speaking Korean in my classes anyway.

Lunch seems to be free.  At least, there's nowhere to pay for it in the cafeteria and no one has told me about setting up an account or anything yet, but perhaps that's coming.  Lunches always include a healthy mix of fruit & veggies with some sort of meat and rice. I always eat with the other teachers, as communal meals are very important for building relationships.  I need to work on making conversation more, as so far I've been spending most of my lunch listening to incomprehensible conversations going on around me and trying my best not to flip some sort of saucy food into my lap with my chopsticks.  One of my co-teachers has taken to handing me a napkin (or a facial tissue, which is what they use here) as soon as I sit down.  I guess it didn't take me long to make a messy impression.  Everyone brushes their teeth after lunch, which is a nice habit, but it's kind of funny to see the kids walking down the halls with toothbrushes hanging out of their mouths.  They try to say hello to me as I pass anyway, which comes out somewhat garbled with toothpaste.  Most days after eating lunch, I am invited to someone's classroom for (instant and overly sweet) coffee and some halting English conversation.

I wonder if I'll be so popular once the novelty wears off.....