gangnam science high school

i realize i haven't really talked about my school yet, so here is a post on that.

- i am teaching at an advanced science boarding high school. in order to get in to this school, the students had to have been in the top 5% of their middle schools. these kids are probably some of the brightest in korea. high school usually takes 3 years to complete, but the kids at my school all apply for college during their 2 year. very few come back for their 3rd year. although some students will come back if they are unable to get into the good schools of their dreams. the korean education system is also opposite of ours, so it's second semester right now.

as far as i can tell, i think we have 185 total students. of the 185 students, 37 are girls. that's 20%! i teach only the 1st and 2nd graders. there are 4 classes per grade with no more than 24 students per class.

- for the introductory class, i had the students come up with questions to ask each other. here are the top 10 exchanges:

1. Why are you so ugly?
2. Who is the most bacterium?
3. How about going to the dorm with me?
4. Q: Why do you live?
   A: To see you.
5. If you could buy drugs, what kind would you buy?
6. Q: Who is the most beautiful person in the world?
   A: My mother.
7. What do you want to be when you become an adult?
   A: A magician
   A: A mother (said a boy)
8. Who is the best black man?
9. Q: What do you do when you are bored?
   A: Shower
   Q: (my follow-up question) So how often do you shower?
   A: Once a year.
10. Q: What do you think about teacher Joshua?
    A: He is very handsome, but i am better.

- other exchanges i thought were hilarious:

after asking the students how i can help them practice english, one student responds, "just the existence of you, it stimulates me."

"Hi teacher."

Hello. Where are you going?

"Badroom."

Oh, did you get in trouble?

"No, I need to pee."

- i let the students have 5 minutes during the first class to ask me whatever they wanted:

"Do you have a girlfriend? You are handsome." (asks/says a boy)

having girls think you're good looking is awkward already. having boys think so too and to constantly tell you, there is no appropriate word for that feeling.

pretty much every class asked me if i had a girlfriend, which is to be expected. i'm sure all the fulbrighters were asked this. one class, however, was fascinated by my girlfriend and spent the entire 5 minutes asking me questions about her. what is her name? how old is she? did you meet her in korea? how did you meet? what is her Korean name? what is her family name?

by the end i wasn't even asking them if they had any more questions for me, it was more like, "do you have any more questions about my girlfriend?"

- last week the principal asked me if i liked raw fish, fearing he would also try to take me to the "ocean" i said, "it's okay..."

the friday after my first week of school all the teachers went out for dinner together. i arrived 30 min late (the teacher driving me got lost). when i walk in, the VP shouts from across the room, "Joshua is here!" he was plastered! his whole head was red; not just his face. you see, he is kind of balding a little bit so you can see the top of his head and it was bright red!

- speaking of my first week at school, my host father drove me to school every morning (a 20 min out-of-his-way commute) because, as i found out from my co-teacher, he thought that waking up an hour earlier to catch the carpool that the school had arranged for me would be too hard for me. so he volunteered to drive me so that i could sleep more. what a nice man.. unfortunately, the first week ended and so did his rides. i wake up at 6:30 now. if you know me, you know that i am not a morning person. i can stay up all night. i can pull all-nighters without the aide of coffee. but waking up early is just something i cannot do. the first day i car-pooled, i took a two hour nap at my desk. i woke up to my office-mates making fun of me. one of them then proceeded to feed me a spoonful of honey. as a person who doesn't really like honey that much to begin with, that was disgusting! as i'm trying to swallow it, he starts laughing and informs me that eating it straight is too potent for him, that he usually mixes it in tea..

- and lastly (and longly), i did a class on goals as my second lesson. during the first class, the students were speaking too much korean for my liking. what would happen was that a student would first speak in english, but if the other students couldn't understand it, then someone would translate it for everyone. while i believe that teaching english using korean could be very helpful for these students, i think it could be more effective, albeit more difficult, for the students to get into the mind-frame of just using english. that said, i needed to find a way to get them to make a commitment to speaking in english instead of korea. and i wanted to do it without me having to punish them.

what i came up with was to explain to them the importance of english, which for my students seemed effective enough. i don't know about for other schools, but the students at my school all have big dreams for their futures. the majority of my students want to go to KAIST (the best science university in Korea and apparently right up there with the SKY universities) which has an interview in english and has classes in english as well. many of the students have also talked about wanting to be global leaders and desiring to work in the global arena. pointing these things out to the students seemed to be enough, at least for now, to get them to participate in the activities i was trying to do.

after this i had the students, in groups, come up with different things they could do to help them along towards their goals. and here are some of their brilliant ideas:

1. "Go to Joshua's house together."
2. "Have a picnic with Joshua."
3. "We must respect and love Joshua" (so important if you want to practice English…)
4. "Eat delicious food together that Joshua will pay for."
(which i changed to, "Eat delicious food together - students will pay; maybe sometimes teacher will pay")
5. "Translate the school song and sing it" (haha!)
6. "Play games from England" and "Teacher will give students presents which are from England"
7. "You can practice talking with anything - stones, chairs, the wall..."
8. "If somebody speaks in Korean, they will have to sing and dance in front of the class"
9. "Have Joshua live in the dormitory instead of the PE teacher." (The PE teacher is the only teacher who actually lives in the dorms with the students)
10. "Make an imaginary friend and speak with him/her every day for 30 minutes."