Fists of Fury

Oh, Tedd, why another blog update so soon? 

Well, Anonymous Reader (notice the absence of a plural), that brings us to part one of this update.

“This Is Sparta!”

So part of the reason I agreed to come to Korea is the fact that my old boss was super cool (for once; for added info see “The Delights of Miss B” blog update) and let me stay in an empty apartment from my old school. This is awesome, but it also means that basically in this apartment I have a bed.

A bed.

No Internet. No TV. My silverware consists of one spoon and a bowl that I stole from Lucci. This means that my entertainment is my computer and the pile of books that I have sitting in my room (also stolen from Lucci). During random times during the day I will sit at my computer and go through my old pictures. I will also desperately try to suck Internet from a wireless network that gives me one bar every five minutes – meaning I literally will type in a web address; make lunch while it’s loading; type in my email password; finish lunch while loading; click on the first email; wash dishes while loading; then scream in fury when the whole operation times out and I have nothing to show for my half hour of effort.

My other activities include reading – as of my first week back in the ROK, I’ve finished 3 books and am currently 1/3 of the way through an Ayn Rand novel. Which is basically like reading 1/3 of the entire set of Encyclopedia Britannica.

So basically, I have a lot of free time and this blog is a result of this lameness.

Academy of the Devil Children

But I also wouldn’t be updating if my life hadn’t been full of little stupid stuff that made me cry and then laugh.

Kindergarten continues to be a complete and total debacle. Highlights of this week include a point when half of my class stood up and formed a conga line. They screamed and ran around the room chanting to a song that I had put on. The song is called, “It’s Time to Open Backpack.” Lyrics include “It’s time to open backpack / and see what we can see / it’s time to open backpack / and laugh at Tedd’s misery!” * When I say the kids were running around chanting, I basically mean that they would shout “Backpack-ah!” at regular intervals.

*Last line may have been made up.

But the Kindie Award of the week goes to a kid in my 4 and 5 year old class. This kid doesn’t even speak any Korea, so what he’s doing in my English class is a mystery. He quickly moved to the head of the class when during the flashcard part of my lesson he got up and started pretending to be a T-Rex and growling at the other kids. I gently prodded him to sit down to which he responded by roaring at me then falling over and rolling around on the ground.

When all is said and done though, Kindergarten is actually a good time. I have no control and generally half the class is me chasing kids and telling them to sit down, but they are effing adorable. My one class has quickly become my favorite ever. I introduced myself as “Teddy Teacher” because I know it’s hard for Koreans to end a word on a hard consonant. This class somehow made the connection: Teddy! Like Telly! Television Teacher! 

This is also the class with Wendy the child prodigy. I ask the kids how they are doing – most responses I get are in the “good” and “fine” category, with a few children making guttural noises and staring at me blankly. Wendy, however, chooses to answer in Shakespearean iambic pentameter: 

“Wendy! How are you today?”
“Indubitably gentle sir! ‘Tis a fine morning for such an inquiry to be made! Forsooth me feels as if the whole weight of the world hast been lifted from my slight, prepubescent shoulders.”
“Uhh…great, Wendy! Charlie, quit eating your book.”

The Kindergarten also has the advantage of being viewed in contrast to the academy I teach at in the afternoon. I have no idea what zoo these children were gathered from, but it is so awful at some points I literally just sit at my desk and watch the chaos.

Wednesdays are actually the worst – I have 4 classes, the first of which has “the screamer” I mentioned in the last blog. This kid literally does just stand in the corner and scream for roughly 5 minutes of the 45 minute class. The middle classes are decent, but the last class has some of the worst students I have ever seen. They literally just did whatever they wanted. I would tell them to sit down – they would sit for a second then get up and kick someone, pull someone’s hair, just start yelling, or run in circles around the room. 

What? 

When I left the class I asked my director what the worst punishment at our school was – she said calling the parents. I felt like saying, “Call them all.” But settled for just the two worst girls in the class.

Ugh…

The rest of the classes aren’t that bad, and to be fair it isn’t entirely the kids’ fault. Our school suppresses the kids from moving up levels to make more money, so a lot of the kids are about 7 levels more advanced than the classes they are in. They also give me about 5 minutes of material to teach for a 45 minute class, meaning the kids are absolutely bored out of their minds and take out on each other for the most part. Oh well…I’m glad there are just 3 weeks of that little stint left. 

All Class

As bad as some of the teaching days are, it’s buoyed by the awesomeness of my friends over here. This past Friday we all got together and went out to the bars. We ended the night with 3 hours of karaoke (no joke). The best performance was given by myself and the Crowbar with our rendition of “Tubthumping.” 

Perfect. Score.

I have also been reminded of the caliber of teachers abroad. My favorite example was last night when we went out. My friends and I went to a movie and then out to a bar for a drink. We got there pretty late so that everyone was pretty well gone. At one point a group of rowdier guys was bending each other over the pool tables and dry humping each other. 

It was ironic at this point that one of my Korean friends turned to me and asked sincerely, “Why don’t you hang out with the other foreigners?”

I was about ready to respond when I heard one of the guys who had been doing the dry humping, pulled his buddy off the pool table, and, I kid you not – I couldn’t make this up, patted him on the shoulder and says:

“You know I wasn’t going to really rape you, Dude.”

Uhh… 

Addendum

I wrote half of this blog before I updated my Facebook status. For anyone who thinks I was hyperbolizing, just suffice to say that I couldn’t write a Facebook status update long enough to include all the crap that happened to me in that one day.

I actually need to step back a day and describe the Great Earth Day Debacle of ’09; literally everyday I go to work and teach kids something so stupid happens that I have to tell someone. This past week all my English speaking friends have been on vacation, so I really can’t convey the low points I have struck with my Korean friends. It’s hard to tell a Korea why it’s funny that I had to tell a class of kindergarteners to, “please stop fisting Teacher Tedd.” That’s not a typo.

So, I get to work on Wednesday and my boss is like, “Today is a theme day so we’re going to do arts and crafts.” Basically this came down to an exercise in futility where I would try to explain Earth Day to all my Wednesday classes. The whole thing was good for me though, because I didn’t realize how little these kids understand me. Usually during class we go over words and flash cards which they have already memorized, so the kids have a solid base. Earth Day was a complete fustercluck. 

I get up to the front of the class and say, “Today is Earth Day!” I was met with blank stares, which I was expecting, so I proceed to draw a picture of Earth and say, “Earth!” The blank stares that met me this time were a little less expected. I then went ahead and said things like, “The Earth! It is full of trees, animals and plants!” I figured they’d at least understand “trees.” 

Uh…no. 

The first “craft” was having the kids draw pictures celebrating Earth Day on these little paper medallions. I tried a thousand ways to convey this, including drawing the medallions on the board, drawing a tree on one, pointing to Earth Day and then making a list of things the kids could draw. This included animals, plants and trees. Some kids did get this…I would say 46%. Another 50% managed to draw some trees on their paper just in an exercise of copying what I did on the board. The 4%, however, are what made the day worthwhile. These were the students who drew steaming piles of poo on their medallions. One girl felt the need to draw the snack she had brought to class – that medallion featured Chester Cheetah. Several students also felt the need to draw cars…? I made one boy explain what he drew. The list went something like: tree, cat, flower, Oldsmobile…what? I would like to think that it was just an attempt at irony; but this is also the student who grunts when I ask him his name.

Following Earth Day I was happy to be back into the normal routine where the kids wouldn’t understand me but I would have flash cards to maintain some kind of order. I forgot, however, that Thursday is the day that begins with my class of monkeys. These are the students who jump up and down, run around in circles, try to jump out the window, and scream Korean at me thinking my understanding of Korean is proportional to the volume at which they yell it at me.

So Thursday began with the one student running behind me and actually biting my butt. When I say bite my butt, I mean he literally sank his teeth into the flesh of my bum. When I attempted to ignore this he started to throw jabs at my junk. This was fun for a while – eventually things degraded so quickly that a student ran and got a secretary. I have learned to not expect results from this as the secretary merely comes in, shakes a finger, and then laughs and leaves; order returns for thirty seconds before the kids start jumping on top of their desks and screaming vocabulary words. (Side note: It is somewhat comical to have “horse” be a vocab word in a class full of ten year old Koreans with accents…)

For that Thursday class I was able to pull the train back on the rails for about twenty minutes before another collapse. This occurred with five minutes left in class when they all started running for the door to leave. The secretary corralled them back into my room where I assumed a sentry post at the door. Armed with my flash cards I made them say the words…well, I made half of the class say the words. The other four boys were trying to get me away from the door; their schemes included punching me in the junk, trying to tickle me, and screaming as loudly as possible. When I ignored all of these they fell back to the only logical position: trying to unzip my pants. One kid was so deft at this skill that I barely noticed when my zipper was down – what brought me revelation was when I felt a fist not just punch my jeans, but actually make contact with my boxers. 

Memo to self: Wear tighter jeans so such advances can be routed at an earlier time.

This, however, was not the first time that I was violated teaching. My kindergartners show affection to their teachers by putting their hands together as if they are praying and then shoving them at an adult’s rump. This is pretty awkward as is, but it only gets better when a crew of five kindergartners is behind you as you try to coral the rest of the class back to their desks. When you get five pairs of praying hands up your bum, it’s not a pleasant sensation.

In all honesty I thought none of this was funny about three days ago. I was pretty down on myself because I realized that I was teaching no one any English whatsoever. But somewhere between the fistings, the unzipping and the piles of poo drawn on Earth Day medallions, I realized that the most I can do is suck it up and laugh.

Because it’s pretty funny…in that awful, demoralizing kind of way. Que sera, sera. What Korean fist up your bum doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.