Credit where it is due.

So sometimes you just have to suck it up and give credit where it is due. I like to think sometimes that American teachers are as good as Korean ones and can do anything they can do. But today I know I would never have seen what I saw in an American school. The school was packed with parents and somehow between the time I left yesterday and when I got to school at 8am this moring the school had been transformed. It was decorated and the students art work was displayed through the hallways. Then the classrooms had been cleared of most of the desks so there was room for the talent preformances. I saw every student in every classroom was preforming. I spent the morning running up and down the halls taking pictures of my students and watching them show off. Unlike Talent shows and such in the US this was every single room at the same time so I had to keep moving to see alot of my students. (one drawback to teaching all students in grades 1-6).


By 11:20 things were winding down. There were songpeyon or rice cakes and yourgurt drinks and tangerines for everyone. The kids also were given boquets of suckers and flowers and pens with little clown heads on them. The kids then took those apart and were sharing them with their friends. As I was going around taking pictures with my students and of the teachers I work with, I was amazed.

I also kept getting suckers and such handed to me. One parent gave me a whole Dove chocolate bar with Almonds. By the time Miss Kim and I left the English center again to go downstairs for lunch the school had been transformed back to its usual state. Desks had been placed back in classrooms, decorations were taken down, students were getting organized for lunch and to then go home. So in less than an hour they had the whole school cleaned up.
As much as I respect and love the teachers and schools I've worked with before this was honestly amazing. I think it has something to do with the culture here. Students work hard and play hard. They also both love and fear their teachers. It's not unusual to see students hanging off teachers here and staying late working on things if they are not going to an academy (or Hagwon). I get the same treatment now. My students come in and hang out. They just want to talk and practice English. They also know when I give them a look in class they have to listen and they know how to behave.
I watched three boys get disicplined today... by a teacher for playing on the stairwell. Less than 10 minutes later they were telling how beautiful she is. It's typical here. I'm getting used to my students telling me they love me, and I'm very beautiful... I've had to let my cynicism go and not think they are just doing it to get candy or stickers from me. It's that's what they know as how to express how they feel about me in English. It's pretty cool.
I've got to wrap this up... my after school students will be here in a minute and I want to have things ready for them. I'll try to post pictures up on flickr in the next day or so (but I did take 200 pictures this morning.)