Teaching: Kangwondo Board of Education Visit (10/12)

As I said, the school was in a positive bluster preparing for the Kangwondo Board of Education’s visit. Landscaping was redone (the third graders who knew for sure they would graduate were pulled from class for this), school crops were picked, displays were made, music and art demonstrations practiced, and presentations rehearsed. One rehearsal I attended, as it was the main presentation for the BoE visit and included a video made earlier in the semester of me teaching. It was only b-roll footage, meaning no one could hear what I was saying in the clips, but I remember exactly what I was saying in the particular clip they chose.

“I’m sorry about the interruption in your normal schedule, class. This is supposed to be my day off, and I have no idea what’s going on. So let’s make the best of it.”

I’m glad they cut the sound.

What occupied most of my time, however, was helping prepare the special co-teaching class for Friday. Or rather, I wish it had taken up my time. As it was, I sat at my desk while my co-teacher did most of the work, insisting that I could not help at that time.

And then, on that dreadful Thursday, she said that we were not yet done with the preparations even though the class was tomorrow. I sighed inwardly and told her that I’d be willing to stay at school as long as it took to finish the preparations. I stayed until 5:50 pm, rushed home to get my TKD uniform and stayed at the dojang until 8:00 pm, at which point I rode over the H.S. to help finish the class work. She ordered pizza for us (and typically wouldn’t let me help pay), and we spend the evening cutting conversation strips and practicing our dialogues. We also helped make a movie for one of the other English teachers who also had to present the next day. I finally got to go home around 10:40 pm. When I left, the third graders were still there studying for their University entrance exams. They stay until 11:00 pm on a regular basis, apparently.

The next day we practiced again in the morning. She was nervous as all get out, and I hit my nervous spike as usual about 10 minutes before we went on. (I still think of these things in stage terms.) The lesson consisted of a review of “What would you like to have for lunch?” which we never taught them in the first place, which moved on to having a student read the day’s goals, which seemed a bit ambitious, which moved on to having the kids name the top five foods in the hamlet, which we made up, which moved on to the kids drawing a picture that they had to describe to the drawer in English, which went surprisingly well, which moved on to mock dialogues with aprons included, which moved on to the strip story of recipes of Korean foods, which went decently well (One kid noted that the first step in cooking samgyetang is not in fact to clean the chicken, but rather, “Catch the chicken!” This is why I love the country.), which moved on to a brief assessment examination.

Despite the fact that the lesson was ambitions, it went very well. The kids were enthusiastic (We were concerned because it was the usually quiet 1-3 class. The administration made this decision, not us, but we thought the student’s performance admirable.), and the activities went off without a hitch. I might use the picturing drawing idea as an activity in the future. The kids kept telling me how excited they were to do the lesson, and I had to tell them that Phoebe, my co-teacher, had done most of the work.

There is really only one major concern that I have with the demonstration day. The province wanted to see our school because our school does well for a rural public school on national testing. Thus, they wanted to see how we manage our school affairs to bring about such results. But, at least in the English class I took part in, the demonstration in no way represented what actually goes on at the school on a day-to-day basis. We do not co-teach. The English teachers usually use a text book and the foreign teacher usually is not even in sync with the standard syllabus. The entire week I was thinking, “What sort of ideas is the provincial BoE going to get about programs they should be implementing when we do not even implement the programs we’re showing off to them?” Ah, well. This is not my country. I told the English teachers about my confusion, but I did not question their methods. I am a guest here, and an observer. I will stay the course.