just a few observations

well, tomorrow is the last day of classes in the semester. how is it then possible that we still have another week and a half that we are obligated to be here? i don't know. ask China.

Sometimes when I'm teaching, if I notice that a boy and girl are talking too much to each other and therefore distracting me, I like to joke around and call them out on it. "Steven, do you have a crush on Lynn? Do you like her?" and then they get a little embarrassed, the whole class laughs, and hopefully they stop talking. However, last week, after joking around like this with one student, he (for the 2nd or 3rd time) said something about me in Korean, the other Korean students started laughing, and they translated it into Chinese so that the whole class could laugh too. Needless to say, I was unimpressed. I was furious. I get so sick of these bratty, spoiled, rich kids feeling like they can say whatever they want to their teachers (even if it isn't in English). Maybe it's especially worse that it wasn't in English because I had to hear another Korean student say "oh he said something very mean about you!" and then refuse to translate for me. So, I got angry at the whole class, made them do work silently for the rest of class, and talked to the kid's class teacher. She told me she would call his mom.

The next morning, his class teacher told me that he was very sorry, that his mom said she was very sorry for his behavior, and apparently she told her that he likes me a lot, and that he mentions me at home frequently. Of course that makes me wonder what it is that he says about me (and what my students in general might be saying about me at home to their parents, because I don't really remember what I said about my teachers at that age). But anyway, his class teacher continued telling me that my student had even written me an apology letter and that she told him he was going to have to read it in front of the class. She handed me the letter, which I read, and asked me if it was ok and if he should read it in front of the class. It was actually a very nice letter, since he is one of my best students. I told her he didn't need to read it in front of the class, because I think that is really taking it a step too far. If he had treated another student badly, I might have made him do it, but I know that deep down he's a good kid and wanted to spare him further embarrassment. I didn't mention the letter in class, but (of course) some of his classmates had found out about it and asked me why i wasn't making him read it out loud. I simply said 'I don't think he needs to' and they proceeded to tell me how kind I am. Well, I guess that's nice.

In other news, I taught the same class the word “mule” today and what it means. They could not stop laughing at the way it is pronounced (unless I was saying it weird??). I wanted to say “I want to laugh at a lot of the sounds that come out of your mouth, but I don’t!” but of course, being the more mature one in a classroom full of 6th graders, I kept my mouth shut. Seriously though, mule? How did I not realize that this was a funny word?

Just counting down the days now to Roel coming, and then Mike and Thailand. It’s all happening so soon!