♦ the gifted classes are finally over! i truly adore this batch of super geniuses (they’re all my facebook friends!), but these three classes were draining. on tuesday we had a pizza party with the M and S classes. on wednesday we had a pizza party with the T class. the school paid for all of the food, so i am grateful for that. it is safe to assume that i won’t be eating pizza in the weeks to come; i’ve had my fill.
during these ‘reflections’ classes, i made the kids fill out a questionnaire just for me. i asked them four things: 1) what was your favorite and least favorite thing in my class? 2) what are my strong and weak points as a teacher? 3) which project assignment was your favorite? and 4) what are three things you would change about the class?
i got a variety of answers on all of the questions, except for question two. the majority of the students (47 of them) wrote that i was charismatic, and that i explained things clearly. several of them also mentioned that i managed the class well. those were my strong points. i had a lot of fun reading my weak points as a teacher. all of them agreed that i appeared to be cold, that i always looked serious, and that i was very strict. many of them admitted to being afraid of me. oh, and i never smiled. hilarious.
i’m going to miss these kids.
♦ it suddenly turned cold this past monday. i have a little cold, and my hands are extremely dry (it doesn’t help that i wash my hands, like, thirty times a day). i also did something bad to my lower back yesterday, so today was especially uncomfortable. this weekend is about rest and relaxation.
♦ i just watched the season finale of project runway. what a load of baloney. i mean, i understand why [spoiler alert!] gretchen won, but that means that mondo lost. and i am not okay with that. i get that mondo’s final collection was borderline over-the-top. i get that since they awarded seth aaron the prize (for using colors and prints) last year, that awarding mondo the crown this year would be repetitive. i get all that. but…whatevs.
♦ on wednesday, a group of french educators visited our school. they were doing a tour of some of korea’s educational institutes and our school was one of their stops. we were given short notice, and mr. seo and i (along with class 1-5) were basically putting on a show. when the french people walked into my classroom, i was intimidated. i don’t know how to explain it, but they were so french! they smelled great, they looked dapper, and they were kind of direct and in-your-face.
while the students were doing group work, i got to converse with some of them (in english, of course). they were really nice, and i suppose it was nice of them to drop by? it’s not every day our kids get the opportunity to interact with the french.
it wasn’t until after the visitors left that i noticed that class 1-5 had not read the chapters they were supposed to have read. and yet, while the visitors were circling around the classroom, the students appeared to be on task and pretended to know what they were doing! our kids are so used to being on display that they can turn on “good students” mode very quickly. like an “on” switch. it’s really funny to see them exaggerate their speech and feign excitement over the littlest of things. “oh! that is very interesting!” “look at that!” “i like what you’re saying!”
♦ halloween is not really celebrated in korea, so i will not be celebrating it this year. my co-worker prairie suggested that i go as tim gunn. i do a pretty good tim gunn impression. look pensive, rest my chin on my hand, and say, “i’m worried.” or “talk to me.” or “it looks like student work.”
