Summer camp: Coming around the far turn
1 Comments Published by Brian on Saturday, August 05, 2006 at 11:50 AM.
Back in Seoul for another weekend break. Strange to think of Seoul as home. It isn’t really, but it’s as close to a home as I’ve got I suppose. No plans really other than an appointment with my doctor, going to a meeting tonight and seeing a friend who I’ll tell you more about in a future installment. *wink*
This week at camp we had a “pop song contest.” Each class had to choose a song, work up little routine, and sing it for the rest of the camp. Not too many surprises in the song choices. One class did a Britney Spears song, one did Westlife’s “My love” (I believe that rule was attached as a rider to the Every-class-must-have-a-kid-named-Harry law). My class did “Puff the Magic Dragon,” and I’m sorry to say it, but it just sucked. Several things went wrong. First, they didn’t choose their own song. Their Korean teachers chose it for them, and they chose a bad one. I love the song, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t one the kids could get behind. But perhaps the greatest tragedy of their all-too-brief pop-star careers was me. Most of the other native speaking teachers helped their classes with their song, but I didn’t. On the one hand, the Korean teachers seemed to take full control of this project and didn’t ask for any of my input; on the other hand, I also didn’t step up and offer my help. So I’m unsure how much responsibility I actually bear, and the kids don’t seem to be too bothered about it, but I can’t help feeling like I let them down
On Thursday we changed classes. We taught one class for a little more than half the camp, then switched, and will have a different class for the rest of the time. None of the native teachers wanted to change. Our students were just starting to open up to us, and we were beginning to develop real relationships with them. We asked the supervisors not to make the change, but our pleas fell on deaf ears. Our new classes are good too of course. That first attachment is always the strongest though isn’t it?
Here is a picture of my first class. From the top left they are (Sorry, I only know their fake English names) Kate, Eve, Jessica, Ann, Joanne, Lian, Phil, Justin, Owen (behind Justin’s head), Jackie, Allen, Helen, Sally, Jenny, Spell, Alex, Some old bald guy, Harry, and Donald.
In the 10 days I taught them, I feel I know them much better than the students in my regular school that I’ve been teaching for a full year. *sigh*
On Sunday night I’ll head back to Jochiwon, but at least there’s only four more days of camp, and really only three more teaching days. Monday is “game day,” where the students will rotate between different classrooms, and in each class they’ll play different game for 10-12 minutes. My game will be a simple spelling race. The students make two lines. I say a word, and the two students at the heads of the lines race to board. The first one to spell it correctly gets a point for their team. (Sound familiar Greg?) We break camp on Friday morning, and then next Saturday I’m on KE 023 bound for San Francisco.
This week at camp we had a “pop song contest.” Each class had to choose a song, work up little routine, and sing it for the rest of the camp. Not too many surprises in the song choices. One class did a Britney Spears song, one did Westlife’s “My love” (I believe that rule was attached as a rider to the Every-class-must-have-a-kid-named-Harry law). My class did “Puff the Magic Dragon,” and I’m sorry to say it, but it just sucked. Several things went wrong. First, they didn’t choose their own song. Their Korean teachers chose it for them, and they chose a bad one. I love the song, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t one the kids could get behind. But perhaps the greatest tragedy of their all-too-brief pop-star careers was me. Most of the other native speaking teachers helped their classes with their song, but I didn’t. On the one hand, the Korean teachers seemed to take full control of this project and didn’t ask for any of my input; on the other hand, I also didn’t step up and offer my help. So I’m unsure how much responsibility I actually bear, and the kids don’t seem to be too bothered about it, but I can’t help feeling like I let them down
On Thursday we changed classes. We taught one class for a little more than half the camp, then switched, and will have a different class for the rest of the time. None of the native teachers wanted to change. Our students were just starting to open up to us, and we were beginning to develop real relationships with them. We asked the supervisors not to make the change, but our pleas fell on deaf ears. Our new classes are good too of course. That first attachment is always the strongest though isn’t it?
Here is a picture of my first class. From the top left they are (Sorry, I only know their fake English names) Kate, Eve, Jessica, Ann, Joanne, Lian, Phil, Justin, Owen (behind Justin’s head), Jackie, Allen, Helen, Sally, Jenny, Spell, Alex, Some old bald guy, Harry, and Donald.
In the 10 days I taught them, I feel I know them much better than the students in my regular school that I’ve been teaching for a full year. *sigh*
On Sunday night I’ll head back to Jochiwon, but at least there’s only four more days of camp, and really only three more teaching days. Monday is “game day,” where the students will rotate between different classrooms, and in each class they’ll play different game for 10-12 minutes. My game will be a simple spelling race. The students make two lines. I say a word, and the two students at the heads of the lines race to board. The first one to spell it correctly gets a point for their team. (Sound familiar Greg?) We break camp on Friday morning, and then next Saturday I’m on KE 023 bound for San Francisco.
What a lovely picture to demonstrate the feeling of the camp. And may I add, it was so nice to read the entire story of the experience. I hope you cherish these times, because you'll never have anything like it again when you come back to the USA (or maybe I am being presumptuous about that).
Boy do I miss the straightforwardly weird frustrations of teaching in Korea, as opposed to the twisted, soul damaging expectations that are dumped on the shoulders of American teachers.