Daily Life

I just realized that, though I've written a lot about where I live, I haven't said much about how things are going in this new place. Inspired by a dear friend's kind email, I thought it would be good to share tonight.

First of all, a note about how I'm doing: How am I? The LORD has provided for my every need: He's given me a job that I can save with, a place of residence to call my own, and a loving community back home to support me. I am grateful. I'm full of His rich mercy. I am fed. I could not have asked for something better. The LORD will keep me here until He sees fit to take me elsewhere. I'm at peace. I miss home sometimes and I really wish I had close girlfriends here to hang out with. But I'm doing well. I'm trying my best to rely on the LORD and remember His faithfulness. I'm doing my best to listen to His voice and not to overstep boundaries, outstay my welcome, or say something that would cause pain. I don't always do that, so I'm realizing a bit of my own blindness to my sin. But in sum, I'm enjoying the story that He's been depicting of my life here in Chungju.

A bit about the weather: It's been COLD here. Anything below 50 degrees is cold for me, so it's hard to say how cold, but I know we've spent WEEKS where the temperature has hovered at or just above the freezing mark. I think it may even be in the 20's this weekend. I've been wearing double layers every day since the first week in November. I'm so ready for March! There's a reason I lived in South Texas! I miss my mild winter... I hear tell that it threatened snow for San Antonio last weekend (the 4-5th), though I know it didn't come. It snowed here for the first time this season that same weekend. It's supposed to snow 10-12 more times before the winter's over. I thought it was beautiful, but I can't wait to be warm again.

My classes were recently added to; instead of 6 separate classes to teach, I now have 9 (not all on the same day). They alternate between being joys and frustrations. Last week was a particularly good week for me because I really got into my classes and really got into teaching; enjoyment naturally overflowed from that. Today... not so much. I enjoyed my preschool class and got to read (and mildly act out) a silly story about hiccups. I then enjoyed my 2-kid pre-K class for the most part. But after that... I just couldn't figure out what to do and didn't have enough time to plan, so the rest of the day was "by the book" and not engaging or fun.

It's not just not having enough time to prepare that sometimes bothers me. I feel as though I'm struggling with the Korean worldview as I teach. They largely think of education and "progress" in education as a book being filled out. American educational scholars have begun to question that in recent years, discovering that just because a book is worked through doesn't mean the material has been mastered. My headmaster hounded on that theory last year and went over and over his disapproval of simply going by the book. He disapproved of it so much that he restructured the class schedule so that students could have more time to "be engaged" in extra-curricular activities, ones that actually do the teaching. Books don't teach; teachers don't teach: They just present material. The students (through valuable activities) are responsible for learning it. There's no such idea here in Korea, at least none that I have yet encountered. Koreans seem to enjoy quantity rather than quality: They seem not to value creativity or engagement, so it's hard to teach that way. And it frustrates me that my place in education has come down to teaching by the book. The parents value marked-up, used-looking textbooks, not real knowledge gained.

I feel thwarted in other ways as well. My director has this idea to create a music program, of sorts, where students learn nursery rhymes or other American/Western songs (like pop). But the problem we've run into is a lack of time. If we only have our students for one hour at a time, and 50 minutes of that is in the classroom doing glorified paperwork, then there's no real time for anything else. He values songs like "Hickory Dickory Dock" as teaching aids (which I don't disagree with), but how can we implement them into the classroom if we're so focused on other matters? We have a homework system that literally takes 10 minutes to check, along with a reading program that also takes up 10 minutes. I'm supposed to finish 1.5 units (chapters) a week, yet that barely gives me time to briefly touch on students' vocabulary words, much less get the words to sink in. As of yet, I've only taught them "Hickory Dickory Dock" and I felt as thought I didn't even have time for that.

Despite my frustrations, I view my place of employment as a blessing. I know that I have it good where I work. The issues I have there are probably issues that would carry through to other hagwons, since they seem to be Korea-wide. My teammates are full of generosity and genuine care for each other and my days spent there sing with laughter, largely stemming from my co-workers' antics. I haven't laughed this much in quite a long time! On more than one occasion after teaching my 2:30 pre-K class, I have come into the office to find my chair filled with "me": my winter coat propped up and stuffed full by some of Andy's blown-up balloons. I almost believed there was actually someone sitting there the first time! Once the "dummy" was leaning over as if to rest its head on the desk and Brandon quipped, "You were quite tired." As Andy said upon my arrival, "There's no reason to be mean to you." Would that I could reciprocate the care and mutual concern I find surrounding me.