MY STUDENTS

Here we are now just past the 6th week of school and we are in full swing mode with lots of learning going on! The students have been such a blessing to me, and I have just fallen head over heals for all of them!

My 3rd and 4th grade students... All boys! Yes!

5th grade rocks! Makes me miss my 5th graders from the past!

Yes, these are my 6th graders hard at work! 

The parents have been great too. We had open observation week last week, and I had over half of my students have at least one parent come to meet me and visit with me. This is not quite like Curriculum Night (for my teacher friends). It's more like parents sitting and observing your class while you teach at different classes of their choosing. Fun stuff, right! Four Moms even stayed for lunch in the cafeteria. Speaking of, the cafeteria serves lunch quite different than what we do in our cafeterias back home. There are two lines and it's first come first serve for ALL the students! Since I have elementary, we leave 5 minutes early from class everyday so that we are the first in line. Yep! Otherwise, my poor babies would inadvertently get shuffled to the back of the line by the high school kids. By the time noon rolls around, we are all anxious to eat! Remember, this is a boarding school as well, so many of the kids stay here and get up early to have an early breakfast. When 10:00 break rolls around, the students have full access to the snack bar, (including ice cream). I'll give you one guess as to what the most popular snack item is..... Yes, that's right! So, the cafeteria lines consist of a few of the ladies standing behind the counter, sometimes scooping the food by hand, usually noodles and such, (with gloves on), on to the tray. I asked for an extra helping in line today to what I thought looked like onion rings. After further inspection, I'm not sure what it was, maybe octopus? It sure was good though. I dipped it in my fish sauce, careful not to get one of those tiny little bones that I so carefully picked out of the fish.

The end of the cafeteria line! 

See the small metal cup on the table? That's the water cup that you drink when you are in line before eating and then dispose of it in the used cup dispenser. They sit in a sterilizer (infrared radiation) case for us to have clean cups. How cool is that! 

So, the hardest part for me this year, so far, has been getting used to switching gears on my schedules every class during the day. My day can go from teaching English, to Science, to Social Studies, to Math, and the schedule changes everyday with different grade level classes. I love teaching all these subjects and I'm finally getting used to wrapping my head around having 8 preps and changing frame of mind to teach a different subject each class period. Sure makes the day go by at lightening speed! I'm exhausted by the end of the day. Thank goodness we have full access to the cappuccino machine in the snack area. A nice espresso goes a long way as an energy boost! Nothing new to teachers though. We are used to dedicating loads of time to what we love. TEACHING! And laughing and having fun with our TEAMMATES too!

My elementary teammate, Ms. Kaye, and I have so much fun! 

As far as technology goes, I take my students to the computer lab once a week and they really love to make power points. There is no saved drive though for the students to save their work, so at the end of class you will see me racing around the room saving power points on to my pin drive so that we have access to them in my classroom. So far, I've only lost one student's document by accidentally erasing it. Making a mad dash by clicking on buttons when you're in a hurry and when the buttons are in Korean don't mesh too well. What a trooper my little Shannon was though! She was so forgiving of me! Anyway, I also have a document projector in my class, but as of yet, we are still waiting on getting the cord that connects to the TV. Things can move a little slow here, so patience is a virtue, right? I had no idea how lucky I was to have all the technology right at my fingertips in my previous schools. I'd sure love to have that promethean board or even my outdated overhead projector here! And the classroom I had previously with 6 computers in them for the students to have access to everyday....? Wow! Wouldn't that be great! But, what it really does, is it puts the emphasis on really getting creative as a teacher and bypassing those things to make a difference with what we have to work with. Teaching with music and songs has been my vice with these kiddos recently. They love to sing and learn through songs! We are finally settled in and just cozy in my wonderful classroom.

I couldn't resist!
Once a Dragon, Always a Dragon!

Pencil Sharpener Story: So, the second week of school, a student goes to sharpen her pencil and whips out a razor blade "exacto knife"! (Uh, that's a weapon where I'm from...) She just whiddling away at the trash can like it's no big deal. I come over and she says her pencil needs sharpening. I'm trying not to act in total shock, so instead I say. "Oh, can I borrow that" and take it with me. Then, I proceed to ask another teacher about the deal with this, and evidently, it's common for the kids to have these with them. No big deal....so I go with it. (I am in another culture, right?) Ok, So, the next day, I give it back to her. Then, the other day, I mentioned I would get a pencil sharpener for the class. One of my students says, "No, I will bring one from home on Monday." Ok. that saves me a trip to the store and some out of pocket cash to boot. Yes! Well, when my student brought in the manual pencil sharpener, at one point there was a crowd at my desk so the kids could watch the insides of the sharpener actually sharpening the pencil. I asked if they had ever seen one of these because by the look on their faces, they were in awe as to how it actually worked! Oh, how wonderful it is to be a kid! Their curiosity is amazing!