Borstal Times

[Katherine]: As we are leaving Korea relatively soon I want to document as much as possible, so I can remember exactly how I felt in Korea in 6 months time (I have a very bad memory). So, I get the feeling that there will be several random posts written between now and eternity (August 26th) and this is the first.

I am always super depressed on a Sunday night as I have to teach at 'Sintaein Middle School' on a Monday. I put this in inverted commas because it's so not a Middle School and is soooo a borstal for naughty boys (my discovery of this has been documented previously in the blog.) I never have a clue what classes or ability levels I am going to be teaching so am always stressed that I haven't prepared properly; I never know how the teachers are going to screw me over each week so I'm always on my guard for that; I never know exactly how naughty the kids are going to be - if they will be in a sleeping or a shouting abuse mood.  In addition to this I am always running late for my first class as my bus only arrives in Sintaein 10 minutes before class actually starts!

How my face looks after running up the hill on a Monday!

Today however, was one of my better borstal days (ah, this loving and affectionate nickname!!) I got to school to start teaching low level 3rd grade (this is the class I was told  I was going to be teaching, so this is a bonus already!) The teacher (nasty man) was already there with a textbook open, and told me he didn't want me to teach but for me to 'assist' him. This just involved reading 21 words and sentences over and over, and whilst it was boring it was good to give myself a rest from being ignored and run all over by the kids themselves! At the start of the lesson  nasty man told (not asked) the kids that they were all tired. According to him this was because they had had 'lots of free time' last week!  Most schools around the area have had field trips in the last few weeks, but I assume the borstal kids are too naughty so they just got to have 'free time' at school. Typically, they still worked on Monday when I was in last week though!!!

What a baby would look like if it had to sit through my 3rd grade class

Nasty Man still wanted the kids to work so got them to sing the song 'Take me home, Country Roads" and then repeat a lot of words!! It was REALLY random but I smiled and nodded anyway ( I didn't sing though, despite my clear musical talent). I have no idea how singing a song in incredibly poor English or not singing at all will help these kids, but at least they sort of looked happy!!

 The kids still weren't the best but they were pretty quiet, and I didn't have to speak a lot so I was pleased!

First Grade was much better. Again, I was teaching the class I was scheduled to teach (high level first grade) and again was just 'assisting'  (reading 15 words and sentences this time). And again the 'tired' kids started with a song - this time it was a little know ESL song called 'Sun, sun, Sunday ... I love you'. It was really catchy and even I hummed along! I also discovered at this juncture that in addition to the 'free time' the students had last week, they also had a 'performance to show special skills' (I assume this means talent contest!). So, for some reason in our English Class we were treated to what I think  was a comedian and what I think but hope was not, a student attempting to use chat up lines on a fan (as a substitute for a woman). He basically got a fan in the middle of the room and knelt down next to it and tried to look smooth and talk at it. He also waved a pink pen at it at one stage.  I say think as it was all in Korean (in English Class) and no one attempted to tell me what was going on. The kids seemed to enjoy it though, and as the comedian is one of my only nice students at the borstal, I was pleased that he got people laughing with him, not at him, unlike the fan chat up boy!!

Fan - Is it sexy?!?!

After this waste of 15 minutes we got down to the real business of the day - repeating words, and I went back to sleep. This isn't any sort of productive use of my time but I MUCH prefer this method of teaching to my usual crowd control 45 minutes of HELL! Hopefully, I will have many more of these lessons as after 13 weeks of the semester and 3 English lessons a week, the students have only reached Unit 4 of their textbooks. I think they need all the time they can get!

[EDIT: The 2nd year students - who are always my LEAST favourite class - got the song treatment as well. Their song of choice is 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon', it's a favourite of mine as my dad used to sing it when I was young! Not sure the students got the meaning though :( On a more Korean note, about 10 of the students were late to class and the teacher lined them up and whacked them in various places, they had to try and move to avoid him and when they didn't he whacked them all! One kid got out of the way so the teacher kissed him in the arse!! Nice!]