Strawberry Farm

This week we got to take the students on a field trip to a strawberry farm. The kids all had to come an hour early, and it was a really long bus ride. It was hard to tell during the trip because everything was so rushed, but I think that the kids really enjoyed it. The bus that my class was on got there really late (we had to wait a long time for a late student, and we got really lost) so we missed a few fun things. There were basically three things that we got to do:

First, we got to pick strawberries. I think that most students found one or two. It was a little frustrating, because all of the other classes had gone through first and picked them all. Even if they didn't find much, they still had fun searching for them.

Next, we got to plant strawberries. The farm didn't really seem to be set up for the number of students that we had, so all the students (I think around 80-90) were squished together between these rows of dirt. Half of them dove in and coated themselves with the dirt, and the other half wouldn't touch it. The dirt divers were more than willing to help the neat freaks. They each got to take one plant home in a pot that was much bigger than it had to be, and we had a great time finding space for all the darn plants on the bus.

The last part was by far the best. We thought that we would make strawberry jam, but the substitute was way better. Each pair of students got a plate of strawberries, one cup of melted chocolate, and one cup of sugary chopped peanuts. I paired most of my students with one girl and one boy, which made it so much cuter when they ate the fondue. While they enjoyed the actual strawberries, what they like most was trying eat melted strawberry with a stick.

I really didn't do much else this week that is worth noting. I am now counting down the days until I leave. There are 23 days of school before I am done. I just keep reminding myself that I am almost done and all of the conflict and stress that I feel will soon be history.

Teacher's Day Dilema

In 1963 the Korean government set aside a "Teacher's Day" to appreciate the work that teacher's do. I was surprised the first time this holiday came around when I was here. I was impressed with how much they value teachers in this country. Last year, most teachers at my school enjoyed generous Teacher's day gifts from parents that ranged from cards or flowers, to expensive skin care products (Lancome, Aveda, Dior and Chanel) or valuable gift cards. Some of the gifts seemed a little over the top, but I didn't hear any complaints.
This year, the school sent home notes to parents explaining that while we appreciate their generosity, we will only be able to accept gifts of cards flowers and food (not quite sure why that last one was included). While admittedly some of us were a little disappointed that we would not be showered with expensive gifts, most of us understood the reasoning. Many parents trying to "buy us off" to give better grades, pay more attention to their child, or simply want to outdo the other parents. I actually found out that these kinds of gifts because such a problem in public schools that in 2008 the government issued a statement saying that accepting these kids of gifts (called chanji) should be banned, and any teacher found to have accepted them should loose their job and be banned from teaching for life. I guess this rule hasn't hit the private education sector yet.
The new policy at my school caused a few problems. There are inevitably going to be some parents who send gifts anyways. Teacher's had to go through an awkward process of writing a note refusing the gift and sending it back home with a confused child. Of course, there are also teachers who decided to keep their gifts ("Ralph Lauren makes chocolate now, really"). I thought I had it lucky when I didn't recieve any gifts, but I ended up getting 2 the day after. Both were small, probably worth less than $5. One of the students that I recieved a gift from sent this same bottle of sunscrean to all three of his teachers. Two of us sent it home with notes, and one teacher kept it. The two of us who sent it home were a little concerned that the other teacher might look bad to the parent, but what could we do. As is turns out, we got a furious phone call from the mother. "How come Erik Teaher accepted my generosity but you two won't?" Wait, so now the two of us who actually followed the policy were in trouble? We'll get in trouble with the school if we don't send gifts back, and in trouble with parents if we do send the gift back. Mom ended up sending the sunscrean back to us the next day. We kept it because administration said it would be rude to refuse again. All over a 40 gram (1.33 ounce) bottle of sunscrean!!! It seemed that the new policy caused more problems than it was worth....

My favorite quote from the week doesn't actually come from a student, but from a parent. I have two kindergarteners who have developed a crush on eachother. I had to sit down and explain to them that kisses are for family. Hugs are good for friends, but kisses are not for friends. (How else do I explain this to a 5 year old who doesn't speak English?) I wrote notes home to both parents, more because I thought it was extremely cute than that I was concerned about it. I got a response from one mom that began with "OMG, I am so embarassed!" I actually laughed out loud that a parent would write OMG to her child's teacher

Congratulations Lieutenant Leeann! I am so proud of you. I wish I could have been there to celebrate the amazing accoplishment that you have achieved. You have grown into such an amazing young woman. 15 years ago I would have never thought that you would grow up to graduate from West Point, but your day has finally come!

I got company!

I had Thursday and Friday off of work this week. This gave me a chance to host my friend Brianne for a few days. Bri got here Wednesday night, and left Sunday morning. We got a chance to hit all of the main parts of Korea tourism!

One of my favorite activities of the whole few days was bungee jumping. Since I had gone once before, I was allowed to go with the cord attached to my feet instead of my back. Actully getting off the platform was a lot scarier than it was last time. I didn't get any pictures of me, but I have one picture from the top. I also had my camera hangin from my wrist when I went, so I got this crazy video shaking all over the place.

After bungee jumping, we went into Seoul. Our first day we hit the folk village, and North Seoul Tower. At the folk village, there was a group that was giving free "traditional Korean medicine" screaning. I'm not very good at saying no to people who are waving you over and handing you tea, so I let us get roped into it. I'm not sure the blood preasure machine and scale that measures body fat was really "traditional," but looking at our toungues and telling us we had muscle soreness was interesting... It was kind of rainy and dreary that day, so there wasn't a great view from the top of seoul tower, but it was still worth it.

The next thing we did was go to the Korea War Memorial. I had been there once before, but it was worth seeing again. We ended up getting half-way through before the guard came and kicked us out because the museum was closing. Bummer.... We ended up going back the next morning to finish the rest of it.

The other highlight for me was a lanturn festival that they had in Seoul for Buddah's birthday. We went to the temple, which was all decked out with thousands of lanturns. The monks were playing drums, and there were displays of fancy animal shaped lanturns and all that fun stuff. At night, there was a huge parade. It lasted an hour and a half, but we only stayed for about half of it. We stood along the side with our spiffy new lanturns lit, and watched thousands of people march by. There were big fancy lanturns shaped like animals, trees, lotus flowers, and buddah etc..... Most of the time thought, it was groups of people from all the local temples, universities, hospitals, or any other place that people generally meet together. After a while, all of them were kind of looking the same. It seemed like the point was to get as many lanturns walking down a street as possible.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I speak for all (okay, most) children when I say we appreciate all that you have done for us, and all that you have sacraficed for us. I hope that those who participate in the Race for the Cure have great weather!!!

I hope that everyone had a great Easter last week. It was pretty low key here. While Christians celebrate, it's not celebrated as a holiday by the rest of the country. It is impossible to find things like easter eggs, baskets, or candy in any stores. Most of my students had never even heard of the holiday.

We had an Easter Celebration day at our school. It was the first time that the school had ever celebrated Easter. We all made bunny ears to wear, and went out to the park. They got to do an egg hunt. We had plastic eggs shipped from America. Each child got to find two eggs, and surprisingly, they all stopped hunting after finding two. Then we got to use the eggs to do a spoon and egg race. This is an extremely hard task for 3-5 year olds, and we shortened the length of the race several times.

While the kids were waiting their turn to do the egg race, the supervisors decided to blow bubbles all around the kids. They then proceeded to yell at the students for jumping up and trying to catch bubbles instead of sitting nicely. Poor kids. How in the world to you expect kids to just sit there while you're blowing bubbles all around them? With some prodding from the teachers, the supervisors finally allowed the kids to chase bubbles while they were waiting to do the race.

On Easter, we had our annual church barbeque. Oddly enough, it didn't feel funny this year having a barbeque potluck. Last year it seemed really strange to me, but I guess I'm used to the strangeness now. Our pastor's baby was born on Easter morning, 2 weeks early. The only other pastors in the church are the grandparents of the baby. Needless to say, it was quite an exciting day for everyone.

This week I had a student's birthday. (I think that 6 of my ten student have had their birthday in the two months that I have had them.) This birthday was an extreme example of how crazy the parents go for their child's ten minute birthday party in school. When I got to the classroom in the morning, there were two cake boxes in the closet, each one about 18 inches wide/deep/tall. One contained the cake with a full size Barbie in the middle of it, and the other was full of gourmet cupcakes. We had to call home to find out what the parents wanted us to do with all of it. (Are the kids supposed to eat the cake and the cupcakes?)

I am pretty excited for the coming week. We have a six-day weekend that starts on Thursday. It will be for Children's Day (a national holiday in Korea) and Budha's birthday. My friend Bri will be visiting from Japan from Wednesday night to Sunday. Tell you all about it next week!