teacher's day
Today is Teacher's Day in Korea, which is perhaps a little less important for those of us working in after-school academies, more commonly known as hagwons. Students brought me gifts of candy and snacks throughout the day, one of my co-teachers received roses from four different students, a mother brought in little 'care packages' of 김밥 (gimbap) and 떡볶이 (tteokbokki), and a girl in my first period class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays stopped me in the hallway to give me a fancy pen with a pig's head on the top. (picture coming soon)
Yesterday I went over how to make "don't" sentences in my first period class with varying degrees of success. Using the examples provided in the textbook ("don't take a photo", "don't swim", "don't make a noise") left everyone looking bored, and while the class repeated the sentences they certainly didn't look very excited. Taking a more 'direct' approach, I walked over to the student who sits to my left and starting tapping him on the arm. He grinned at first, but as the tapping continued he started to look a little confused. When I told the class how much I enjoy hitting him he caught on and said, "Teacher, don't hit me!". For the next student I nudged her chair and she replied with "Teacher, don't kick my chair!". I asked the next girl if it was okay to hug her and she gave a very adamant "Teacher, don't hug me!". I walked over to another girl's seat, started to make smooching noises, and asked her about a kiss. Rather than use the new pattern to avoid the situation she just sat there, looked up at me, and smiled. Prompting her with a whispered don't kiss me didn't elicit the desired response either - she just put her arms on the table, lowered her head to her arms, and kept smiling. At that point it seemed best to overlook her reaction while telling everyone else that the appropriate response was "Teacher, don't kiss me" and moving on to the next student. Whatever happened to girls finding boys disgusting until some time in middle school?