CAMP IS TOLERABLE

Okay, I admit, it’s not killing me. I am pleased that I still get pleasure from the decent students. I swear if they were the same girls, but 25 years older, I’d marry a bunch of them. I love their enthusiasm, their desire to learn, their politeness, their thoughtfulness, and the way some of them look at me. Okay, that’s a little sick, but I can’t help it. It makes me feel good.

Today a girl asked me if I was tired. Yes, I was. But it’s the way they notice these things, pick up on moods, and show concern that amazes me. I would love to see inside their heads and what they really think and how their minds work. I’ve never been around kids like this. I taught in Israel 26 years ago, but I don’t think the kids were this kind. I knew Elana and Leah’s friends, but I was just their dad. I’m not exactly friends with these kids because there is that teacher/pupil distance, but it’s close. If I had a soul, I would sell it to be the teacher of a room full of good students.

Yesterday one of the things I did was play a game with the kids. It really isn’t a great game for teaching “English”, but it’s fun. It’s called the “thimble game”. I put some water in a small cup (and since I was going to be “it” for the 1st round, I didn’t want the kids to know what I was doing). You sit the kids in a circle and you tell them you’re thinking of a word from a category. For example, the category is color so you have the word “red” in your head. You tell the kids the object of the game is to not win. You start and each student has to guess the word you’re thinking of. When someone gets it, you toss the water at them. The first time when I was it, it was fabulous. The kids were shocked, the boy who got wet couldn’t believe it, and we all had a good laugh. Then the one that guessed the word gets to be it, with a cup of water. As you go around the circle and the kids haven’t guessed the word yet, you can see them getting a little more nervous and answering with their hands in front of their faces. The game was a huge hit, taught no English, but it did let those poor kids stuck in school during the summer have a fun break.

In continuing my theme of “I’m not really teaching English”, our next project is to develop a story and write a script to make a short movie. I might as well use my video camera for something useful. Of course, when you start discussing it, you get these big ideas like, let’s do a fantasy. I then explain we can’t quite put together a “Lord of the Rings” epic in a day. I remind them that all scenery, costumes, props, and anything in the film has to be provided by them. And, we are stuck to the confines of the school and the surrounding area around the school.

Since I’m in on the discussion, it has to be in English. The kids talk among themselves in Korean and then present their ideas to me in English a lot of the time. It’s not ideal, but it’s practical and they do get to use some English without being force fed. In a way I’m not the teacher, I’m just another kid working with them who just happens to speak a different language so they need to be patient with me and explain things in my language. We got a general idea yesterday for the movie.

Today we got into details. The kids broke out into groups to discuss things and tighten up the story, and they were discussing it in Korean. I know some teachers would say, “English only please” but if I did that, I might get a little more English, but I’d lose a whole bunch of creativity. I’m more interested in seeing them develop their thinking process than being proficient in English. It’s not my job to do that, and I know that, but I feel it’s a higher priority. If I have a chance to help them think things out regardless of the language, then I’ve done something worthwhile.

I’m quite pleased with the final result of our short story and script. They kept it reasonably simple with enough acting parts for most kids. The ones who aren’t acting will do the filming. I think they did a damn fine job. The story is an old one (a take on the “Sword and the Stone). I think an Indiana Jones character got in their too. There is a search for a sword that makes the finder of it the new king. There are monsters (kids playing themselves you could say), there are bad guys, there is our hero, an ordinary person, and an archeologist who helps him. It ends up that we have a girl playing the ordinary person who finds the sword (the kids call this person the “ordinary” person), and another girl playing the archeologist. At the end when they find the sword, the ordinary person asks the archeologist to be their queen and to marry them. The archeologist says, “I love you”. I let the kids choose who plays what part so it ended up with 2 girls in the lead. The first time we read through, the “I love you” came out as a whisper. I told them they had to say it with emotion and I laid it on thick as I said it. The 2nd time we read through, the girl who said “I love you” to the other girl, did it right and it was funny as hell. We film tomorrow and I hope it comes out good. It’s just a fun exercise. There’s a bit of English but most of the English comes from just working with me and communicating.

The afternoon camp yesterday was almost like there were different kids there, even though they were the same. On Monday, I thought they were brilliant. Yesterday, I thought they were almost useless. Very strange. Yesterday’s lesson was much harder but as a test of what they can do, I’d say most of them failed. My co-teacher yesterday was a nice man who has taught English for years and has a terrible accent. He says, like many Koreans do, “English-E” and “Orange-E”. It’s painful to listen and not correct him because I should only correct the teacher after class and not in front of the students. However, when they were answering questions I told one student they had the right answer. He came over and said it wasn’t. I’m trying to explain to him in a nice way that he’s misunderstanding the question asked, and why what he thinks is the right answer is totally wrong. He says the book said what he said is the right answer. I said, “then the book is wrong”. It was a tough call. I don’t want to have these friendly discussions in front of the kids, but I don’t want them getting bad information. I was as friendly as I could be so I think (and hope) he wasn’t offended.

One of the teacher’s at this camp comes from Toronto. Small world I know. In a bizarre twist, he’s been in Korea several times in the last 10 years teaching and he married a Korean. He’s here now teaching again, and his wife is in Toronto. We went out to dinner last night (the famous Korean restaurant called Bennigan’s). We talked quite easily for about 4 and half hours in the restaurant. It was a pleasant evening and he’s a nice man. He’s 40 so we can relate on a lot of the same levels. It will be nice to have another friend here in Paju to hang out with occasionally.

Gee, I haven’t really bitched about anything in this post. I could, but I’m still on a “love” high from the pleasure I get from most of the girls in my camp class. The boys could go jump off a pier as far as I’m concerned. But for now, I’ll stick to the good, and disregard the bad.

I’m off to the afternoon camp. We’re playing another game today so time should go fast. I think the kids there like me, because I’m crazy. Yesterday when they kept answering the questions wrong, I’d roll my eyes and then go to the wall and start banging my head against it. So they know they’re wrong, they know I’m disappointed their not getting it, and they know I’m not angry but am having fun with them. Sometimes I’m not bad at this teaching game. But as a full-time, 5 day a week, many different classes job, it’s a tough job.