Trista Teacher

After a month and a bit of teaching, I am pretty amazed at how much I have come to learn. The most important lesson, I would say, has been (no matter how mad I get) to not yell "shut up" to my students. Not because it's too mean and they don't deserve it (because they do) but because, despite all my efforts to get them to speak practical English, they will sense that this is rude and will be far too eager to shout it back. 

One of my grade 6 classes in particular is quite rotten. Last week I escorted two of my students from that class to their homeroom teacher and explained to him how they ripped up a textbook that was leant to them by a classmate. I even tried to make them tape it back together. Which they did. Upside down. 

Almost every day I get frustrated to tears and I usually write it off as cultural differences. Things that I think are extremely rude (like the textbook thing) aren't necessarily so in Korean culture. I was so pissed off about the textbook that I couldn't even bring myself to do anything about it. I left it up to their homeroom teacher. One of my fellow English teachers has taught me the value of the homeroom teacher. They have  real control of the class and can put the fear in them. Obviously I admire this power and next week I have arranged to sit in on some regular Korean classes with my worst classes (5s and 6s) to try to learn for myself what behaviour is ignored and what behaviour is punished. And how. 

My students kick me in the ass everyday but watch out! Trista Teacher's got a brand new bag.