62) Staying true

The other day I asked one of my older classes what they wanted to be when they grow up. I asked if anyone wanted to be a teacher, they looked at me with a sort of confused horror as to say “of course not”. I remember thinking the same thing when I was their age- when I was done with school the last thing I wanted was to be working at a school. But here I am, teaching, and the funniest part is I am teaching English- my absolute worst subject in school. Very early on in grade school I remember having to go to a special reading class with two other students- and now I am teaching reading!

It is funny how working with kids brings back so many memories of being their age and in school. I remember my old friends, teachers, the stupid things we used to do, and the trouble we got in. Lately I have been thinking about some of my teachers from grade school, and I’ve even had dreams about them on a few occasions. I wonder how they perceived me back then- I wonder what they thought I would amount too. Looking back on those teachers I have a new appreciation for them- especially their tolerance and skill (and for some of them their true love of teaching).

Teaching grade school has also brought back memories of how I perceived I would be living and what I would be doing when I was “older”. Reality, circumstance, and necessity are different than a 10 year old boys mind. But when I stopped to think about it, I have been able to do some of the things that I always longed to do. On more than one occasion I have gone on poorly planned but exciting trips to different states or countries. And right now I am living in a different country (although I would have never imagined it would be Korea when I was young). On occasion I will eat a box of a dozen cupcakes in a day- without even thinking twice about it. Also, I have grown some ridiculous facial hair in the past few years (when I was young I couldn’t wait until I could shave and grow facial hair) and did some pretty neat things with the hair on my head.


So I guess in some respects I have stayed true to childhood dreams. The harder thing is to stay true to how I imagined I would teach a class if I could. I am constantly reminded by my conscience not to be too tough on these kids- but that is balanced by not wanting to cheat any of these kids. This generation could be very important to Korea. This is a country of very rapid change in recent years. When my grandpa was here during the Korean War, he said Seoul was nothing- and now it is an extremely modern city among the top 10 largest in the world. I think almost everyone here my age or older grew up sleeping on the floor because they didn’t have beds. I heard that not all that many years ago passports were virtually unheard of in this country. It was basically only businessmen who traveled outside of the country. There are tons of other things could illustrate the change this country has been through, but it is not really worth me getting into them here or now. The point is that I don’t want to cheat any of these kids from learning English to the best of their ability just because I wanted to have fun in class, or couldn’t figure out a way to teach affectively and have fun at the same time. This is especially important now, when English is becoming such an important language to know throughout the world and in so many respects. So it is a constant challenge to do the best I can.