What's my age again, what's my age again?

“HOW OLD AM I?” Everyone’s curious for the answer.  The students gasp and immediately begin to discuss a range; my English teacher colleague just happens to walk by the classroom and considers this to be the perfect moment to observe my class.  “17!” the joking boys at the front of the class giggle.  17 in “Korean age” (tack on an extra 2 years) is fifteen in “American age.”  “26!” “34?” “25.”  With an emphatic slap on the touch screen, the PowerPoint advances, and the students gasp and begin to whisper.  “I’m 23!” I boom at the class.  I explain my choice to tell the students my age is two fold  - it diffuses the first or second question many Koreans will ask when meeting someone new, and at the age of 23 I am not so far removed from high school life.  I want to frame myself as relatable.  I poke fun at and mime the 120º, 90º and 45º bow variations that are required when meeting older and therefore more respectable people.   It’s a good laugh for the students, whether they could understand my English explanation or because this young white teacher is trying to breach a deeply ingrained cultural belief and just doesn't get it.   Satisfied with his observation, my colleague exits the back door and would later ask me to take all of his Friday classes.  

Quiet before...the quiet

I think the beard throw them

Joker class - the boys on the right all picked American nicknames for class

            Trying to grapple with the cultural positionality that accompanies my age is one of many internal dialogues that have clouded my head space over the past week.  Since I last wrote, I’ve A) awkwardly meandered through an introductory lesson with over 150 of Korea’s brightest science students, B) slowly chewed through a handful of Korean-only dinners with my host-grandmother and her two rambunctious grand kids, and C) had squid soup for three consecutive meals.  In each scenario, or maybe just constantly, I’m acutely aware of what it means to be me: a young (but not too young) white American male teacher; someone who is undeniably foreign teaching, speaking, and only able to understand a foreign language. 

Before I use this space to make judgments about what I believe my role could be here in Korea, let me back up and share the highlights of my first week in Changwon. 

When I arrived at the office on Monday morning, the shock of my new job finally hit me.  Hundreds of new faces, bowing and offering the most formal greetings I could butcher in Korean, and finding a tired second year class waiting to be taught during first period.  I had arrived at the exact moment that formal evaluative parties were confident that I’d find success.  I felt undeserving and disoriented, yet excited. 

             Symphony music echoed through the hallways as the weary yet surprised students filed into the classroom.  I had queued up Beck’s Guero, which softly bumped in the background.  The second bell chimed, class began, and I tried masking my shaky voice with an artificially loud one.  Lesson objectives sounded modest enough – elicit student input and investment in getting to know me, convey the purpose that they were here learning English and why an American was slotted into the native teacher rotation, and to gauge English ability through quizzing students’ writing, listening, reading, and speaking abilities.  The range of English ability and self confidence ranges greatly – one student lived in Canada for 4 years and is practically fluent; at the same table, one student could do nothing more than copy down one of six questions from the board.  “Scaffolding” a lesson – making it accessible to language learners of all levels simultaneously – will be the name of my teaching game.

In between classes, I frantically sifted through hundreds of google drive documents; old lesson plans from former ETAs, and planned what lessons I wanted to teach.  Little resonated with what I wanted my students to gain from my presence here.  Lucky for me, there are some double-edged conclusions of teaching at a science high school.  Because science takes precedent – for admission, for curriculum weight, and administrative oversight – I’ve been given the green light to teach whatever material I see fit as long as I incorporate a speaking test that’ll make up 10% of their overall grade.  Roughly, I plan to spend the first semester focusing on happiness; defining, measuring, and improving happiness for a demographic statistically in dire need of such direct mental health management. The challenge will be to authentically engage the students and “sell” the idea of happiness…through the subject they devote the least attention and effort to.
            Teaching means learning.  Each class has a distinct personality and collective energy.  I try to read it quickly and match the high intensity classes with a booming voice – the rogue biology teachers patrolling my hall slowly slide the traditional classroom doors shut as they pass.  For the low energy classes, I over-accentuate my gestures and darn a jester’s demeanor.  It’s been taxing (especially for that Friday marathon), but validation for my efforts is validating.

Third graders (high school seniors) have a reputation as morose, depressed, and unmotivated students.  Traditionally, students only attend their first and second year of high school before graduating early and attending some of Korea’s top universities.  As I understand it, students are only allowed to apply to 3 schools during their first application cycle.  Rejection means returning to high school, reapplying, and facing the flurry of external disappointment and internal self-doubt.  Whereas the first and second year classes have 80 students each, the third year class is composed of 14 students. 7 boys and 7 girls – double the number of third years from previous years.  These students are forced to broaden their university application list (re: safety schools).

                Again, as the youngest teacher, I get the least desirable slots for teaching.  After one day off from boarding school where the students most likely self-studied at home, a short night’s sleep, and mandatory 6:30-7:30 taekwondo class, students entered my classroom five minutes early!  And then slept.

"Good luck!"

The sight of students passed out before I even begin teaching is unsettling at best.  Figuratively rolling up my sleeves, I shook the room with an artificially loud voice, painted the entire classroom’s floorspace with my pacing and prancing, and ended class  with students far from their previously catatonic states.  The English department chair had observed this class expecting to witness my “epic fail”.  As we returned to the department gyomoshil, she calmly told me she’d lift her observation duties for my classes.  Quiet pride, small victories. "By the way, you're 23 in American years. In Korea, that means you're 25."

Rejoice - pictured passed TFO, third from the left, now revived.

I'm supposed to be a state department "cultural ambassador".  

Here's a moment of blink 182 zen my student's appreciated me sharing.

   And that's about the time she walked away from me 

Nobody likes you when you're 23

...

My friends say I should act my age 

What's my age again? 

What's my age again?