Game board blues: Give them time to sort things out

"Battleship" is a fun game to use when teaching because it is repetitive without being tedious. Playing the game involves making sentences with the expressions in the rows and columns of the game board to “attack” the enemy ships. It’s been a hit in every class I’ve seen it in, but the game’s difficult to get started. It’s never been the easiest game to explain to the kids at any level for some reason. What comes easy to American kids hardly registers initially with Korean students. I’ve been in classes where the instructions were bilingual and the kids still had trouble with it. They would only get it after one or two practice runs. Like engaging the clutch and getting a standard shift car rolling, getting started is the hardest part in the activity, but it wasn’t the case today with a group of 2^nd grade HS boys. I’d hardly given them the game boards and the instructions when they were off and running. Half the students knew what to do instantly and they quickly explained things to the other half who was catching up. Soon everyone knew what to do and the room grew loud with all the English being spoken. I stepped back and watched the magic happen. Everyone was speaking or correcting someone’s speech in English.

I’d made the game more difficult by including 3 expressions each to use with “yes” and “no” answers as well as telling them to set up the question with “Do you want to ~”/“Let’s go~” /“We should~” opening phrases. 

A complete exchange sounded like this:

A: [Do you want to] get coffee tomorrow night at 7?

B: Sure, that sounds good.

They nailed it.

And to think I was worried about the students not being self-starters. Much of the Korean (or American) school system’s built upon the students marching from lesson to lesson in lockstep, so I’d been wondering how if anyone still had any initiative to do something without being told to do it. Part of growing up involves thinking independently; it’s my hope to instill some of that independence in the students by stepping aside to let them figure things out at times. Like John Gatto explained in an essay of his, school tends to make students “intellectually dependent” on teachers, and I want to make sure the students know enough to solve problems for themselves.* It is burden enough to know they depend on me to give them a model of good English, but I must also help them become self-directed and confident, too. They've got to be able to make their own mistakes. Sometimes it's best to step back and watch them sort things out. Part of teaching centers on readying the students for their future roles as contributing adult members of society, and intuition’s key there. If their intuition fails, I’ll be around to point it in the right direction.

*From Gatto's essay "The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher," which can be read in his book Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling.

9 Months This Week / Stuff Back Home

Standby for a series of posts for the page. I've been a bit slack on getting new stuff up on here and wouldn't want to let anyone down. This week marks 9 months in Korea and I can't wait for what the next 15 will bring. 1 year just isn't enough, not with a job that's beyond satisfying and a great group of people to share it with.

This time of the month's always a bit of a reflective time because I left the States on my birthday (23 August) and another month's passing brings the country back to mind. It seems time to note what I do and don't miss about the USA:

What's missing

Soy milk

Can't find Silk soymilk or anything comparable here. Soymilk is available, but it's not the same. There's more sugar in it and it doesn't satisfy the way soymilk does in the States. Korean soymilk somehow has more calories and more fat in it, yet it doesn't seem as filling as Silk does. Strange. Not cool. I've gone back to regular milk and somehow the regular stuff tastes better here.

Public Trash Cans

They may as well not exist here. Stores put out giant bags for trash and that's it. Most of the time people throw their can of ____ on the sidewalk and keep on walking. Kids get these little bowls of spicy rice cakes, eat them, and then throw them on the ground. I should be used to this by now, but I'm not. Seeing this stuff makes me wonder why people can't wait until they do find a trash can. Trash in the street isn't the greatest sight to see. But, on the other hand, this may not be such a bad thing for two reasons:

1. The trash does get picked up y retirement-age men and women come around every so often and pick up the random trash on roads and sidewalks. I don't know if they get paid to do this or not, but either way, it gives the older people something to do and keeps them active. 

2. People can't get busted for littering so easily--if they can get busted at all. 

Being Able to Drink Alone in Bars

This is trivial, but it's enough for me to write about because there've been a few times where I wanted to drink a beer or two and not stay in the apartment. It doesn't work over here because bars expect you to either order food with your drinks or come in a group of two or more people. Stopping by the local for a drink after work doesn't happen here. There is no such thing as stopping by. 

Every time I've tried this, I've gotten a puzzled expression and a bunch of Korean I couldn't understand from the barmaid or bartender. Apparently a guy can't go get one beer and go home here. I don't know. It isn't a big deal when you consider that beer's available 24/7, but sometimes a change of scenery is good. 

Record stores and Spinning Vinyl Records

I've been in a few shops so far, and the only one worth mentioning was this small joint in the Hongdae area of Seoul. Me and a lady friend had happened upon it by chance when we'd met for a date in the winter. I saw it from across the street. It sold nothing but blues and jazz CDs. It felt good to scour the racks in there; it took me back to those days at Bullseye Records in Milwaukee. She pointed out a few people here and there until I found The Essential Bo Diddley. That's an album I should've had since day 1. He's up there with Chuck Berry for archetypal rock and rollers. The New York Dolls covered his song "Pills." It felt good to hear his original version of it. 

As much as the apartment feels like home, it may not feel complete until a turntable and a proper stereo get acquired. I haven't had a proper stereo in years. It's strange to play everything through the computer, iPad, or MP3 player. Those speakers I bought in September aren't any good. A former co-teacher gave me his computer speakers in the winter. They make the music loud and clear. 

One side effect of the change in music listening is I've been steadily buying stuff on iTunes. And even though I miss the packaging of albums, it doesn't make any practical sense to accumulate album after album here. Buying the physical product gets saved for the (awesomely packaged) Kpop albums and Western stuff that burns at my soul. 

Coffee

I've never understood this. This whole country works itself to the bone every day of the week and prides itself on doing things quickly. Students study from 8:20am to 9pm (not counting private school) with a few breaks, businessmen work until 7 most nights and Saturdays, construction crews work on weekends, convenience stores are almost always open 24/7, and yet decent coffee's only for those who can afford the coffee shops every day. This country needs better coffee! Cans of coffee are ubiquitous, but they're overmilked and oversweetened to the point where it's not even coffee but some express ticket to Diabetes Land. You can find a couple brands of straight Americanos, but it lacks even a tinge of bitterness. It's smooth, but it's devoid of any character. The caffeine certainly does the job, but coffee shouldn't taste like caffeinated water with food coloring. The instant stuff's even worse. More than once already I've tossed out my cup because of the taste.

The local Tous Les Jours coffee shop does do a decent Americano. The Paris Baguette is okay as well. When Kirsten first moved here, she used to tell Gabe, Peter, and I about how Wasu didn't have any coffee shops and she'd stop at the Starbucks in Chuncheon every time she went there. Maybe we should count ourselves as lucky. Gabe, Peter, and I went to Tous Les Jour on our second day here and the Paris Baguette only started serving coffee when it renovated over the winter. Maybe this is what I get for living in a small town. Ground coffee's easier to find in the bigger cities. I'll have go online or go to Seoul or Chuncheon if I want to buy some. 

Another thing: instant coffee mix packets are huge here. The packets already have the coffee, creamer, and sugar mixed in them. You boil a pot of water on the regulation office electric kettle, pour the mix into a Dixie cup, and pour in the water. The teachers call this coffee, but I swear a better name is coffee shot. 2oz doesn't count as coffee unless it's straight espresso. Again, they're sweet. They do go well with soju though. My idea. A few of lady teachers as well as members of the Cheorwon crew like them. 

*Tous Les Jours and Paris Baguette charge 2,500won for an Americano. It's around 2 dollars.

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So that's five things and none of them carry much importance in the grand scheme of things. That's about all I've got for complaints against daily life here. Everything else is great. Everything necessary is in walking distance: the school, the restaurants, the grocery store, the walking paths, the coffee shops, and the bus terminal. Beer, makgeolli, whiskey and soju are available around the clock. 3 cool EPIK'ers plus a great co-teacher and a cool apartment manager live in the building. The townspeople are nice. The scenery's gorgeous. Spring's turning into summer and the weather's grown warm.

I do miss waking up to a big  mug of strong coffee and a bowl of granola, but oh well. Life was good then, but it's better now. Cheers!