The last days and graduation

These are from the last day of afternoon classes for the school year. In Korea, the school year ends in February and begins in early March. On the last day of my afternoon classes we learned some party-related words and then played games.



Here we are playing musical chairs. It can get really competitive and the winner gets a sticker!


One of the things I like to do with the kids is what we call the "Door game." I ask them a question and if one of them answers it right they can go. Some students are more anxious to leave than others and those typically are among the first to leave. If we don't do the door game, most get pretty bent out of shape.


Now these two are an interesting pair. Both are intelligent but are the kind of girly girls who hide some little things in their hand and on their laps that they play with in class which I have to constantly have to confiscate until the end of class. They can be a lot of fun. The one of the right (Sam) is the surliest Korean kid I've ever met. There have been times in class where I will tell her to say something or answer a question and she responds in Korean with, "Look, you're in Korea and if you live here you need to learn and speak Korean. Got it?" Oh if she only knew... There was one time the two of them left class with a friend five minutes early to go to the bathroom without asking me. I was pretty upset because that day both of them were particularly misbehaved. They came back and I asked what happened and they said that all three of them had to really go to the bathroom. I kept them after class a few minutes, went to the white board and, while maintaining my no Korean to the children vow, wrote the word "lie" in Korean on the board and asked them, "did you do this to me?" They were shocked and immediately responded that they did not. They were better behaved for a while. The other girl in the picture is Rosie.


In this picture is me with Joony and Andy. Joony is one of those alpha-male types but still cries a lot. Andy enjoys getting bossed around by Joony. Both are very, very good at English. Joony will be going to an English speaking only school.

Graduation

Here's me giving my speech. I was planning on speaking first in English and then say a few sentences in Korean, but the principal explicitly told me right before I went up that I was to speak in English. So much for my plan on the last day to surprise them all and say that I knew everything they were saying in Korean for the past six months. I did use one Korean word (the word for elementary school) because they wouldn't know it and it was a central theme to the graduation of a kindergarten.



I was amazed by the formality of the event. It was nicer than my high school graduation! Well, I guess my past graduations didn't have random stuff piled up on top of the cabinets in the room it was held in. It's amazing how certain things in Korea are expected to have such a high level of professionalism whereas other things are completely ignored.


Standing up. They all received their "diplomas."

Now Jenna has a favorite six year old. His name is Solomon. I taught his older brother Addison. They both are borderline geniuses. Jenna loves Solomon and kidnaps him for minutes at a time and doesn't let him go. He's a cute one. He was having fun with Jenna holding him until I got the camera out. During the whole swine flu scare back in November, one of my classes that his brother Addison attended just had a couple students one day. We read books and one was called "What is it?" and is a story about some kids finding a salamander and learning what it was called. Addison, being the funny and clever kid he is, quickly noticed a similarity with his brother Solomon's name and renamed his brother "Solomander."



I don't know how many marriage proposals I got from this one. EVERY day for the first couple months we were here, she would come up to me and ask me to kiss her (in Korean) and say in English "you...me..." and then say marriage in Korean. She was cute, but too high maintenance for me. I think Jenna was a little jealous that the kids found me so attractive... The cute thing about her this day is that she did not smile and sadly came up to me requesting a picture together with her parents.


Lastly is a picture of Addison and Solomon. Addison is in the back. He's a fun kid and like I said, extremely intelligent. They are really cute together. Addison gave me one of his suckers from his candy bouquet after the photo. The school did a play "Beauty and the Beast" and Addison was the beast.