I realized something today

I'm in love.

sometimes trying to teach seven little boys is like trying to keep worms in a can. but i think it's really interesting to see the way they interact with each other.
for example during class they all get along really well and always look out for each other and play with each other. but a recurring scene is: class has just ended and i am just cleaning up from our activities or something, and one of kids comes running into the room and hides behind me. I begin to ask him what the matter is when i am interrupted by a crowd of screaming boys running into the room holding fake spiders and waving them in his face.
me: stop stop,
boys: ahhh!! rawr! (jump and shove spiders in his face)
scared boy: (buries his face in my t-shirt)
me: stop it, i said stop
(scared boy runs away and everyone runs after him)

as everyone is going home
academy owner: (angry)why are you treating your friend like that?
boy: but he's not my friend
academy owner: okay, why are you treating your hyung like that?
boy: it's funny!

and then the next day during class they are getting along perfectly, and after class the same thing happens again.


or like today, we were trying to play a game when two boys begin fist fighting over something. they are getting pretty angry and violent, and i try to pull them apart and say "stop it, stop"
other boys: hey, teacher said stop!
other boys go run to the office to tell the academy owner, who tells another person, who goes to get angry at the two boys. suddenly the two boys look at each other and laugh mischievously and team up to run away and hide from her. and it's like nothing ever happened.

or how the loudest boy in the class who is always telling everyone what to do, will break down and cry when he drops his lollipop on the ground.

i like how kids have no rules, and no defenses, and they just have their heart and their emotions out there all the time. they will always be very honest with you.

we sing this one song in class, it's called "the love/hate song".
it teaches them simple present tense grammar using all first, second and third person forms. so it is a great track and we have been singing it recently, but somehow today i just realized that the lyrics are an interesting thing to be ingraining into these kids heads.
they go something like this:

she loves him,
he loves her,
we love them and they love us,
i love him
she loves me
we love everybody.

she hates him
he hates her
we hate them and they hate us
i hate him
she hates me
we hate everybody.

and it the melody is very beautiful and is sang by two opera singers. i thought it would be funny for the kids to go home and be singing to themselves, " we hate everybody".

today one kid gave me a little cake and another girl gave me a caramel and another kid gave me a fruit candy. i love my job :)

i am really glad that I could experience being a teacher before starting school. and I can understand the things that help teachers and frustrate them, and what is the best way to learn something that is being taught. I have learned so much about being a student.

I can't believe it took me so long to think of this, but I should really start to write about all of the cute things that happen in the classroom. because these are every day occurrences you see.
There is a kid named Shawn (his English name was spelled like that when I got there) (and he recently changed his name to Ken)
who, halfway after I had been teaching there, began this thing where sometimes when I would ask them to open their notebooks or workbooks he would just shout, "no! don't do that!"(as in don't make us do that).
and I always found it really funny and very adorable, but I always wondered where he picked that phrase up.
Then just today when they were acting up and some kid was gesturing throwing his pencil at someone else, I heard myself say "no! don't do that!". and then I realized that I must say that a lot in this classroom, because they can get too silly sometimes.

Heheh kind of like how today one class was learning the words "loud" and "quiet", but they couldn't understand that the word was just "quiet" and kept reading it as "be quiet". (this is the same class where a kid said, "teacher is ugly!" after learning "beautiful" and "ugly")

And today a student brought me an orange from 제주도 :)

teeth

Today one of the children lost a tooth. After one of the classes had just let out, he came in through the door, looked up at me and then smiled, showing me a bloody tissue and a hole where his tooth was. he is so cute.

I kind of miss losing my teeth. I mean after it happens to you... what like twenty times? it just doesn't happen anymore. I remember also having cavities at one point, but thinking that it was okay because those teeth were baby teeth yet to be lost, and soon will be replaced with fresh healthy ones. And since then I have gotten more cavities and they will never go away :(
I just think it's interesting, because most parts of you that are on the outside are constantly being shed or lost and then regenerated. That is something I really love about our bodies and find very genius, that our fingernails, toenails, hair, skin, eyelashes are always being shed and replaced. but our teeth only go through the cycle one time, and then some people lose them again forever. I guess that is why it is very important to take good care of your teeth.

The great thing about your body is that even if you don't take good care of it, it will still do everything it can to try to keep you healthy. And it will always give you another chance to improve your eyes, blood, skin, stomach, lungs, endurance. bones, muscles...
our bodies take very good care of us. So we should try to return the love.