The Mass Exodus

Everyone is leaving.

August is another round of EPIK vacations meaning the public school teachers are leaving for weeks at a time (or a whole month) to explore other exotic and enchanting countries, or to get a massage in Thailand.

I had no school last week, but I needed to save money I chose to appreciate the fact that I live on an island of spectacular natural beauty and tourist traps.

I went back to Seogwipo and it was  strange. It’s not my hood anymore. Within a month, almost all of the people who I associate with that city will be gone. Even going back last week, I experienced an uneasy feeling similar to coming home after college, where things look the same but the memories outweigh the present.

In any event, this month should be a bittersweet farewell to a lot of good friends. Hopefully the teachers who replace them will be babes very interesting people.

On a more stressful note, the kids are escaping Scholars Choice International en masse. Some of this is neither here nor there; kids taking August off to go to camp, kids getting older, kids on the boss’s Canada field trip.

However, I was directly responsible for at least two kids leaving permanently, having traumatized them by making them write a letter to the boss apologizing for not being prepared for class.

Was it harsh? Yes, but not inappropriate? Was I angry? Yes, and I yelled at them, but not at any individual student.

Hogwons are a tricky business. There is tremendous pressure on the teacher to be both an entertainer/child pleaser of some kind and a world-class educator, and sometimes these things clash. Parents don’t want to send their kids to a grumpus, but they also want their kids to learn English or else they think they’re wasting their money.

If kids don’t bring work to class, I can’t teach them. I mean, hey, once in a while, or every other day, this would be fine. I would love to tell the kids that if they don’t bring work to class, they can just go home and then I can go out to lunch or to the beach or watch Batman again.

But I can’t do that. And if the kids know they can get away with not being prepared once, with no consequences, it will happen again. And again. And again and again and again and again.

Anyway, some kids went home crying, because they got in trouble, just like I used to do when I got in trouble, and nobody likes being in trouble. One student, “Lily”, went home and said (this was reported to me) that if she was sent to SCI for “one more day, I’ll never study English again!”

But hogwons are more like Sunday school, and there are so many everywhere, that there isn’t a whole lot of incentive for parents to keep kids at a place where they aren’t happy.

When you combine that with a culture that tries to avoid criticism and direct confrontation, suddenly its not the student who has to explain their behavior, but the teacher. The kids were pulled from the school.

One of my co-teachers said to me that my punishment was unduly harsh for the cultural climate of Jeju. The problem is that I don’t trust her enough to accept this at face value, and I don’t trust myself enough to definitely call BS on this. The end result: frustration.

And stress. Other students are leaving for different reasons. One is going to study English at the same school as his Math Academy because that is easier for the parents. Another problem child quit because he fell too far behind and his parents (probably correctly) decided he really needs private tutoring.

Some students, I believe, resent me because I am not the warm fuzzy South African lady who taught them two months ago. Sorry, kids, I can be your friend, but I can’t be your mother.

In addition to this, I’ve been working with some students on what has turned into the Project From Hell, a “sports newspaper” that turned out to be a little too much work than the students could handle in the time span we gave them, due to their poor research skills, and the fact that many kids were absent or leaving in the middle of it.

The kids were supposed to write articles about a sport of their choosing in teams of 4 or 5 and then turn it into a sports section of a newspaper. But because many team members were at different levels or, as I said above, some quit, I was almost punishing the students who were good enough to show up and do their work.

In mild damage control mode, I’m going to buy these kids pizza tomorrow and hope they realize just how special a place SCI is, because we put pepperoni on top. That’s right, some kids didn’t do work, but those kids don’t get free food. Boom.

***

I went to a full moon party this week and it seemed momentous but I had a lot to drink and only vaguely remember charging the stage. In the end, the only true lasting impact will be the fact that I am now missing a shirt, my bike keys, and my ipod. Nothing new, really.

Here are some pictures from my week off:

This is a view of Jeju City from just above my apartment. The big fat building towards the far left is the Jeju KAL hotel.

These turtles live along the face of one of the Oreums near my house that separates shin-Jeju from the old city.

Jeju City from the top of the Oreum. If you know what you are looking at, you can spot the harbor/tapdong, the KAL hotel, the JTP building/City Hall, and the soccer stadium, but you probably don’t, so it’s immaterial.

Oedelgae during the afternoon, a popular cliff-diving and swimming spot that has historic significance. Eleven months ago, I got drunk and jumped off one of those bumps and almost lost my clothes. You can look back and read about that in an ancient blog entry if you are a really cool person.

Mainland visitor Karine says hi amidst her climb up a rock face at Oedelgae. Hi, Karine. Please read my blog.

I didn’t climb the rocks. Rock climbing is for girls.

Onya says hi again.