Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mindmetoo]

Not your bad kids. More like your wang ta.

I had one kid who took the name "Eddie Chucky Jason". A super majority of his names were movie killers. He was probably the physically ugliest kid I've ever had. Weird chipmunk cheeks. A gangster look about him. Not one of those smooth Hollywood type Good Fellas gangsters in nice suits. More like a low level gangster. A guy you bring along because he is good at swinging a pipe and looks like he took a couple blows himself with pipe.

When asked how he was he'd break his day down into either a "killing day" or a "no killing day". I was never sure to a guy named Eddie Chucky Jason whether a "killing day" was a good day or bad day.

He always had his head buried in some Korean translation of a Japanese comic book. His reputation for being a bad ass, a rebel who played by his own rules, somewhat began to get around. Maybe because he had three English names and he was the only kid in hagwon I ever let take a crazy name. Or close to it. And I once got him some used American comic books from a used book shop in Itaewon (he made some big improvements in my class) and he tried to brazenly read them in math class (the math teachers at my school are serious hard ass disciplinarians, crazier than any Basilian Father teacher I had in Catholic school). Of course he got the comic books taken away forthwith. A couple female students I had in other classes would ask me questions about him, pester me, clearly keen to meet this crazy SOB.

[oneofthesarahs]

I have a student named Vincent, and he looks like a mini version of Kim Jong Il. He's actually one of my smartest students, which is why I let most of his oddities slide.

One day he didn't bring his book to class, so I asked him why not. He looked me straight in the eye, dead serious, and said, "Because I see dead people." Good enough excuse for me!

Because he is so smart, he usually has a lot of down time in the class while others finish up written work. He's perfectly capable of amusing himself in the free time though: he will write out mathmatical proofs as to why studying is bad, or he will create unbelievably elaborate (and quite beautiful) oragami flowers. He gave me one after class one day, so I told him thank you. "Oh, it is nothing," he said. "I made them from trash." And the class loves crossword puzzles, so occasionally I'll let them do puzzles for the last few minutes of class as a reward at the end of a unit or if they've done something to impress me. Vincent told one of the Korean teachers (in English) that he thinks I am a good teacher because I use puzzles as weapons, like the Middle East uses petroleum.

We also had a letter writing unit recently, and during the last five or ten minutes of class we would have "free writing" time, in which the students had to write a letter to anyone they wanted. I told them I was more interested in creativity than grammar at that point, because the class is pretty solid on grammar, but have a hard time being original in English. Here are a couple of the results from Vincent:

Dear Mom and Dad,
We have arrived in Agrabah and are staying at a bed and breakfast. It is close to Aladdin's rooftops overlooking Abu's living place. Aladdin served us monkey brain, and since then, we can't see Abu. Aladdin married Jasmine, but we can't see Jasmine anymore after eating some strange meat. One of my friends was missing, and that day, Aladdin served us some meat, and it tasted the same as last time. And now, Aladdin is coming with many weapons. I don't know w........

Dear George W. Bush,
Hi! I'm glad to write a letter to you. I'm having a nice vacation in Gae-sung nuclear missile silo. In there, I met Kim Jung-Il and his family. His soldiers and arms are ready to fight with us, South Korea. Now I'm having a good time in Ju-suk-kung with my best friend, Jung Il.
Ah, Jung gave me some of arms (Mig-21, Frigate NaJin, and T-34/85). It was not all! He also gave me a blueprint for "No-Dong 2."
I'll go back to South Korea next week. I think you'll see me on TV next week. See you then.
Your good friend,
V

[Dan The Chainsawman]

Rock on Vincent!

[Summer Wine]

I had a student called Rommel. I thought I might mention that it was a german name, but thought "Rommel the fox" probably deserves to have his name used more often even if it is in Korea.

[faster]

I had a student who, one day, was putting his hands in his shorts (via the leg holes) and then smelling them. He was doing this sort of surreptitiously as we were discussing Animal Farm. He was a 6th grader then.

I met him again this year when he came back to take some SAT and academic writing classes with me, and lo and behold he's now probably one of the smartest, most perceptive, most ambitious 10th graders in this, indeed any, country.
_

2 years ago I had a girl for SAT writing who was brilliant as well. She had an amazing resume of service and science internships, she was involved in professional organizations and won academic prizes, and her SAT scores were already very high. She wanted to go to Brown.

One day in class, in a small classroom, just the two of us, sitting pretty close as I lectured her about the importance of creating a logical structure when using multiple examples...

She ripped an enormous, wet fart.

I continued teaching, ignoring it, although she turned red.

She got into Brown (and every other school she applied to) and is getting straight A's in the U.S. We're still in touch, and I can only hope she has deleted that moment from her memory.

[mindmetoo]

[forever_young]

[mnhnhyouh]

[oneofthesarahs]

[mnhnhyouh]

I had a hard time picking the ages of my students, so started asking them their birthdays, and keeping a note in the roll. Much easier to keep track.

h

[plokiju]

[mindmetoo]