Korea Once More

I’ve made a bad habit (a good habit?) of living life without updating this blog for several months at a time, but as I say every time I post an update, it’s been a crazy few months. And it’s not without guilt; the writer inside of me dies a little every time I remember I haven’t written – it’s as though I’m losing parts of me with the passage of time as new memories replace personal histories. But curiosity consistently gets the best of me, prioritizing sunsets and new friends over paper and pencil. I do wish I could archive every wonderful memory to share with all of you, but there are too many memories I haven’t made yet pulling me in other directions.

It’s troubling sometimes.

Anyway, a lot has changed.

I’m teaching English in Korea again, but it’s different this time. I spent two months split between Thailand and Nepal between teaching jobs and it’s made an enormous difference. I rediscovered my reasons for traveling, for helping, and for growing with some of the greatest people life has ever known. And now that we’ve scattered to different lands, I travel with pieces of them supporting me with newfound strength and inspiration.

Here’s the update.

I was hired by the dream school. I think I wrote about it in a previous post, but there is this alternative school in Korea that I had applied to earlier in the year, putting all of my Korean eggs into this basket. When they told me they liked me but didn’t have the budget for a fulltime hire, I considered it the end of the Korea adventure and made my way south with different nomadic goals.

Somewhere in the haze of web development and volunteering, the alternative school reached out to me to let me know that some budget had been freed up for an English teacher. The pay was less than my previous teaching job, but the opportunity to be exposed to this different style of school was more than enough to pull me back to Korea after my Nepal stint had ended (and oh, how it ended so wonderfully).

And after being at this school for about five months, I can honestly say that coming back to this country was the right decision. While the public school system didn’t agree with a lot of my moral and creative compasses, this alternative school is completely different.

• First of all, the school is incredibly student focused. This alternative school takes in students who don’t fit in the normal public school system and gives them personalized attention. We even have a three-hour meeting every Friday night to talk about individual student progress and teaching approaches.
• The students are amazing. Like I said, our student base is made up of students who had trouble in public school, so we have students who were bullies, students who were bullied, students who have different learning styles, students who don’t do well on tests, students who have different learning disabilities, students with different levels of social skills, and students with different personal situations at home. And we take individual care of each and every one of them through specialized lessons and small class sizes. We even have child who was left an orphan and sent to live with nuns before arriving at our school.
• The culture is supportive. The students, whether they are in high school or elementary to kindergarten all care for each other. I’ve seen countless times when older students help younger ones with meals, work, communicating, or just during playtime. And this isn’t a culture that was born easily – the teachers here have worked hard to promote acceptance in an environment with students from so many different backgrounds.
• The teachers have creative freedom. During my short time here, I’ve been able to teach so much more than just English. I’ve held classes about pickpocketing, social engineering, and ethical hacking simply because the students showed interest in them. I’ve taught about the powers and dangers of social networks and have led debates about ethical punishment for different crimes. I’ve had classes about volunteering and may even be leading a volunteer trip before the semester is over (maybe!). I can choose my own textbook or completely go off book and teach anything as long as I pitch and get a curriculum approved. So far, my classes have not seen a textbook once.
• There is an open and honest environment for feedback. This is so, so important for engagement. Whenever there is a conflict between the students and administration, we hold a meeting. We hold several, actually. Some between just the students, some just the teachers, and some with everyone involved where the students are able to present their issues and we work together to compromise. And at the end of the semester, we all stand in a circle and talk about some highlights or lows of the semester before choosing a successor to speak, giving a reason of why we would like to hear from the next speaker. While this may sound flowery, I’ve witnessed one of these and the brutal honesty about problems or highlights between students or teachers has been so incredible and constructive from these meetings.
• I am growing so much and so quickly as a teacher. Another part of this school is the lack of televisions and computers in each room. I have been able to conduct my classes largely without the use of technology, and this has helped me improve as a teacher in ways I couldn’t ever imagine. I haven’t used one PowerPoint to teach yet, and the students are more engaged, and I am more prepared for each lesson. There is a connection between students and teachers I experience here that I didn’t have lecturing speak and repeat lessons with PowerPoints in public school. I also have the opportunity to teach all ages, from kindergarten to high school, some college students, and even parents and teachers, so my ability to handle different levels has been challenged.

There’s so much more, but this post is getting preachy, so I’ll end it with those major points. I will try to post more often, but we know what usually happens when I make promises.

TL;DR – I had an incredible time off, but I’m back in Korea teaching at an alternative school and loving it! Also, I’m sorry for not posting to this blog too often.