I am... a Super Teacher

The last couple of weeks I've been administering speaking tests to all of my students, which is basically insanely repetitive. It's asking the same three questions a thousand times over. Lock me up now. But it's great for the blog. Oh, what I do for you, my readers.

A few weeks ago, my co-teachers approached me, informing me that I needed to create tests for each of the three grades that reviewed the material we learned this semester. It was fun, actually. I got to come up with such life pondering questions as, "How do we lose weight?", "What can you buy at a garage sale?", and "What should I do if I am sick?" Plato would be proud.

I then spent a couple of weeks going over the questions in my classes, ensuring that they understood the questions, and basically giving the answers I wanted to hear. Then came the time for the test.

My poor kids are all petrified, though. They come into the test fully expecting me to jump on the table, pull on my hair, and taste the precise flavor of their flesh with my razor sharp teeth. But I just sit there and smile, resisting the pressing temptation to mess with their little minds, especially the monsters who gave me so much crap in class. Being a Super Teacher, however, I have astounding powers of resistance. So I smile. I encourage. I repeat. S-L-O-W-L-Y.

And they deliver with stuff like this:

• Geh geh geh geh geh geh geh geh geh... Molayo. Which I am told roughly translates to "The the the the the the the the the... I don't know." Brilliant.
• I... am... different-uh... in... swimming. Different? I think he meant "interested." Or maybe he did mean "different." If so, I'd like to watch some day.
• I fun. Funny (pointing at me). Yeah, thanks.
• "What do we do to lose weight?" Americans fat should hard exercise. It's just an assumption, I guess.
• I lose take stair. I'm not even positive as to which question this was an attempt to answer. Losing weight? Oh, wait. It was my kleptomaniac question: "If you lose your English skills, what should you steal?"
• The pfun the sings. And the pfunny which are pfun which are sings when make laff. This, apparently, is the difference between fun and funny. Quick, write to Webster's.
• Al bite. This isn't funny as much a puzzling. I couldn't count how often I got this answer to many different questions. And they all seemed convinced that it was an English word. Rob, looking for any more new words for homeless definitions?
• "What should we do to lose weight?" Pfat is bad? (Rubbing his stomach, shaking his head.) Pfat is very good.
• I be good at English. And I be a super teechur.
• When the carrot donated blood is the is. Color is the donated blood. The when the carrot donated blood is carrot is the blood color is blood. Do you get it? No, I don't. I really, really don't.
• "Explain fun and funny." I gave them this question, then gave them the precise answers to memorize. It's because so many Koreans mix them up or use them interchangeably, even Koreans whose English is very good. So I explained it all quite clearly to the classes, telling them to say, "Funny makes you laugh," for the second part. I then informed them I would definitely ask this question for the test. Piece of cake, right? Well, not exactly. Funny makes you... wrong... lose... logic... loser... loge... rough... rock... leg... leaf... live... aloof... language. In addition, there was: I am funny a lot, I funny a lot; funny is makes to the laugh; and funny is something you make look.
• "What should I do when I am sick?" No, I am not sick.
• I met a few third year girls in the hallway before the test. One was rather desperate to get good marks. Teacher, this class, please, me, 밀하는 시험! "Speaking test?" Yes-uh! Me. Grade higher. "Ok. If you have good speaking." No teacher, no can speaking. (I begin to walk away.) Oh, teacher, please! (panicked) TEACHER!... PRETTY!
• Pass... Pass... Pass... "Uh, the questions are finished." Pass.

And my VERY favorite of all (drum roll please)....

• In English?

It was the best of times... My favorite non-quote story of a student who took the test was from one of the first year students. They're about 12 or 13 years old calculated by Western years (Koreans do it differently; they are 1 year old at birth, then add years on New Year's Day. So a child born in December will be 2 years old less than a month later. That makes me 26 in Korean age. Yikes). Anyhow, this is another of my favorite students (Si Won... I just looked up his name); he works so hard in class and is very enthusiastic. Well, he absolutely rocked the test. I mean, he blew every single other student I tested out of the water, including the older kids and ones who've actually lived overseas. He was that good. And I was unmistakably pleased by his answers. When he finished, I told him that he received a perfect score. "Really?" he cried excitedly. "Oh thank you, teacher, thank you, thank you. Thank you teacher!" All the while, he's bowing to me repeatedly, over and over. He stands up, still bowing, and does it so lowly that he bangs his head on the table. "Ow," he breathes quickly, rubbing his forehead, then continues without missing a beat, "Oh, thank you teacher, thank you, thank you very much," bowing as he walks out the door. I was just in stitches. It put me in a great, very patient mood for all the other students I tested after him.

...and the worst of times... The saddest moments occurred when I asked, "What are your plans for summer vacation?" I'm staring at these smaller-than-life girls, who say very seriously in a perfectly memorized sentence, "This summer vacation, I should diet." What?! These girls are smaller than I was in the womb and they're talking about DIETing?! The first time I asked the girl to repeat, hoping I had heard incorrectly. But it was the same answer: "diet." Unable to nod and accept this as an answer, I had to confront such notions. "Why?" I asked. "You are very thin!" No, they assured me, not thin. Need to smaller. I ardently argued that they were in fact thin and were also very beautiful. But they laughed shyly and shook their heads, insisting that they needed to diet.

I worked with girls in the States who struggled with eating disorders, so this line of thinking strikes a deep chord of vexation in me. I am so frustrated by the cultures that, in their modern over-consuming, over-stimulating, over-working, decide that we should all appear as though we are rotting away from starvation, with arms and legs akin to sticks on a snowman. The cultures place such undue pressure on children to look and be perfect. And I feel hardly able to impact this, apart from strongly disagreeing every time I hear such ridiculous thinking.

And lastly, just a note... I realized as I was giving the tests that this was the first time I've actually looked many of these students in the eye. I have been their teacher for 4 months, supposedly imparting my knowledge to them, though otherwise may be suggested by the above answers, yet I had never really seen these particular students before. I guess that's what happens when you have over one thousand students. The truly odd part is that they all know me and my name, but I couldn't pick many of them out a crowd. It really is a bizarre feeling. I assume that it's a bit similar to being a celebrity.

So all in all, it's been fun. My kids start with their final exams next week, so that puts me at doing a few weeks of sitting around and playing games in class before vacation... when I GO HOME! Woohoo! It's very exciting.

See you, Aub