Student relation reflection.

So as always, a day full of fun and craziness~
Wanted to share the silly things my students do almost on the daily.

I would say my relationship with my students is quite good. It started out nothing special, but has only grown and become more close and familiar.

Kindergarten would have to be the level I can fool around with the most and they love everything. It's quite funny. But sometimes students can be very odd. I don't know exactly why, but I have a kindergartener girl who lifts everything I wear up. It started out with my dresses and skirts. But now it has led to my sweater and shirts... I wonder if she expects to see something? Wants to annoy me? See my reaction? or just thinks it's fun... It's just weird. Once I pretended to do it back to her and she refused... Haha so I don't get it.

Also this year, my kindergarteners are super young. In the country, kindie can serve almost like a day care I believe. They learn, but mostly play all day. And the age range is 4-7 years old in Korean age. Therefore some kids stay in "kindergarten" for more than one year. This surprised me at first because I wondered why so many kids failed kindie... Haha. But the good thing about having a very young class is that they're super easy to entertain. The hard part is entertaining the younger and older students together. Luckily it's not as bad as entertaining grade 3- grade 6. Now that's a bigger gap to fulfill. Because my class is so young I receive so many hugs. It's the most love I've received in Korea from non foreigners. Makes me so happy and thankful. Seeing their bright faces always lightens up my day. I even get kisses. If I could, I would want to spend a whole afternoon just playing with them. But I do feel bad that I can't understand sometime. Sometimes the biggest thing you can give to a child is your undivided attention and show you are interested. I do that, but don't comprehend everything.

You could also say, I am quite popular with the kids. It is a good thing, but it is also not a very good thing. I am mainly popular because I am unable to scold and discipline the students like the regular Korean teachers. I cannot stare them down while they're being noisy and reason why they are disrespecting me. I cannot articulate my ideas clearly therefore giving me a big disadvantage. There are many teachers I know of who do yell and discipline in English, but I feel it is useless and a waste of my energy. They won't understand anything and I'll have to somehow discipline one person in a class that also needs some supervision. I do discipline on a certain level, but it is only to maintain some sort of normality. It is nothing compared to the discipline I have observed in their classes. It's so quite in their homerooms. But luckily, I would say my presence has given me an advantage for students have built more respect for me, but it is not the same.

Overall I am quite pleased with my ability to connect with young intellects in a different country. It is because they are young and open, they are able to adjust to my unfamiliar presence and find interest in it. Young people warm up easily to things that are different. Their flexibility is infinite and change does bring challenge, but it is not something impossible. Their minds are still ready to grow and explore.