My First Week: I’m a teacher?

In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.”

Phil Collins

Starting to actually teach this week felt a bit like a dream.

I had been in Korea for three weeks, and the first time I faced a classroom full of students, I felt like I had once again just walked off a plane.

Sure, I had gone through a grueling week of training, then shadowed my coworkers for a few days.

But standing at the front of my new classroom, my name written in big blue letters above me, I felt like I had just been thrown into the ring with no gloves and no idea what was going on.

For the next term, I will be teaching 9 different classes with 85 students in total. Each class, Monday through Friday, has anywhere between four to 14 students that I have to teach how to listen to, speak, and read one of the arguably most difficult languages to learn.

No biggie, right?

Well, it’s a yes and a no. My company luckily has a very approachable curriculum to follow, with enough flexibility that I can adjust it as necessary for the differing levels of students that I have in each class. So in that respect, at least, it’s much easier than I anticipated.

But.

Trying to keep elementary and middle school kids focused at an optional after-school program is difficult. I cannot sugar coat the fact that all of my students come to me exhausted from school, and are forced to think, speak, and write in a language that even I struggle with at times. As an outsider to the South Korean education culture, I cannot fathom how these kids can tolerate their academic schedules.

In my classes, I have to act not only as my students’ teacher, but in many ways, as a portable battery, trying to give them enough energy to get through the material I am throwing at them. Some of the kids respond well to this. Some of them.. well, not all kids are going to be angels, are they.

Taking all of the teaching difficulties into account, I really do love my job. And a huge part of that love comes from the students that do somehow find the energy to engage with me. I have had so many loving interactions with my students as I watch them light up, either as they learn a new word or excitedly present their very own project. I hear “Teacher Mia!” enough times a day to forget my actual name, but the questions that follow almost always fill me with joy as students explore more deeply into the language that has given me so much solace throughout the years.

So yes, my first week of teaching was hectic and frustrating and terrifying. But now, as I start preparing for my third week, I am so deeply glad that I chose this adventure. Getting to enter even briefly into these brilliant kids’ lives and provide them with the type of education that ESL kids in the US could only dream of, I feel unbelievably lucky.

I guess what I am trying to say is, if anyone has any recommendations for fun video examples of virtual reality, please send them my way! I’m sure my students would love them, too.