First Impressions

It has been just over a month since we first landed in South Korea, but it feels like its only been a week! Time really flies when everything is so new and unknown: the country, the people, the food, the customs, the city, the job, the school, the kids, the coworkers.

After a too-excited-to-sleep-much night we woke up at 5:15 am and our good friend drove us the twenty minutes to the Detroit Metropolitan airport where we waited a couple of hours until an aeroplane whisked us over to Chicago where we waited out our five last hours in America.

Enjoying my last craft beer in America at O'Hare.

After a fourteen hour flight where neither of us got any sleep we were in South Korea. Right after grabbing our checked bags, we exchanged some money, figured out how to purchase bus tickets to our city fairly easily, used a difficult-to-figure-out payphone to call a Korean man from our school who didn't seem to speak any English to tell him when to pick us up, found the bus stop and waited about five minutes to board. The bus was really nice with big reclining chairs. We were able to sleep some on the four-hour drive to Gwangju. We arrived earlier than anticipated and sat in some chairs in the big, busy bus terminal, hoping the Korean man actually understood when I said we would arrive. In such a state of sleeplessness I kind of zoned out until suddenly there was a Korean man in a suit and a young American guy talking to us and grabbing some of our luggage. We followed them to an elevator to a parking garage to a van and into the Gwangju night. I looked out the window at the lights of the city as the American, the head teacher at our school, asked us lots of questions. I don't really remember anything we talked about, but he was very nice.

After some time we were at an apartment complex and going up an elevator to the fifth floor. The Korean man gave the head teacher, Ben, a bag of some food items for us. We were greeted in the apartment by Cassie and Brian, an American couple who work at our school. We were finally where we needed to be and we just sat on their couch and talked with them for awhile. Again, I have no idea what we talked about. They were also very nice though and also, against all odds, from Grand Rapids, Michigan. They fed us some food and showed us to their guest bedroom where they put up a welcome sign for us and had a few welcome gifts! And then we were in bed and very soon sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.

Our gifts from Cassie and Brian represent two popular items in Korea: a thin chocolate covered biscuit and socks with fun designs. 

The view from the nearby small mountain.

Thankfully, we arrived on a Saturday night so we didn't have to go to our school the very next day. We woke up very early on Sunday because of jet lag which was a trend that last several days. We spent the day resting, hiking up a nearby small mountain trail with Cassie and Brian, seeing the neighborhood a bit, eating a wonderful dinner from Cassie, and meeting another couple who works at our school, Senti and Angus.

The first few actual weekdays were jam-packed with mornings of taking care of business as Alex, the Korean man who picked us up at the bus station, drove us to a clinic to get our health checked and the immigration office to get our alien registration cards processed. At both of these places we sat around a lot until Alex motioned us to follow him to sign documents or get our chests x-rayed.

The school we teach at, ECC.

In the afternoons we followed the teachers we are replacing around from class to class to get an idea of how to teach. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays classes run from 2:50 pm to 10:00 pm with a 45 minute dinner break. On Tuesdays and Thursdays classes run from 2:50 pm to 8:05 pm. There was a lot to learn that first week at school and I tried my darnedest to not ever zone out, but I did a couple of times. I followed Ben around and Christine followed Adele around. I think they were both very good, effective, and respected teachers and I think I learned a lot about how to be a good teacher just by watching Ben teach. He had good control in his classroom and was strict enough that the students felt compelled enough to listen, behave, and learn. He also seemed to be well-liked by the students except maybe a handful of the ones most adverse to doing work.     

Perhaps the most surprising part of this first week was realizing how much paperwork is required for our jobs. We have to write evaluations every month for every student we have (well over fifty), make lesson plans, grade book reports, and write tests. It really isn't TOO crazy, especially considering the Korean teachers have more work, but it was more than I thought would be required. The Korean teachers even have to call every student's parents every month to discuss how the student is doing. 

The school did let us leave earlier some of those first days so we could go to sleep early and slowly shed the jet lag which was nice. On Thursday we had a welcome/farewell lunch with all the teachers and the owners of the school. Besides the three couples already mentioned, there is also an American girl named Rachel who is also a teacher at our school. We all had to make speeches after the lunch and I bungled mine by forgetting to thank the owners for giving me the opportunity to work at the school like everyone else did. Several teachers cried as they made their farewells to the well-loved Ben and Adele. I hope we can make some tight bonds as they did while we're here in Gwangju.

We ate out at a lot of great Korean restaurants that first week and a half because Ben and Adele were leaving after one and a half years of living and teaching in Gwangju. They, of course, wanted to spend as much time as possible with their friends eating Korean food.

Enjoying the third baseball game I've ever gone to in my life with a local beer.

On Saturday most of us went to watch the local baseball team, the Kia Tigers, win a game and in the evening we all bounced around a few bars in the crowded cultural downtown of the city as a kind of farewell bash for Ben and Adele. They stayed out much longer, but Cassie, Brian, Christine and I came back to their apartment to get some sleep.

Before we knew it, it was Wednesday. Ben and Adele were gone, we moved our stuff over to our new apartment and we were at school nervously prepping for each class. I went into my classes pretty confident that I could emulate Ben and be as effective a teacher as he was. The first few days I thought I did really good at controlling the classrooms, but now I think the students were in kind of a shocked state that Ben was gone and the fear and respect they had for him transferred to me for a little bit, before they realized they could test me and start getting away with bad behavior. I am slowly learning how to control my classes. Some are better than others and they all have some bad days and some good days, but I think I am slowly learning how to manage them. I don't think there is necessarily a blanket-technique to manage all classrooms. As I get to know the students and the dynamics in each individual class, I am figuring out how to manage each specific class. Each class behaves differently and accordingly needs to be managed in a different way. I think it will take many months until I figure out how to be a very effective teacher for every class.  

Our apartment is really big and as we unpacked our suitcases, we found it difficult to fill drawers, shelves, and cabinets. Ben and Adele graciously left us a lot of useful stuff, some for free and some bigger pieces of furniture at reduced rates. We didn't need to buy anything.

During our first month of teaching we have had to come to school at noon, almost three hours before our classes begin. We eat a free lunch there which is nice, but I am already getting tired of some of the Korean food there. Christine, I think, likes the food a lot more than me. I do really like a lot of it, especially the more famous dishes you can find at restaurants in America, but some of it is just a bit too unfamiliar to have a lot of the time. The first few days I spent a lot of time prepping each individual class, but now I can prep for one class in 2-10 minutes. So, we do a lot of nothing when we go in early. Christine has taken the time to prepare for the next month, but I have not. We are looking forward to May when we can come in only an hour before classes begin like the other American teachers.  

Christine is about to climb this cool-looking tower.

So far, on weekends and days off we have only explored parts of the city and the mountains nearby. We want to explore our surrounding area before venturing further out into Korea. We started taking free Korean language lessons on Saturday offered by a kind Korean woman who is an English teacher. Since this post is only meant to provide a first impression of our time here and it is already getting long, I will end here. I will write more specific posts about my experiences as a teacher, what teaching in Korea looks like, the cultural places we visit, the food and restaurants we have enjoyed, and anything else I think seems interesting. Also, Christine will also write about her thoughts and experiences! Peace!