This week we had teacher candidates, or student teachers, at our school to take observations as an assignment or something. I don't know, they didn't put me in charge of this. This is one of those times when I look at these eager scholars and realize how far I've come and how far away Teacher's College was and the inevitable thought that I'm archaic in their eyes. Also every guy wears a suit and tie so I look like a schmuck because it's still too hot for long sleeves. Some of the ladies were really outgoing talking to me in the cafeteria about where I'm from and other random questions you'd find on an online dating form.
Nothing really changed in my schedule I had an open class with the worst grade 5 class, which was awkward to say the least. Especially when we played a spelling game where students spell words letter by letter up and down the rows and a TC, sitting in the line of fire, spelled soccer S-O-C-C-O-R. She turned bright red as the 28 necks simultaneously snapped around to stare at her.
The other thing that changed was my conversation class; my co-teacher asked all the candidates if they wanted to attend. Obviously no one is going to sit out on this opportunity if one person goes and that's how I had a conversation class of 35 people. Because this is a "big deal" the head co-teacher explained to me that I would need clear topics and questions and probably other things too only pretend to hear. In the end I told my the wiser teacher what was going on and then she asked if she could plan it. I said sure because I'm not going to turn away free help from someone with more experience than me.
This ended up being a super awkward train wreck of silence. Usually our classes are really intimate and you don't get that vibe at all with 30+ people. It's also the shyness of CTs and TCs which was perplexing, to say the least. Eventually after trying to squeeze blood from this stone of a morgue (the topic was friendship and the silence went on for so long I brought up and taught the term "bros before hoes" no one seemed to get it except the guy who was engaged.) we went around the table and introduced ourselves. This was almost just as bad as the silence. There were a few teachers who were able to talk about themselves but others went like this:
"Hello, my name is __________. My family is mudder, fadder, me and brudder. I study at Pusan University of Education Elementary school teacher. I like (insert food or sport here). I am 20-something years old" The second last sentence is out of the grade 4 textbook, an open-class they had that day. I'm glad to see it came in handy.
The best one, by far, was a pretty cute Korean girl with those popular over-sized black rimmed glasses. It was the standard this is my family, I'm this old and then said "I was out drinking last night and I don't want to talk anymore," she turned to the peer next to her, "Your turn."
Nobody laughed at this, I said "I see a lot of you in me." The next day she sat next to me in the cafe and I asked her if she went out again. She did. Get ready Korea because this will be a real life movie coming your way in 3 years when this gal gets a job teaching your children through movies, and breaking into BMCOE offices to prepare her students for tests. Call me when its car wash weekend.
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