It goes without saying but I still have to say it.
School in Korea is different than school back home in the states.
The pressure on the students is huge. They would go to academy after academy after school until the wee hours of the night. Sometimes I'd be coming home from shopping around 10pm and I'd see kids with books looking all tired running to catch the subway. Sometimes, the pressure is too much. Awhile ago, my main co teacher and I had a discussion on adolescence and their feelings. She brought up depression and how it affected students' performance. I remarked that, at this age, kids hate everything and because they have so much pressure in Korea, they hate everything even more. She told me how she talked to the student as much as possible and even referred him to the school psychologist because it was out of our expertise as teachers.
A week or so ago, my co teacher told me one of her students committed suicide. I think it was the same student that was depressed but I didn't want to ask. I know of the pressures that Asian kids face, that in Japan it's huge and that the suicide rates are so high, but I never realized it would hit so close to home.
When I first started teaching, I thought I was some sort of novelty simply because the students haven't been exposed to many native English speakers before and that the novelty would wear off. Maybe it will, maybe it won't but what I found interesting is when students talk to me outside of class.
Students always talk to me outside of class but there were two occasions when I was walking to school that stuck with me. I was walking and one of my students recognized me so he ran up to me and started talking. I asked him the basic stuff, how he was doing, what he did yesterday, etc. What I didn't expect was what he said next. He told me about how the day before he was talking to a friend of his from another school. She was very depressed and actually was talking about suicide. I was a little worried so I asked him what he did about it and he said he pretty much talked to her on the phone for hours. A few days later I saw him again while walking to school and we talked about it and we discussed how he was helpful was his friend.
A week later his main English teacher told me how those two conversations meant the world to him, simply because he could use what he was taught and communicate with me. He told the teacher he was so happy.
You know, the saying goes that you don't really know your affect on others but it really hit me when she told me that.
Some people say that some people are born with the ability to do something. Other people say that people work to acquire the ability to do something. I used to be part of the latter group but as I get older a part of me is drifting toward the former. Growing up, and as banal as this sounds, people would tell me that I would be a good teacher. I told them "Naw, I don't have patience for kids." We'd laugh about how I'd probably beat up the kids (I actually whack them with a toy hammer, that's a story for later). I've had quite a few jobs since my senior year of high school, everything from working at Disneyland to retail and foods. The dirtiest I've felt after work was when I was working at a sales-type of environment where I pretty much sold lies to customers. It was from the job that I realized that I was just making money for the man on top of me, and he was making money for the man on top of him and so on.
What's amazing to me is that, after a long day of work, after not sleeping because I spent way too much time online the night before, after dealing with problem children and students that were too cool for school, when I come home I feel... fulfilled. I feel that I did something good in the world. I could be almost falling asleep at work before class but when the bell rings I'm in full gear. There's just something about teaching, about being in front of the class that is so intoxicating and exhilarating.
Chelsea, Intersecting Lines
2 years ago
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