The children

I don't know why I didn't think of this before.  I must have been blinded to the fact that I'm going to be a teacher here.  For preschool.  For preschool children.

What to you think of when you think of Asian children and education ?  A match made in heaven?  Let me set something straight.  The pressure that makes the kids study and do well in school comes from their parents.  In fact, that pressure is so severe, students committing suicide isn't as rare as you'd think.  Keeping away from that pressure, though (like in the relaxed English school where I teach), these kids just want to be kids.  It's true: Asian kids are just kids.  This is evidenced by their loud yells, their desire to do anything but sit quietly, and their disdain for anything that isn't fun.  Like regular kids, they want to run the classroom.

I need to clarify.  There are many children who are well behaved and who are diligent, but the extremely crazy ones greatly eclipse them.  I felt a magnificent sense of accomplishment when I captured an entire class' attention with Quest for Camelot one day.  They were intrigued by the setting of the story and by the story itself.  (They also said the characters were ugly.)  Boy, were they focused!  And quiet!  And interested!  Log that one away in awesome Korean occurrences!

Outside of the classroom, they're completely enjoyable.  Inside the classroom, their chaos grates against my mission of order.  I'll have some  a lot of adjusting to do, but I can't wait till I'm confident and comfortable in my role as their teacher.  I look forward to getting to have fun with them, to building relationships with them, and to getting them to learn something.  I remember during my internship with the Dayton City School's ESL program when I was addicted to that light in the kids' eyes when they finally got something and when they enjoyed learning.  My favorite phrase was, "Will you read it to me?!"  I love that.

Here's to learning.  And here's to teachers everywhere.

(And, First Grade Teacher whose name I can't remember, I'm so sorry for being a brat!)