Confession: school ceremonies always leave me feeling a little down. Not just graduation, for obvious reasons, but even fun occasions like the annual school festival, or even Sports Day. At school, I’m usually in my English Zone bubble, with limited awareness of anything else going on that isn’t directly related to my class. Seeing the [...]
My 9th graders are graduating in two days. In my very last assignment for them, I asked them how they feel about this. Not surprisingly, many of them are nervous about starting high school, and sad to leave their friends. One of my best students, Ben, had written a long and heartfelt note about how [...]
I’m midway through my second week of teaching winter camp. Overall, this will be the sixth camp I’ve taught. When I first started out last winter, I was kind of baffled by the whole concept of “camp” here in Korea. It’s not an overnight trip to some woodsy location with a cabin and some bonfires [...]
The semester is winding down here in Korean public schools, and with it come all sorts of weird schedule changees, pizza parties and miscellaneous other things. Tomorrow, my classes are canceled on account of this marathon 4-period long assembly in which they’re trying, AGAIN, to get the students to eschew curse words in favor of [...]
