It's fair to say that this week (yes, it's only Tuesday), has been the shittiest of my teaching career to date. Due to a number of reasons (economic, social, academic), it seems that I have been left with a class of 2 students! Not a very stimulating environment for students or teachers, most would say! It has been a challenging time watching most of the Korean students leave for Korea, the Korean school or the cheaper international school down the road (that incidently, does not employ qualified teachers). So, as a result, my two students will move into other classes and I will take up a new role - ESL teacher and PYP co-ordinator. This will be a stimulating new challenge for me and will give me the opportunity to support other teachers and learn off them as well.
Good friends and good wine!
It has been a horrible time as I have doubted my confidence as a teacher but also learnt a few important lessons about myself and life. I have learnt a lot about different cultural groups but feel quite negative about dealing with the Korean parent community again - making a generalisation from my experiences, I have found them to be narrow minded, disrespectful, ignorant and demanding. Most other parent groups trust the teacher's judgement when it comes to discussing their child's education and when they don't, they follow the right pathways to resolve any issues. Not so with the Koreans I have been dealing with, at the first sight of them not getting their own way, they pull their children out of the school. At first I was taking it personally but now, I'm approaching it all with a much less personal attitude.
Fairy lights on the trees outside my apartment building.
The bushfire news from home has also left me feeling extremely saddened. I was grateful to be able to get through to Anita and Ben at the farm and learn that they are not in any danger in Coldstream. I have been so lucky to have friends here who have listened to me and supported me through this difficult time. Amy and Tracy took me out for dinner last night and listened to my tales and gave good advice and I'm looking forward to a girls night out on Friday night - it can't come soon enough!
Justyna, Amy, Kiki and me at Soho.
So, the challenging adventure continues tonight with my first Chinese lesson. Not exactly what I feel like after feeling emotionally exhausted from my experiences the last two days (and the non-stop fireworks to celebrate the last day of the Chinese New Year festival last night), but I don't want to get into a habit of cancelling. I look forward to updating everyone on my language progress! Happy birthday Dad!!
Good friends and good wine!
Fairy lights on the trees outside my apartment building.
Justyna, Amy, Kiki and me at Soho.
1 comment:
Hang in there Anna; it's been a bad week here too with the terrible bushfire news everywhere and now that the papers are putting faces to the names it all seems more real.
Post a Comment