This term has been a little rough so far. Gone are my incredibly well-behaved and respectful students and in their place I've been asked to teach kids who make a college frat party look like church. For the most part they're not that bad, but the strategic placement of two kids who are friends and also don't give a crap can lead to some pretty frustrating results. As a result I've had to crack down pretty hard in order to maintain order, which I really hate doing. Again, they have so much school already and being here is not mandatory for them, so I try to make it as easy as I can. Even as it is my students get way more allowances than necessary, but on the other hand I do have material to cover and I truly hate rudeness.
I also hate yelling, that's something I've learned the last two weeks. I don't like having to shout at anybody, least of all a bunch of kids. The worst part is the ones who are behaving fine have to sit there and listen to it, and the last time I had to raise my voice they just looked so freaked out. By this point last term I was already bonding really well with my students and now there's basically no chance of that happening, and we're gonna be stuck with each other for the next 11 weeks. I'm hoping they get the picture soon so we can move past it but man oh man, it's been a stressful couple weeks.
"BUT JUSTIN IT'S NOT ALL BAD IS IT?" Well fuck you, Incredibly Loud Voice in my Head, but yeah you're actually right. For example, my Tuesday / Thursday evening class is actually made up entirely of some really great kids that I taught last semester. They've always been a delight to teach so I was happy they all moved up to the next level, and our classes go really well. The class I teach Monday nights is also pretty great, and on Friday? Oh man, let me tell you about Friday.
On Friday I teach the Master level, which I believe is the highest level at our Academy. Or one of them. Or something. But basically it's a novel study class, and the book I'm teaching for the first part of the semester: Slaughterhouse Five. One of my favourite novels of all time. I mean it's clear they barely grasp what's happening in the book, even when I strip it down as much as possible (if you're not familiar, Slaughterhouse Five is a book in which the protagonist travels randomly through time, except it's really all in his head, except he insists that it's true, and also he was kidnapped by aliens at one point, except only maybe, and it takes place in World War II, it's fucked). It's kind of surreal to find myself teaching a book I myself studied in school and so far it has been amazingly fun.
So that's about it for now, hopefully I get around to updating this a bit more. I can't believe I only posted one time throughout November. I need to remember to post the story about how we traveled to Chuncheon for a hockey game last weekend as well as a few other things. And of course Christmas is later this month so that's gonna be...well, rough. But we'll get to that eventually.
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