Tag Archives: school

February 19, 2014

The Last Few Seconds – Friday Fictioneers

I was quite surprised and pleased to open up Rochelle’s post today and see my picture. For the curious among you, this picture was taken in a small country school in Korea. In the two years I worked there, the enrollment ranged from 14-20 students from Grade 1-6, usually with 2-3 students per grade. Only two were from the area and the rest came from bigger cities and lived in a dorm as a sort of countryside exchange program. The school did have a electronic bell, but it couldn’t be heard well outside, so they hung up this bell to let the kids know when recess was over.

The Last Few Seconds

One minute remaining.

Brent Brianson stares at the clock, willing it to go faster. His lip trembles in anticipation, like a chinchilla caught in a hurricane.

Thirty seconds.

He is doing stretches, running in place.

Ring!

Out the door he goes, shoving aside the secretary coming in. A congratulatory cake smashes to the floor, like an egg fired from a howitzer. Gravel sprays the building as Brent peels out of the parking. A distant rumble indicates that Mr. Brianson has just broken the sound barrier.

The math class stares after him, aghast.

“Mr. Brianson couldn’t wait to retire, it seems.”

(This story is also dedicated to one of my high school math teacher, Mr. Bingle, who vowed he would leave as soon as his retirement came, even if it was in the middle of class. I think he’s retired by now, so I hope he’s enjoying it.)

58 Comments | tags: bell, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, Korea, retirement, school | posted in Friday Fictioneers

November 19, 2013

Why Korea Feels Colder than Canada

By David Stewart

In general, I like cold. I grew up in Newfoundland, in northeastern Canada, where the daytime temperature during the winter is around -10 Celsius, dropping down to about -20 at night. At times, it can get down to around -40. It’s no fun waiting for the school bus in that, let me tell you.

In Newfoundland, we call this May. [Source]

In Newfoundland, we call this May. [Photo]

In Korea, it’s not nearly as cold. Wikipedia shows the average temperature in January to be between 4 and -6 degrees. Cold, but not crazy cold. Houses here are heated by a system of under floor heating called ondol. It’s wonderful to walk around on, or just lie on, although you have to remember not to leave any chocolate or meltables on the floor.

Public buildings, including schools, however, are not heated that way. Some are not heated at all. Many small schools use nothing but space heaters to heat the classrooms. The students and teachers both where their coats all day long.

The bathrooms also are not heated and most don’t have hot water. Also, the hallways aren’t heated and usually the doors of the school are open all day long.

This is the front door of my main school. Most schools keep their doors open like this all year long.

Why on earth would you keep the door open all day in winter? It’s not masochism, I swear. The reason is ventilation. Koreans love ventilation more than heat, it seems. I had a class once in the library, which was in the back building and didn’t get any sunlight anyway. The principal would come in in the mornings and open all the windows in the middle of winter. It took about 3 hours to get it back to a liveable temperature.

When I was growing up, I never really felt cold, unless I was outside for hours and hours and my gloves got wet. But in Korea, I’m cold most of the day in the winter. I used to like winter a lot more too. I realized that cold is only fun if you can get warm afterwards. Nobody wants to go from cold outside to cold inside. And that is why Korea feels colder than Canada.

(P.S. One unexpected thing that Korea does have a lot of is heated toilet seats. That at least mitigates things a bit when you have to wash your hands with cold water.)

16 Comments | tags: Canada, heating, Korea, Newfoundland, school, Underfloor heating, ventilation, winter | posted in Korea

August 22, 2013

Desk Warming the Day Away

By David Stewart

If you’ve ever taught English in Korea, you know of the joys of desk warming. I did a Google search for “desk warming” and the whole first page was about Korea, so it seems to be a largely Korean phenomenon (maybe Japan as well). Basically, it means going into work when there is no work to do and killing time however you want. It is what I am doing right now.

There are two main strains of desk warming. The first is during the school year. Normally, English teachers in a Korean public school teach 22 classes a week, which equals about 15 hours of class time for me. However, we are expected to be in school about 40 hours a week, preparing for classes or whatever.

Now, if you are in one school, that is not unexpected. You probably have a desk or maybe even an office and can sit and do what you want until it’s time to go home. I, however, teach at four schools a week. I have known teachers who have taught at up to 7 schools in a week. When you are at multiple schools, you don’t get a desk. You either go directly to the classroom or sit in the teacher’s room, awkwardly out of place. So, a bizarre situation arises where you are supposed to stay at school all day but the school doesn’t necessarily want you there. You can go to the Education Office to kill time but they don’t necessarily have a place for you either, although they can stick you in a corner somewhere or in an empty meeting room.

Yay! I’m being productive!

The other type of desk warming is during vacations. The average English teacher gets a week or two of vacation each break but the school vacation is always longer than this, which means any day we don’t have a vacation day and there are no classes, we have to go into the Education Office for 8 hours. Some people read, watch TV shows, play computer games. I knew a teacher that curled up in a blanket and slept on the floor every day. The bosses don’t care what you do, as long as you’re physically present.

Laptop, Kindle, Chinese textbook. I’m in for the long haul.

Summers aren’t too bad. The summer vacation is only about 4 weeks long now and after doing some English camps, I ended up only having to desk warm for two days this year. In the winter, though, the school vacation is over 2 months long, which means you generally end up sitting in a cold meeting room for about a month.

I’m the only one here today. I took the picture above this a few minutes ago. Either the other teachers have classes today or they just didn’t come in. I’m not really complaining since it’s not a bad gig to get paid for doing nothing.

Still, I could do nothing at home.

21 Comments | tags: culture, desk warming, EPIK, Korea, school, vacation | posted in Korea

August 1, 2013

The Blair Witch Project it ain’t, but still…

By David Stewart

One of the fun bonuses of teaching English in Korea is the chance to teach English camps. I’m only partially sarcastic there. While it does mean more classes to teach once the vacation has started (often with no extra pay), the camp curriculum is often more relaxed and as long as they are well planned, they can be a lot of fun. The one I just finished was at a middle school where the kids were very enthusiastic and a lot of fun to teach. On the second day, we went through movie genres and a few sample scripts and then I got them to write their own movies. They wrote the scripts, practiced them, and then I recorded them on my phone and edited them later. Their English level isn’t super high, but they tried hard. Anyway, here for your viewing pleasure are two of the movies they made. They are about a minute long, each.

1. Number 1: This is a ghost story about a top student who has died and comes back to haunt the 2nd place student in school.

2. Stupidman and the Zombies: This is a zombie comedy where apparently the zombies and normal people can switch quite quickly. I can’t say I totally understand it, since they didn’t explain it to me.

The production values aren’t great, but it was a good activity and gave the students more fun and a better sense of accomplishment than just doing grammar exercises. I had them vote for the best movie in several categories. “Number 1” won hands-down for best acting, all for that scream. There was a third movie too, done by an all-boys group, that had to do with gambling and a lot of people getting shot, but they didn’t want me to post that one.

13 Comments | tags: Education, EFL, English camp, ghosts, Korea, movies, school, teaching, zombies | posted in Korea

February 17, 2013

The Broom – Visual Fiction #19

By David Stewart

It seemed to tremble under my hand when I first touched it in the market, which was one of the reasons I bought it. I am just a groundskeeper at an elementary school, but I take care of my tools. I buy them carefully, and use them the same way.

The more you work with tools, the more they gain personalities of their own. I can hear their voices as we work together. The high, ringing voice of the hammer; the dull mumble of the snow shovel, grumbling querulously as it bites at the icy buildup on the steps; even the acerbic snip of the pruning shears as it cuts back errant branches.

But the broom speaks softly. It whispers to me as I pull it smoothly over the brick path. In the fall, I hear it speaking every day, murmuring softly to the fallen gingko leaves as it pushes them into piles. It, more than any other, seems to take pleasure in the work we do together and so, when we are finished for the day, I let it rest for an hour or so in the sun as a reward for its hard work.

taken in Soyang, Korea

5 Comments | tags: anthropomorphism, broom, Korea, photograph, school, visual fiction | posted in Visual Fiction

August 11, 2012

Cheating 101

By David Stewart

The professor walked to the front of the first Intro to Cheating class and turned to face the class.

“Good morning, class,” he said. “This is the first class of the new Cheating 101 class. As you probably all found out on Google, the university discovered that students were spending far more energy cheating on their assignments than actually studying. Since we wanted to promote a positive attitude and didn’t want to let this effort go to waste, the university created this course. Actually, I saw a Chinese university do it and I stole the idea.

“I’m not asking you to work hard, but you must still do all the assignments…or at least be able to hack into the system to change your grade. Whatever works for you.

“Now, a few points about the class. Cell phone use is permitted, but I will dock you a point for every time I notice. Also, it is forbidden to see the syllabus for this course, so I assume you’ll all figure out where to find it somehow. Tomorrow’s assignment is to not come to class, but still be marked present. And yes, I will be taking attendance.” With that, the professor turned and walked out.

Jared called his friend Rob, who was in the same class but hadn’t bothered to show up. “I think you’ll do fine in this course,” he said.

The next few weeks were a mixed bag of assignments they had to do, assignments they had to not do but make it seem like they had done and assignments that were given, Jared suspected, just to see if anyone would do them. Just before the third weekend of the course, the professor ordered them to de-grasshopper the quad by Monday. Jared paid a janitor five bucks to write a letter saying that he had done it. He got an A.

The final week approached and rumors began to spread about the final exam. One of the students had broken into the records office and stolen the syllabus to the course, so they all knew the final exam was worth 50% of their grade. A day before the final class, the professor did not show up. Instead, a courier appeared with a letter, gave it to Jared who was sitting next to the dosor, and left.

Jared read the letter, broke into a cold sweat, and then read it again. Finally, he stood up and read the letter aloud.

“Dear students,” he read. “I am not coming to class today, because I didn’t feel like it. Give me a bad performance review though and I’ll fail you all. Your final exam is tomorrow. I have looked at your transcript to see what you have studied and tomorrow I will put you in the final exam of an upper level course of a subject you have never studied before. The teacher does not know you are part of this course, but you will need to cheat to pass the test and pass this course. Don’t get caught if you want to pass this course.”

The next day Jared found himself in a class of ten students, staring at an Existential Trigonometry exam. Apparently it was about real numbers, but dealt with what it meant to be real and the point of not being imaginary numbers. Jared did not have a chance without cheating.

Using what he had learned in the course, Jared quickly stole the cell phone of the boy sitting next to him and gave him his instead. Then he texted his mom from the boy’s phone to say she had won the lottery. Predictably, she called him to tell she had won and the cellphone of the boy next to Jared rang.

“You have a cell phone?” the professor said to the boy. “You fail. Leave now.”

“But this isn’t even my—”

“Too bad. Get out.”

The boy left, confused and crestfallen, and a cute girl moved over next to Jared. Every few minutes during the test, Jared would slip her roses or small gifts that he had brought. The girl would smile and then, occasionally, pretend to stretch and show him her answers. Two exhausting hours later, Jared left with a completed test and the girl’s number, while she left with a garbage bag full of flowers and gifts.

“Well, it’s over,” Jared said to Rob later in their dorm room. “It wasn’t easy, but I think I passed. How did you do?”

“Oh, the final?” Rob glanced over from watching TV. “I paid the teacher a thousand dollars to tell our professor I passed the exam. I didn’t even show up for it.”

“You just paid him off?” Jared protested. “Well that’s not fair at all!”