Last day

Every time I have to wake up early for something important I can never sleep the night before. This happened last night. I had an interview this morning for a job I really want (as I mentioned before). The interview was at 10am and in Seoul so, I had to be up by eight to get ready and spend at least an hour on the subway. 8am is very early for me. Thus, I laid awake in bed most of the night worrying that I wouldn't wake up and that I'd miss the interview. Fortunately, I didn't.

I made it to the interview right on time and was informed that as part of the interview process I'd be required to conduct what they referred to as a "demo lesson". In other words, I'd walk into one of their existing classes, with two managers from the school sitting in, and teach children I'd never met before. They gave me a book and ten minutes to prepare. Obviously, it was a little nerve-rattling as I sat looking over the book and imagined the various ways I was about to make a fool of myself. On top of the obvious pressure, these were pre-school students, which I've never really taught before and who are notoriously difficult to control.

As I entered the classroom, with the managers eyeing me from the back of the room, I discovered that the door to the room did not close completely. So, now everyone in the hallways would get to listen in as well. I mentioned to the class that the door didn't close and a small boy piped up saying he knew how to close it. "Great" I thought and asked him to come up and close the door. Just as I did four to five students jumped out of their chairs and darted to the door to assist. Each of them flailing and failing to keep it shut. So, here I am two seconds into my demonstration and I have half of the class at the front of the room screaming and shoving on the door. I figured I was doomed.

Recognizing how bad this looked, I quickly got the students back to their seats, left the door wide-open and began my lesson. Everything after went very smooth. I worked with the students on contraction, having them make full sentences and followed up with some prepositions. The kids turned out to be great, with most of them living in the U.S. or Canada previously. Of course, I was a little nervous and I'm sure the managers could see that, but I'm sure they expect it as well. Overall, I think I did a good job and the hiring manager seemed confident I would get the job. I should know by next week.

After the interview I hopped on the subway again and headed to my school for the last day. I said before I've never taught pre-school, but it's a little untrue. I've been a preschool activity teacher for the past year at my school. However, as an activity teacher I'm only required to feed the children lunch and then some sort of activity (Arts & Crafts, Song & Chant, etc.). I don't usually do the activities on Mondays, but since I was at school early and the activity teacher had to run some errands, I volunteered to feed the children one last time.

These are the second year pre-school students and I've been eating lunch with them at least once a week for the last year. They are all incredibly sweet and cute, so I didn't mind sitting with them again.

The first year students, while certainly not any less cute, are often more difficult to control. I take the approach of being a drill sergeant with them. When we walk through the halls they are required to march, though they usually just run anyway.

After filling in for pre-school it was time to start my normal lessons. My first class is a group of children that I've completely fallen in love with. They are first year elementary school students and are so enthusiastic about learning. I'm really proud of the progress I've made with them and would put their English against any other students their age. In addition to me loving them, I also know they are quite fond of me and I knew that this would be the hardest class to say good bye to.

As I wandered down to class I realized I'd left my camera in the staff room and went back to retrieve it. On my return trip one of the managers at our school, who is a very sweet lady who has never said a harsh word to me, starting in on me for being late to class. In the whole year I've been at this school that has never happened, so I thought it very strange, but chalked it up to the fact the five teachers were leaving today and it was probably causing her a lot of stress.

As I reached my class I figured out why she'd done this. The first thing I saw were two large arrangements of balloons hanging from my whiteboard and the large heart drawn on the board with the words "I love you" written inside. Then, as I opened the door, I saw the cake and the burning candles.

All of the classrooms in my school are equipped with closed-circuit cameras and one of the mothers from this class came everyday and watched on the bank of televisions in the lobby. At first this was intimidating, but soon I discovered she had nothing else to do and was in fact a nice lady. Well, it turns out she'd set all of this up, for as I spotted the cake I also saw her there in the corner with her camera. I blew out the candles and posed for a few pictures with the kids. Soon after the manager who'd yelled at me for being late stuck her head in my room and gave me a knowing grin.

This is a shot of the white board they'd set up. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the cake. As you can see from the picture, one of my students, Peter, spoke Korean while in class and his name was written on the board.

In addition to the cake and balloons Cathy, the daughter of the lady who did all this, gave me a rose and a letter, written all in Korean.

Here's a shot of Cathy playing One Card (Uno). She was, without a doubt, one of the best children I've ever taught and probably the one I'll miss the most. That grin is because she's about to skip the girl to her left.

Another shot of Cathy with the other girls from her class, Angel and Rose.

Here are the boys from the same class. Robert, on the left, along with Cathy has been in the class since I started teaching it and he likes to refer to the two of them as the "old students". I know it's not nice to say, but when I first started teaching Robert I thought he was a girl. The other two boys, are Peter and Jay.

Since it was my last day and the last day of the session all of my classes had game day today.

As the class finished I lined up the students and said goodbye to them. This proved to be harder than I expected and I had to quickly usher them off before I became emotional. I started back to the staff room and was stopped by another student of mine and her mother. This particular student has been in Germany for the past month and before she left I dedicated half of a class to teaching the students German instead of English. Today was her first day back and she knew it would be my last. Her mother came to me and handed me a plastic bag and said it was a gift from the student. Inside the bag were two bottles of beer from Germany! Nice!

This is a picture of the next class and the girl, Nancy, who gave me the beer is on the far left.

The rest of the day proceeded as normal with students giving me various gifts of chocolate and notebooks. Also, my camera went haywire again so, I was unable to get pictures of my other class. No problem though, the hard goodbyes were out of the way.

As my final class finished I was surprised by how difficult it was to walk out of my classroom for the last time. I've spent a year in the same room and have come to truly view it as mine. All the decorations in the class have been done by my students under my supervision and no other teacher has taught in that room. It's quite strange handing it off to someone else.

Apart from the students it was also difficult saying goodbye to the staff that I've come to know over the past year. This was made either easier or more difficult by the fact that so many people are leaving at once and that at the end of the day the staff room was one big goodbye.

I've had a great time at that school and I will truly miss it. I hope I'm able to find an environment as enjoyable next time around. For now, I'm continuing to prepare to return home. Something I can say I'm not really looking forward to. Mostly because I'll miss Korea, but also it's a place I don't see myself in anymore. I'm looking forward to seeing people and catching up, but I'm looking forward to returning to Korea even more. In the meantime, I'm heading home to open those two bottles of beer and finish packing.