March 29, 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.
Yesterday between classes, I looked up from my Kindle to see one of my students repeatedly hitting another boy on the back of the head. He was clearly angry and exclaiming something in Korean I couldn’t understand. I immediately sat up and started yelling. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” The hitting stopped. “BOTH OF YOU OUTSIDE […]
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October 21, 2017.Reading time 5 minutes.
Sometimes I think teaching has literally made me insane. Or perhaps I was simply insane to decide to teach in the first place. Sometimes my students are great. Everyone comes on time with their books in order and their pencils sharpened, having gone to the bathroom and drunk a satisfactory amount of water. Whatever candy or […]
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November 10, 2015.Reading time 6 minutes.
Last week, I saw an ugly side of one of my young students. English name of Brian. He is normally very cute and engaged during class (and I may even subconsciously favor him sometimes..). He just has the kind of attractive personality that makes you want to call on him all the time.
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October 31, 2015.Reading time 1 minute.
This week my voice got hoarse, which made it difficult to speak loudly during class, which made me realize how much I rely on yelling to control my classroom. Since that fallback was no longer an option, I resorted to a technique my roommate has mentioned a few times. It’s called the whisper technique. I started talking […]
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March 27, 2015.Reading time 2 minutes.
Yesterday my boss came in to talk to me about one of my students. Apparently this student had gone home and told his mother that I treated him unfairly, only punishing him and no one else. While that was not true, I knew exactly which student my boss was talking about even before she mentioned his […]
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July 1, 2014.Reading time 7 minutes.
I could not stop smiling yesterday during my crazy class, the one packed with noisy third grade boys who like to fight with each other and test the limits of my patience. I was outright grinning from ear to ear. Because those kids were behaving SO WELL!
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