Awwww teaching moments!

Sometimes being a teacher can be really frustrating. Like yesterday, I finally had to make a student leave my lowest-level afterschool class. He'd been a disruption from day 1, and had been entirely resistant to any attempt to engage him in the lesson or discipline him. It was getting to the point where not only would he be extraordinarily rude to me, but he was encouraging the other students to follow suit - effectively halting the lesson. I am sure that with more one-on-one time, he would get better, but I am one person at the head of a room of 20 5-year-olds...the second I turn my attention to one of them, the other 19 get out of hand. And I don't have the time or energy to be corralling each one of them individually. Ultimately, because the class is optional and the student clearly did not want to be there, I asked him to leave. He is welcome to come back next class, but on the understanding that his behavior is much improved.

I'm also pretty sure this is every one of my old teachers getting their revenge on me.

But that was totally mitigated (yesssss I remember fancy English words!) by the end of the class: one of my kids asked me to tie his shoe! I was all like "awww you depend on me! that's really unfortunate for you!"...especially because his shoelaces had become some sort of Gordian Knot. As I wrestled with it, wishing for my Sword of Damocles, I realized that even though I hadn't done too well with the kid I had to ask to leave class, there were 19 other kids in the room who I was reaching, and that made me pleased. Especially one of the students, whose "little-kid-ADD" I think has progressed into actual ADHD. Keeping him focused (and, more to the point, keeping him from not jumping of the desks all class) has been pretty difficult, but I found a video that REALLY worked (for him and the entire class!). For two minutes, they sat there in awed silence, breaking it only to count along with the video. It, of course, is the eminently trippy Sesame Street Pinball video, teaching counting to 12. Thanks, Sesame Street.

And then, at the end of class, one of my students gave me this drawing:



It reads: "Yeongeo seonsaengnim", or English teacher. AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.