Today one of the church elders sat in on two of my rowdier classes. It is amazing how their behavior changes when a Korean is in the classroom. This particular gentleman is a Tae Kwon Do expert, so I think the kids were especially careful! They were quiet and had their books out and raised their hands to answer every question and sat in their seats. I almost had to wonder who those children really were!
My preschoolers and kindergartners did really well today, with one exception. No wet pants, no blood, but there were quite a few tears. One little girl, who never says anything or does anything but sit there and look at me and sometimes cry, kept smacking another little girl on the head. Then she stood up and pushed her out of her chair and onto the floor. The victim's face smacked right into the hard floor, and she bawled. I can't blame her. I saw the whole thing happen but was on the other side of the classroom, admiring some other kids' coloring. I could only get there in time to pick the poor, bawling baby off the floor with one hand and grab the perpetrator's wrist with the other and march her into the hallway for time out. She sat in the chair with her arms crossed, pouting for the rest of the class.
This afternoon I tripped over my own feet in one of my classes and just barely managed to regain my balance without falling on the floor myself. Of course, I did this in front of a whole classroom of 9-year-olds, all of whom laughed hysterically for much longer than the incident was really worth. Then one boy announced, "Teacher face very red!" which of course resulted in more laughter. Lesson plan aborted, we spent the rest of the class time learning words like clumsy, embarrassed, klutz and telling stories about making fools of ourselves. Since their English is very basic, we had some interesting pantomimes and drawings to get the stories across.
The weather report says we're due to have another yellow dust storm tomorrow.
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