Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Why Am I A Teacher? - Yesterday's Class With Brian

Brian is one of my junior students and like many other children, he likes to play a lot in class. He often shows off his new toys and even his old ones. He shows me pictures and draws in our whiteboard as well. He even does magic tricks. He likes Psy and has danced Gangnam Style countless times during our class. He has even sang a couple of songs for me. He was handled by many different teachers before me and the last teacher who taught him warned me that he was a bad student. Honestly, after teaching him, I realized he wasn't. I guess that teacher was just scaring me. Luckily, I am not one who easily gets scared.

Anyway, he has been my student for more than 3 months now. We have had a rocky start. It was our getting to know stage but now that we have established a relationship, we have become more comfortable with each other. I have taught countless of children before but I guess as I started to grow older, I have come to like teaching adults more. Maybe I will like teaching children again once I have a baby of my own. In yesterday's class, we were in the middle of our topic about Christmas. Although Christmas won't be here till next week, like me, he is already excited about it. I told him that we should both prepare to sing a Christmas song on Christmas Eve. Yes, I have to go to work on the 24th.

I don't know how to surprise him yet but actually, I want to surprise all of my students on the 24th since Christmas will be on the next day. Koreans are said to not be fond of the holiday but they know what it means and to Christians and Catholics, the holiday means a lot. When I asked Brian what he wanted to get this Christmas, he said he wanted to have a BB gun. Despite me always telling him that guns are bad and scary, I can't sway the kid to not liking them. Honestly, I think it is a great thing that his mother doesn't allow him to play violent video games or watch anything too violent. Otherwise, he would probably have violent tendencies. He does confess to beating his brother up sometimes but he says it is only because sometimes his brother does bad things or says bad words. He rarely does it because he doesn't want to make his mom upset.

In one particular activity in this class, we both drew our own Christmas trees. When we finished, we wrote Merry Christmas below it. I took a picture of it as to me, it is a good memory. I am guessing he did too as he sometimes takes pictures of our class together. I realized that I am a teacher because I can make my students better. It doesn't matter how bad they are, I know I can make them better. They might not be good in English but at least I encourage them to keep on trying. Students with behavior issues? Well, I have handled some of them and luckily have survived them. Many of them became well mannered although some remained the same. I guess it is hard to change people especially if they don't want the change to start from themselves. Yesterday was a good day to study English, I am glad that today is another one too. Definitely another fulfilled day.

This is how our Christmas trees looked like during the class. I did the one on the right while he did the one on the left. They weren't much but the thought was there. It is the thought that counts after all.
Some of Brian's messages related to Christmas. Somehow I am excited what he will do for me or show me on Christmas Eve. I guess I need to remind him on Friday.

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