The Darndest Things

On my first day, when I was just sitting in and watching my coworkers do their thing, one of the children in the youngest class (they would correspond to our three-year-olds, but age is determined differently in Korea) was crawling around on the floor.

"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I'm a snake."
"A snake?"
"And a cat. Hhhssshshrrrow."

And then I died from impossible levels of cuteness.

Teaching here often feels like an onslaught of lovable energy, born of frank curiosity and the combination of politeness and affection that you just don't find in American schoolchildren (speaking as a former American schoolchild myself). In the States, for various reasons it's often seen as inappropriate to be overly familiar with your students: to hug them, to tell them your care for them, to ruffle their hair. In South Korea - especially with the kindergartners - you are encouraged to do so. And trust me, it's easy to do here. Because they are precious.

I was forewarned about this, but it is still heartily amusing to me how the students think all of the white teachers look the SAME SAME SAME. I teach in a school with six other native English speakers (6 Americans and 1 Englishman), and I feel I should point out that I bear resemblance to none of them. Still, my students are convinced that one particular coworker and I have the same hair. And we don't at all. I have thick, fluffy rusty-blonde hair, and she has long, shiny brown hair. When we point this out, the younger children just laugh and say things like, "But your hair isn't black, teachers!" And you can't really argue with that.

On a related note, a student stopped me in the hallway with some revelations on my second day at the school.

"Teacher! I have to tell you something important!"
"Oh? What is it?" I asked, expecting some secret or a misdeed on the part of one of her peers.
"Your eyes are almost blue and your hair is a sunset!"

These are important things.

Actually, just last week an entire class of mine started yelling at once because I bent down to do something, and they realized that my hair was not brown, but "gold". This was a ten-minute interruption of children yelling, "Gold! Gold hair!" and "I want your hair, give it to meeeee!" I brought it up again yesterday, asking why this had been such a big deal. In the words of one student, "You get a lot of money with this hair." I am not even kidding. Basically, because a lot of celebrities dye their hair lighter colors, my eight-year-olds were convinced that this is how you make serious money.

No one had informed me, but I'll let you all know once the cash starts flowing in.

No matter how tired, grumpy, achey, or homesick I am, I go to work every day with a bounce in my step, knowing that these kids will be waiting for me to get there, will beam when I walk through the door, will share their candy and stories and more quotes worth hearing and joking about. This is a very blessed life I live.

And just because a quote post wouldn't be complete with the subject that comes up about once an hour, every day of my life here:
"Teacher, you are so tall. You are tall like my house."

<3