Last day

This picture pretty much sums up my teaching elementary school in Korea. There is a lot of touching, people covering their faces, making of peace signs, not following directions, and me grinning a bit maniacally in the background.


This one just made me laugh - both because of the kid in the center, and also because I'm not sure if the kid hitting the ground dove out of the way or was shoved - really, it could have been either.

(I posted a ton of pictures on flickr - let me know if you need the id there - but they are all basically variations on the same theme.)

Last week was my last day as a teacher in South Korea.

I honestly am unsure of what my impact here has been most of the time. The kids who are doing well would likely have done well had I not been here, and there are still kids who look stumped when faced with "how are you?" But on the last day of school one really good thing happened.

소진 said hello to me in Korean.

Last year, So-jin came into my class late almost every class. She was often dirty, more than once was missing a shoe, sat in the back alone, and was harassed by some of the slower kids in class. She obviously had special needs, and when I asked my co-teacher about it, got little more than she was only there so her teacher could have a break. I would try to get her to do just about anything but didn't get far at all (though I DID make the boys who were picking on her stop when I was around, so that was something).

This year, my (new) co-teacher sat students by height and gender and I insisted that So-jin was left in the mix. I bribed the heck out of the girl who sat with her to get her to translate and had her get So-jin to participate (I lucked out that she ended up next to an amazing kid who was much more open than a lot of kids that age. And that she was easily won over with praise, stickers and candy). And it worked. They would volunteer to perform dialogs in front of the class, and while So-jin wasn't retaining much, she would repeat me and she pretended to follow along in the book or with games.

Her homeroom teacher was amazing at getting kids to work together, and it was so beautiful to see this child go from being ostracized to, if not accepted, at least acknowledged. So-jin had her shoes on everyday and was coming to school in clean clothes, with her glasses, and with her hair in a ponytail like a lot of the other girls. If I said hello to her in Korean, she would either answer or laugh at me, and was much more present in all of our interactions. In a culture where homogeneity is so highly valued, kids outside the norm have a really hard time, particularly kids with intellectual special needs, and simply being able to interact with other people can be life-changing. I wish I had a way to communicate to this teacher how amazing I think she is for what she did for this child.

On the last day of school, most of the other kids had already left for the day. So-jin was hanging around the school, we passed in the hallway, and she said hello, first in Korean, then in English.

While she had been responding to me, she hadn't initiated conversation with me EVER.

I'm not sure why that is the story I wanted to tell about ending this chapter in Korea. I didn't do much other than be a decent human being and care about a kid other people were picking on. I guess maybe in some ways, it confirms for me that going home to work with kids with special needs is the right choice for me right now, and I'm excited to see what next year holds.