ramblings

I was talking to a friend the other night about what he missed about teaching here. In addition to the basics - missing friends and food and the ease of planning on lesson every couple of weeks, he mentioned missing being removed from the drama and politics of being in a school.

Because of language, I'm immune to all of the nit-picking and bickering, gossip and criticisms that tend to go along with working in schools everywhere. I don't have to worry about grades or being held responsible for student performance on standardized tests, or what the teacher down the hall thinks of my management style, or who so-and-so is dating. I smile, show up, and have fun with my students.

But often I find myself really missing the community that goes along with teaching in a school. I look at some of the teachers, and try to figure out who I would have been friends with if I was able to actually communicate other than the most basic of pleasantries. I think I would have been able to hang out with the Korean teacher who tries to teach me both basic words and interjections, and who gave me some sort of powder to use as a mask/scrub (which is AWESOME, by the way - it might get its own post). I also would have liked to get to know the quite teacher who asks about my knitting every once in a while, or the one who always makes sure I know where to go for anything we do as a group. There is the teacher who is a little scary, but spikes better than almost every other teacher in the school (men included) and the secretary at the country school I go to who makes me rosette pins or hair ornaments. The PE teacher who will have to leave for the army soon and who break dances between plays during volleyball games, the soccer coach who drinks protein shakes and lifts weights, or the teacher who is a mother of twins and who is more competitive and has more fun playing volleyball than anyone else on the court.

Of course, I don't mind at all that I'm fairly insulated from the corporal punishment, or the backstabbing or any of the hugely long list of things that suck about being in a school here. I guess I just wonder what it would be like if I really could communicate. I mean, even if I get to the point where my Korean isn't just at a survival level, having a real, in-depth conversation might be beyond me. And while I feel like I'm starting to have a community of friends both in the general area (Suncheon, Yeosu) and within my immediate living area (Gwangyang), it is different than what I am used to from being in a regular school environment. Even as an outsider in New Orleans and in New Mexico, I was still a part of the school community. Now? I don't really know what I am. The teachers love that I eat in the cafeteria and that I play volleyball, that I'm nice and say hello and try to use some of the little Korean I know, and they notice that the kids like me and that I'm nice to them. I'm kind of like a mascot in many ways - the tall, friendly, smiling foreigner with strange eyes. Like a puppy.