Traveling Beans

A Lesson on Energy and Stereotypes

I am in my last prep time for this week. At 2:05 and 3:05pm I will have my last two of my 18 classes this week. This morning when I came in I was ready to melt right through my seat because I was so exhausted. However, after talking with another young English teacher at my school and laughing with the geography teacher who sits beside me and brings me lunch everyday, I am energized again.

Another teacher would probably say I am energized because of the rings she gave me the other day. The day before yesterday another teacher, who was introduced to me as the oldest teacher in the kyo mu shil (teacher's room which has all of the teacher's desks), sort of read my birthdate, the the time I was born, and my energy. She tried a combination of silver and gold rings on my hands (she substituted yellow raffi paper for the gold rings) and figured out what combination directed my energy best. She was able to figure out that my body is cold,--that I do not cold weather (She was right! I detest cold weather! I love hot weather!). She also knew that I am always tired. Ok, you're gonna say that all people are always tired and stressed, but I have been tested for anemia a couple of times because I am always so exhausted. From that she determined that my best colors--to wear, to sleep in, etc--were yellow, green, and other warm colors. She said colors like blue, black, white, and red were too cold for me and drained my energy. So she pulled out all these little bags of filled with different sizes of silver rings and determined how many I had to wear on each hand. I had to move Kristofer's engagement ring from my left hand to my right ring finger, add another silver ring on top, wear a silver ring on my left ring finger, and an extra long yellow raffi paper on my right thumb (looks like yellow string). She said I can replace it with two gold rings when I get a chance. Apparantly this is called "chim" and it is not too far from acupuncture. Now I noticed other people wearing a few, thin gold and silver rings on their fingers. My host father has done this as well...but we don't change the color of our bedding. I guess the rings are good enough.

As for stereotypes...one of my classes the other day had many questions to ask me so I let them. The most popular/common question they like to ask me is "Boyfriend??" When I tell them I am engaged, I get lots of "oooooohhhhhh!!!" and laughs. They also wonder whether I am Korean, what my Korean name is (apparantly Hae Won is a pretty name. I think that's because it is not common), and if I have eaten kimchee. One question this one class asked me was what was my blood type. I thought it was a strange question but I answered anyways. When I told them O+, I got many, "OOh!! Good! Good!" Which confused me. I didn't know whether they were just trying to kiss up, so there was a little bit of confusion while I tried to ask them whether they were serious or messing with me. Apparently it is a bit of a joke, but a real question. So I asked them to tell me what each blood type meant. So A=good, B=crazy, O-=so-so, and AB=dirty blood. I was very concerned that a student in the room may have been one of these blood types and realized I had to do something about these stereotypes and random catergorizations. So I wrote the word "stereotypes" on the board and asked if they had ever heard of it before. They hadn't. I gave examples of stereotypes in America. For example, I told them lots of people think I am Chinese and absolutely can not distinguish or even care that I actually not Chinese. This earned a few solemn "Ohhhhs". Then I said in America many people would say that Koreans are always very smart. This made them say, "Oh yeah!" and laugh. However, I added a "but"....that even though many Americans think Koreans are always smart, most people think Koreans are smart in math or science. Then I asked a girl if she liked math and science. She didn't. And then they understood why that would suck if people thought Koreans were only good at one thing. "This," I explained, "are examples of stereotypes." All I got were lots of solemn "Ohhhhs...." I know one girl in the front definately got it. Her face changed so much. That was probably the most interesting class I had this week.

So now I am at home. I was not able to finish this blog when I started it during my prep. A bunch of students came over to talk to me. It is fun, but can be tiring and difficult because I have to slow my speech so much to the point that I must annunciate so clearly it feels like I am halting after every syllable. It is truly exhausting. However the worst feeling ever is when I look at the back of the classroom and a student is checking her watch because she is so bored or tired. What do I do? The other students who are sitting towards the front are so interested and focused. I am sure there must be a way to prepare a lesson so that everyone is interested, but I still haven't figured it out. Even though I have revised my lesson about 10 times, added hangman, made up my own name games, come up different kinds of introductions and conversation practices...sometimes the last factor is just the chemistry of the class, which I sometimes have no control over. Anyway, like I said, there must be more that I can do. ::sigh:: It is just so difficult to come up with a lesson that is interesting, not all fun and games, but gives something useful.

I am suddenly exhausted again. I am off to bed after a few emails. Until the next prep time....

posted by jacquelina @ 12:32 PM