Welcome to my classroom

Before I get to what the title is about, let me fill you in a bit about last weekend. I went out with the Pine Tree Club again and met some of the elders of the club. The club has been around since the 50's and some senior members dropped in to speechify and the like. I was given a big glimpse into Korean age deference. The eldest fellow joined the club in 1960 and was given carte blanche to silence the room and speak when he felt like, and boy he did. I've never seen so much effusive bowing in my life. The club headed out to a bar where they surprised the senior members. Us juniors, me age-inappropriately part of that group, got there early to put up banners and blow up balloons to rub on our hair and stick to the ceiling. They were all impressed at my ability to stick staticky balloons on the 7 1/2 foot high ceiling.

It was a brilliant night though. The king was back, and I reminded him about his violence last weekend. 'I show lovely through (punching gesture)' he said. His English isn't so hot. I should say that the king's name is Tae Eun - he nearly killed me for forgetting. 'I don't even remember American names!' I pleaded. 'You in Korea now - you do like us!' I'm trying to get better with the names, Tae Eun, believe me.

I finally snapped some pictures of my classroom. Here is one of my younger classes. I like how the girl on the left is menacing another with a fist:



We play a lot of hangman - and one day when I got tired of coming up with English words the kids might know I decided to have them host. It's one of my teaching moves now. Here's Anna with a cold and face mask hosting hangman:



Here's my next class - hard at work and one girl in her hapkido outfit:



Same class, except the boy side of the room. I don't divide them up - I guess kids at that age stick to their own gender: