Dong Elementary in February

The general sentiment at school right now is BUSY!! My co-teacher just pulled out 3 stacks of documents two feet high to sort and purge. The 6th grade teachers, with whom I share a hallway, are literally running from classroom to classroom to office preparing for next week's 6th grade graduation ceremony. I'm on very friendly terms with the 6th grade teachers and when I asked how her vacation was, one teacher replied, "VERY busy! I came to school every day! No vacation!" That's 5 weeks of vacation spent here, in this building, preparing. Ugh. And I thought I had it bad.

So it's been the normal February week of minimal classes and inattentive students. We actually had to teach a lesson to my 5th graders today and they were none too receptive to being taught. Ah well, we do the best we can. I'm just teaching a silly song or handing out pen pal letters to the rest of my classes. On a surprisingly good note, I found out that our last day of school is next Tuesday! Hopefully I can slip quietly through the cracks and just pop in every now and again until the next school year starts on March 1st. I do have some things to prepare, however. This morning I was invited to give a presentation to the new "talk" teachers - a special branch of native English teachers - on classroom activities. Seems like an easy topic for an hour and a half lecture, brainstorm session, and sharing. The workshop will be held 2 from next Monday.

And...my principal has cordially - and rather assertively - asked me to teach after school classes next year. I was quite surprised when he called me into his office today to discuss the March schedule. In Korea, it's all too common to be told the day before a class starts or asked incredibly last minute to teach something. Four weeks notice?! That's fantastic. His motive, I soon found out, was to discourage me from agreeing to teach at any other schools in the new semester. I have been offered a position or two but I've agreed to wait until March to accept or decline. He asked me to teach into the evening every day and on weekends, but I declined much of this and said I'd give him a schedule next week of when I can stay at school after 5pm, maybe 1 or 2 days a week. Extra work and extra pay are very nice, but I don't I'll want to be stuck at school every evening when I have to many other things to do! Especially when the weather gets nice in a few months. Needless to say, I'll be plenty busy for my last semester in Korea.