My First Day of School

Today was my first proper full day of school.

I am joining at an interesting time. It's the end of semester this week, and tomorrow the students present all that they've learned to their parents. Next week a new semester will start, so I do get to start fresh in a way.

The kindergartners come for the morning. This morning there would be a field trip and I got to come along to get to know the kids. I was originally told it would be a bit of a boring trip, all in Korean, about 'oriental medicine'. Imagine my surprise when the first topic was teeth cleaning. Teeth cleaning in the way that my grandparents (who are no doubt reading this) would know it -toothpaste, toothbrush, brush everywhere. Even more exciting: it was presented via an animated movie that was kind of like Hansel and Gretel except the candy was killing Hansel's teeth. But what do I know it was all in Korean!

The next video addressed the dangers of smoking. The cartoon features famous Korean characters, a boy, a man, a chicken, a crocodile, and a bus. I can make this up. I believed a bus lecturing on smoking seemed a bit hypocritical, but I'm told not to talk bad about Tayo.

Next we moved on to some instruments for grinding up traditional medicine. If you're me and you don't understand Korean (yet!) then this part look to be only a great photo op. The kids swarmed to play with all the equipment for a while. Later they got to smell some of the traditional medicine -which was not an effective advertisement. One student called it 'nose fire',

Next there was a brief demonstration of CPR. These kids are between 4 and 5, and I can decide what is more surprising -the don't smoke campaign or the thought that they could preform CPR. Suppose those things are both valuable to have in case someone offer them a cigarette and then has heart failure. IT COULD HAPPEN.

All and all I enjoyed my time with the young ones, held some hands, played some games, and learned many names. I even got to teach some of them for a while when the other teachers needed some time.

After a wonderful (FREE) lunch. We had some more teaching time then they went off. Next we had the older kids come in. These guys were a lot more calm, but maybe a little less fun because of that. These lessons were more about getting the more visible part of learning done -so workbooks.

I got the chance to speak to the director, who has a wonderful rapport with the teachers. We had a nice talk and she answered a lot of my questions. I know I will like her, she has a pet rabbit and 5 cats because she rescues strays.

We had another meal out, and I walked part way home by myself. I was excited to find my way bace since I had read a store name by my apartment that actually reads 'Hope'. I knew I was heading in the right direction when I literally found hope again.