Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Last Class at my Middle School

Well all good things come to an end. I hope that my choice of changing jobs will be a good one, but today was the last class that I will ever teach under contract at the middle school where i have worked for the past three and a half years.

I had to teach a three day mini camp for the in-coming middle school kids. Now to toot my own horn. It was a pretty awesome camp. I've done about seven of these little mini camps this was the best one. The kids were pretty awesome and I did a bunch of cool things with them. We made sock puppets, little sock puppet movies. We played outside. We had an awesome scavenger hunt. I'm kind of disappointed that I don't get to teach these kids.

I'm kind of disappointed that I won't have a reason to go to one of the most pleasant parts of Jinju ever again. My school sits on top of a mountain and has a nice view of everything. It's the best approximation of a suburb that I have ever seen in Korea. During the day there is little traffic and there aren't many people on the streets. Two majestic mountain peaks are omnipresent. The kids don't whine like kids from other parts of town, they have a fairly good character. I think I'll miss some aspects of working there, I won't miss others.

I've heard that they haven't found a new replacement teacher yet. That stokes my ego, I'm irreplaceable apparently.

No. In all seriousness. I spent three years there. I was the first N.E.T. at that school, so a lot of the schtick that I created was all me. Every year got better and better. The school made a bunch of changes. Every year there was something new, and the school deserves credit for changing and trying to get better.

So yeah. I'm just kind of hoping for the best for them. I'm also hoping for the best for myself, and I hope that I made the right decision to move. I guess I'll see.

2 comments:

Flint said...

It can be hard to leave a place you like. I still get chuffed when I hear from old students.

3gyupsal said...

I don't mean to sound sentimental about the whole deal. I got a job at a uni where I get a ton more free time and six weeks of vacation. The school and local education board also made the decision a no brainer when they cut my pay when I was supposed to get a raise. Also they found an accounting error where they accidentally paid me too much money and asked for 600,000 won back this month.

Being on an F2 visa, I figure that I can work the Uni job and pick up some part time jobs along the way. It'll beat sitting at my computer and reading blogs 4 out of the 8 hours a day when I go to work.

The job wasn't bad, but I have a kid on the way. I figure I can have more free time and make more money somewhere else.