BIS Kids!

New Teacher

A few Thankful Thursdays ago we mentioned that we have exciting news about August.  Well, that exciting news has moved up to June 28th!!  My little brother, Derek, is coming to Korea!  to teach!  at BIS!!  That's right, we couldn't be more excited.  We'll all be living in the same apartment building and working at the same academy!

As you read, Derek just graduated from Hillsdale College with a degree in Marketing and teaching will be a perfect "first" job for him.  We've been telling the students all about Derek and they can't wait to meet him - they are also convinced he's a giant.  We are simply thrilled for him to begin this new chapter in his life.  It's going to be great.

The Graduate

Sibs

Graduation Party!! Classy.

Christopher, Chris, Derek

 Han Kang Korean Restaurant
1910 S. Havana Street
Aurora, CO

Totally worth the little drive - delicious, authentic food!!

Here's to a great last week in the US for Derek and safe travels!
~ Cheers ~

10 Commandments

The fourth grade social studies book we are using had a little tidbit about the 10 commandments.  I gave the students an assignment to rewrite the 10 commandments in a way that would be easier to understand.  It was a good practice for them to look up some synonyms.  Here is a list of some of the answers I received.  The numbered sentences are verbatim from the book, the following lines are some of the interpretations.

1.  I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
-?
2.  You shall have no other gods besides me.
-You shall have only God.
-You can't respect other Gods.
3.  You shall not swear falsely by the name of the Lord your God.
-Do not say anything about God.
4.  Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
-A Sabbath Day is a holiday.
-On Sunday do holy.
5. Honor your Father and Mother
-Be dutiful to your parents.
-Respect your parents.
-You have to think mom and dad is genius and smart and nice and kind.  (I'm not joking, this is what she wrote)
6. You shall not murder.
-Do not kill or harm people.
-You should not kill.
-You can't kill people.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
-Don't be an unfaithful husband.
-You shall not charge adultery.
-You can't marry with another people without wife.
8. You shall not steal.
-Do not steal something.
-You shall not steal.
-You can't have another people's thing.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
-Do not lie other people.
-You can't lie to neighbor.
10.  You shall not covet anything that is your neighbors.
-Discard your desires.
-You shall not want anything neighbors.

All in all, I'd say they did a fantastic job ~~^^

Recent Videos

Our 2010 kindergarten class gets the opportunity for gym class, unlike last year. We get to accompany them and view all the greatness...

A coule of our kindy girls with their version of patty cake?

This last video comes courtesy of one of our new first graders. He has warned both of us before about traveling through the Bermuda Triangle because it is too dangerous. He talks about sharks every possible moment. Sorry the video is a bit blurry.

What a Happy Day!!

This is one of our new kindergarten students. She doesn't normally have a smile on her face but we caught her actually enjoying herself and having fun. It's amazing what being outside can do to you. Too cute :)

Official Extension

South Korea is an amazing place. We have recently officially decided to extend our stay and renew our contract with BIS. Being here has taught us so much and showed us so many things, but we still have so much to do, learn, teach, and see.

We moved out here with a one year contract starting March 1st, 2009, and so we will renew our one year contract on the same day for another full year. We prayed heavily on the decision and God graciously spoke to us the same day and told us what we needed to do.

It was a challenging decision because of how much we miss everyone back home in the States. It is hard (especially during the holidays) to be away from so many people we love so much.

The GOOD news is that for those of you didn't get a chance to experience South Korea first hand, you will have personal tour guides available to you for another full year!! So we fully expect to see many of you in the Eastern Hemisphere in 2010 :)

Test answers

We've been giving tests this past week to all of our kids. We received a few answers from our 1st graders that made us chuckle quite a bit. Click to enlarge.

P51

4th grade social studies class received a jolt of life today.

We are currently in a unit discussing wars the United States has participated in. Today's topic included the Korean and Vietnam wars (lumped these 2 into one class because of their relative physical distance from one another).

**Side note: I am still pretty uncomfortable using textbooks that talk about "we" and "us" referring to the United States and its citizens. I'm sure these kids get a healthy dose of their ancestor's history at their respective Korean schools, but it still is a little bizarre.**

I was explaining to them briefly the reasoning behind the Korean war (I'm sure they already knew from Korean classes, but either played dumb for my benefit or wanted to hear the English tale). I was talking about how the Soviet Union supported the communist North Korea and how the United States supported the democratic South. This brought cheers from the classroom and praise for the United States.

Unplanned, I then remembered my very own grandfather was involved in the Korean War. I told the class about his participation in the war. With surprised little faces they seem to all simultaneously ask "Your grandpa fought for South Korea?!?!"

With a great sense of pride and a puffed out chest I told them, "well, yes he did support them". The joy that flashed across all of their faces was incredibly contagious. I told them (hopefully accurately...it has been a few years since I heard the story first hand) about his job to fly his plane down close to the ground so he could take pictures.

The job was quite dangerous for him because of the short proximity to the ground he needed to achieve in order to take quality pictures. During this particular mission he was flying through a narrow valley. On his final pass through he was able to get the pictures he needed and ready to head back to the base when he spotted something out of the ordinary approaching fast.

The enemy had strung cables across his flight path and he was now too close to avoid them. With no options he reluctantly plowed ahead as the cables stripped all antennas and external devices vital to communications from the plane. Realizing the plane was still mobile he quickly retreated into the clouds to test the plane's instruments. Deeming the aircraft fit he began navigating back.

The base was surely a welcome sight, but he wasn't out of the woods yet. He had no way to communicate with the tower and vice versa. He circled the area a few times silently communicating to the tower there was an issue. Wisely, ground control cleared the runway granting him access to bring the plane to the ground. Safely, he did.

I'm not sure if I have ever seen the kids so quiet. They stared blankly at me with gaping mouths. I asked if they wanted to see a picture and before I could even pull it up I had twelve kids jammed around my computer monitor smothering me against the keyboard.

I pulled up the known address where I could find the picture I was looking for.

They told me to pass along a message to you Grandpa - Thank you.

Thank you for giving some great social studies material, but more importantly thank you for your service.

If I butchered your story in any way I am so very sorry and please inform me so I can make the appropriate changes.

Summer Vacay!

The first day of our much needed R&R vacation was a complete success. It started out with a 2+ hour catch up session with good friends (parents - Rick and Dee). We headed to Garak Market for our semimonthly visit and unfortunately got a little ripped off by a peach farmer, but it was worth it as they are very juicy and delicious. We then did some "spring" cleaning (as much as you can do for a 400sq ft apartment). Although we were tired, we set out to explore the southern part of our Gangnam neighborhood. We haven't really ventured to the area south of BIS (except for the occasional visit to a yummy wanna-be Mexican restaurant) and have been wanting to check it out for awhile now. Our subway station is slightly north of us so we don't visit the southern area very often. Well, we are so glad that we did. This afternoon/evening we stumbled upon a true gem. Christopher and I saw some trees about three kilometers away from our apartment and decided to attempt to quench our thirst for el natural and check it out. A very hidden doorway led to a beautiful hiking area right within our own neighborhood. After conquering the hike, despite our flip flops, we stumbled upon an outdoor, open air gym. It's complete with weights, stationary exercises, and a community of age 40+ Korean "hikers". We will definitely be returning. There's something about lifting weights while looking out over God's glorious vegetation vs sweating like pigs in the basement of a humid building with no refrigeration.

We know there have been some very exciting Summer Vacations for all of you, such as Florida feats, New England expeditions, Colorado quests, Indiana inquisitions, DC declarations, and Hawaii happenings (my hubs likes alliteration and makes me use it). We'd love to know the other vacations spots you're headed/or have headed to this summer...

Dylan Divorce with Ashley

"Come here Dylan" said Analise with a happy voice. She was happy because she's marrying Dylan today.
"What's the matter?" asked Dylan. he didn't know he was marrying.
"We're marrying, Dylan!" answered Analise.
"What! Married! I can't because I already have a wife!" said Dylan.
"Can you just divorce? I bet she's not kind as me, right? Where is he?" said Analise. She was worried. Just then Dylan and his wife Ashley were knocking on the door.
"Analise, meet Ashley. Ashley, meet Analise." They started to grab each other's hair.
"Stop!" said Dylan. Now he had loved Analise. He asked Ashley to divorce. Ashley was unhappy. But she divorced with Dylan and he married Analise. She kissed his cheek. Analise and Ashley became friends that never fight. Analise once had called Ashley for dinner at their house. Ashley said that the house wall was pretty. They thanked her. Analise understood Dylan and Ashley's love now.

This little story is from one of our favorite 1st grade students, Barbie. She is an incredibly articulate, smart little lady. I gave her advanced 1st grade class a dialogue assignment and this is what she turned in. Apparently you can't indent on Blogger but her assignment was practically perfect with three-finger indentations whenever a new character began to speak. We are so proud of this girl and her excellent English speaking abilities - we're very excited by her drive to constantly read (she checks out three or four English books from our sad little library everyday!). This is just another undeniable reason that reading is beyond important for children.

We were also quite amused by her thoughts on marriage and divorce. Just a few weeks ago a coworker and myself were having what we thought to be a private conversation on marriage and what attracts men and women, when Barbie casually shared her two cents on the topic "yes, married is a little bit hard because when you marry, you lay a baby." Thank you six year old for your thoughts :) It just makes me wonder what she learns from Mom and Dad about what makes a happy, successful marriage. How discouraging it is that a baby like her can have such an apathetic view of divorce. Just another case in point example that children soak up all that they see/hear. This pushes me even more to strive to be one of the constructive role models our children deserve.

Well, we know she has one thing right, you have to be "kind".

Education Gaps

Let me preface this by saying I am not currently in a position with enough knowledge or experience to comment accurately on such matters. Regardless, I can’t help but point out my own experience with and witnessing to the education differences between the private academy of Seoul and North American public schools.

Recently at BIS (our school) we had a new student from Canada join us. He is in the 2nd grade and has spent his entire childhood from birth in Canada. He has Korean ancestral lines and has come to BIS to study and experience the culture for three months while living with his grandmother.

When he got to the school he was very timid and shy (I think because of the language barrier with the other students). I assured him we only speak English at school and he wouldn’t have to worry about that. After about a week and a half he loosened up and his vibrant personality began to shine through.

The principal placed him in the advanced grade 2 class (there are three 2nd grade classes, 2 at about the same level, and 1 for the advanced students) naturally as he was a native English speaker. Lauren and I both figured he would cruise through the lessons and could be a distraction as he would get bored quickly finishing before everybody else. Unfortunately, this did not happen.

As the classes went on it become more and more apparent the student was at a far lower level in reading, math, and writing. Fortunately his speaking skills were basically on par with the other students. This did disappoint Lauren and I greatly though.

Being such novice teachers we are not sure what to think. Is this individual student just at a lower level than his peers? Or, is it the case that education of his Korean counterparts has been more advanced in comparison to his Canadian education (up to this point)?

When we first arrived we were shocked to hear about the kids’ schedules. Going to 2 or more schools everyday on top of daily extracurricular activities such as music lessons, sports, and art academies was commonplace to them. Having a 10-12 hour day of instruction in some way or another was the norm. Furthermore, there seemed to be little to no break between the various mediums of instruction. At times when students didn’t do their homework we would ask them why not and their response more often than not came back as “my mom made me go to bed, it was 12 o clock”.

We couldn’t fathom such a terrible childhood. No time to for play after school, lack of recesses, double or triple hours of instruction, and mounds upon mounds of homework sounds dismal.

On the other hand…

We now have a North American, native English speaking, student in our school who is far behind his peers on this side of the Pacific in terms of academia. Was the education system he learned in too lax? Could he be pushed harder to learn more? Or, is it the individual student who is struggling, as opposed to the system? These Korean students are at a much higher level in nearly all subjects…not to mention bilingual and surely better at speaking Korean than they are English.

I’m still very unsure of what to think. On the one side it is truly amazing to see what these children are capable of. Their brains are so incredible and they can retain so much information it is inconceivable for me. Let’s throw as much as we can at them, see what sticks. I’m mean surely they’ll be thankful for it in the future. Trying to explain to them right now how incredible it is that they know two languages is like telling a fish you’re so happy it can swim.

Yet, are they happy? They constantly complain about having too much school and too much work. At first I thought, “yeah, yeah, every kid says this”, but then I realized they are saying this while not knowing any better. Children in North America say this because they can compare it to times during the summer when there is NO school, or the long afternoons they have after school. These Korean children are saying this not even aware of another lifestyle. Maybe it is WAY too much? Maybe we are slowly killing the kids (Korea leads the OECD countries in suicide rates).

It is clear right now to me there is not a solution. All I know is that children have extraordinary learning capacities and are capable of commandeering complex communication lines with half the effort of someone twice their age. When and if God blesses us with children we hope we’ll have the wisdom to find the balance between excessive free time and harnessing their learning abilities.

Dictation Fail

FAIL: to fall short, to be or become absent or inadequate, to be unsuccessful

Chris and I follow failblog.org daily. If you haven't been there...please check it out. It's a hilarious site that posts funny pictures and videos of things that fail. Whether it be poorly thought out advertisements, unsuccessful inventions, or a simple picture that captures a moment in time when somebody decided to shut their brain down, this website never ceases to make us laugh. It may be at the expense of other people's mistakes but I like to think that if they saw themselves on failblog, they too would crack a smile.

This is why when I went to the library the other day to make some copies, I had to immediately turn around and run to my husband's classroom informing him about the following sign I saw posted at the entrance of our school.



Our principal, whom we love dearly, had posted a sign calling out all of the children who failed their dictation tests. She came up to talk with Chris and I as we were gawking at the fact that this sign could even be posted. She started laughing and said that when the students see the sign they will hopefully feel shame and study for their next exam. We just thought it was so funny and opposite of how we do things in the US. Our way of encouraging students is less about bringing the kids down but more about lifting them up. It seems like today in the US, we walk on eggshells as to not harm a child's emotional confidence. We don't want anyone to be embarrassed or shamed. I remember times in college when I couldn't even figure out my own score because there were so many secret codes and passwords to remember. Everyone is so careful not to invade anyone's privacy. In Korea, it is the opposite. The principal is constantly publicly announcing student's scores no matter what end of the scale they are on. Often times I see children grab their tests and run back to stuff them in their backpacks before anyone can see the embarrassing answers they had thought were correct. Christopher even had one kindergartner who burst into tears after other students laughed at his spelling score. I have children who beg me not to announce the scores in class and then other children who seem like they will have a heart attack if they don't know who scored the highest.

Chris and I have been trying to find a happy medium between these two ways of thought. We want to encourage the students to do their best, not by harshly harming their confidence and shaming them in front of their peers, but also not without instilling some friendly competitive nature. This is one of the struggles we face teaching in general, and in teaching in a completely different environment than what we are used to.

Lots of Spots

So Jupiter class is working on their Short O sounds this month. Part of their homework was to memorize one of the Short O books that we are reading in class. This was assigned by the principal (not myself seeing as I don't think it's necessary that children of five memorize books) but needless to say, it was pretty dang adorable. They each had to "present" their book to the class on Friday. I couldn't be happier with how they did. I graded on accuracy, pronunciation, eye contact, and voice expression - each child did a fantastic job! After everyone presented, I decided to capture some of the performances on video. This is one of our favorite kids reciting Lots of Spots. He is much more relaxed, knowing he is not being graded on this performance, so his pronunciation is a little off which makes it super cute. (I've included the actual words since he is a little hard to understand to the untrained ear)

Lots of Spots

Moppy has a spot.
Floppy has a few spots.
Dottie has lots of spots.
Moppy and Floppy want more spots.
Dottie dips a mop in paint.
Dottie drops spots on top of Moppy.
Plop, plop, plop.
Dottie drops spots on top of Floppy .
Plop, plop, plop.
Now Moppy and Floppy have lots of spots!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dilVofz6qI

PS...check out how Jun congratulates his friend for a job well done at the very end...too cute!

Earthlings

A Walk in the Park

We think Spring may have finally arrived in Korea! Chris and I were able to spend a very relaxing Sunday afternoon at Olympic Park this past weekend. Apparently, this was the plan for thousands of other Seoul residents because the park was packed. People watching has become one of our favorite activites since we've been here and Olympic Park was the prime spot to get our watch on. Although we saw many very interesting people, our favorite was a very tortured Cocker Spaniel. I can honestly say that every dog I have seen in Korea to date has been wearing clothes. This poor dog not only wore a hoodie, but also a diaper, and elfin shoes. It was obvious the poor thing hated his life. This is the best picture we got.


After walking several different paths, we decided to take our watching to a bench and relax our feet. We bought some delicious corn dogs and found the perfect bench to soak up some much needed sun. Within ten minutes of sitting down, we got a lovely surprise. Out of all of the millions of people in Seoul we never expected to see anyone we knew at the park, and who decided to stop literally right in front of our bench? Sophia, from Jupiter class! I couldn't believe my eyes! I jabbed Chris in the side and told him it was Sophia and of course he said "oh no it's not, it's just someone who looks like Sophia". Now I was pretty positive that it was Sophia because I have labeled her as "my favorite student". She is the cutest little kindy who has such a boisterous personality; the last time I had seen her she had her arms wrapped around me and was giving my belly a million kisses saying "I love you, I love you". I said her name and nothing happened, I said it again and still nothing. Finally, I got her attention (they were only ten feet away) and she looked up, right at me, direct eye-contact. There was nothing, her face didn't change at all. She just stared at me expressionless. So of course, I was completely embarrased and realized that Chris was once again right. Then her mother in broken English said that her name is Sophia, ah ha! I was right! But still no reaction from Sophia. Chris and I quickly got up and introduced ourselves to her parents as Mr. and Mrs. Haws from BIS. They obviously knew who were and seemed so happy to meet us. We got down to Sophia's level and tried everything we could to get her to say something to us. Nothing. Fail. She didn't make a peep (even in Korean). We had a short conversation with Mom and Dad through 8-year-old sister, Julia (she spoke beautiful English) and then parted our ways. Chris and I were so bummed Sophia didn't talk to us, we were also embarrased and didn't want her parents to think they were wasting their money on English school when she doesn't even speak any. A few minutes later Sophia and Julia came running up to our bench - redemption! I knew Sophia was obviously running back to tell me how much she loved me. Wrong again, they each gave us a bottle of grape juice, which was incredibly sweet, but still no words from Sophia. Her parents came back and asked for our picture and of course we got one too. Still no words from Sophia, we barely got a smile from her. Fortunately, we did get a wave goodbye.


I went straight into Jupiter on Monday morning to talk to that girl. As soon as I walked in the door, Sophia, along with all of the other children, ran up to me. With her arms wrapped around me, Sophia began to kiss my belly like usual. She was so excited to see me that she practically knocked Nicky, the smallest of the bunch, over while he was attempting to reach up and kiss my lips (what's up with all the kissing in this country?). Well, Sophia was definitely not quiet this time. She quickly rambeled off something in Korean to the other children. They all started laughing and jumping and saying "Teacher, you see Sophia at park!". Sophia then said, "I'm so happy" - aw, she speaks! I guess this teaches me to not be so shocked when I see a child outside the classroom and they don't speak to me. The idea of us teachers being anywhere other than at their school is just too much for their precious, little brains.

Walk Home

Fortunately, the distance between BIS, our school, and our home is only a 10 minute walk. The streets of our neighborhood get pretty crowded during rush hour. We've been told that Gangnam-Gu (our district) has the widest streets in all of Seoul. We find that hard to believe.

Here is what it looks like during a short stretch of our walk home.

Anna's Birthday

Today we had a birthday party for one of our Kindergarten students, Anna. Here are a few pictures, the first one is all four of us English teachers and Anna. The second is us four teachers and all the kids from Earth, Jupiter, and Universe, the three kindy classes.

Career Possibilities?

My husband is a wonderful teacher. It has been so amazing to watch Christopher develop his teaching style over the past three weeks. He was so nervous going into this job but I truly have seen him do a 180 to be completely comfortable in the classroom and with the students. The kids just light up whenever they see Mr. Haws – they gravitate towards his easy-going personality. Chris is able to grab their attention with humor and they couldn’t love it more. We’ve noticed that our students are very physical and are constantly offering hugs and wanting to hang on you and that’s exactly what they do to Chris. They love that Mr. Haws is a jungle gym that also makes them laugh. I have had to interrupt Chris’s classes on several occasions and every time it seems like he has the students’ full attention and they are really enjoying the lesson. Quite a few students have even told me that math with Mr. Haws is their favorite class and I could not be more proud. I know his teaching style is a little different than mine, well at least it is according to one third grader who said to me “you so contrast from Mr. Haws, you have very many, many laws.” Even though we’ve only been here just short of a month, I can tell that Christopher is great at teaching and I’m so excited to see how the rest of the year goes.

Cheers to Chris – you’re doing a great job!

Is Having Favorites Allowed?

Koreans refer to Jupiter as the Wood Star based on the Chinese Five Elements that describe interactions and relationships in phenomena. Jupiter is considered to be at the "sprouting" phase of these interactions. I definitely see this "sprouting" constantly occurring in my favorite class at BIS, Jupiter.

Eight, wonderfully unique, 5 year olds make up this kindergarten class that I have quickly come to adore. After my first class with Jupiter, I went straight to Mr. Haws's classroom and told him to "watch out for Jupiter, I hate them." Since then, my whole perspective on the class has changed - I look forward to any time I get to spend with them and can't imagine not knowing their sweet personalities. Don't get me wrong, they are definitely a challenge but they are a challenge that I want to face head on. It has only been two weeks and I have already seen the "sprouting" taking place in them. They went from not being able to pronounce their English names correctly to enunciating every syllable perfectly, plus they now push in their chairs before leaving for breaktime...huge improvement!! I can't wait to see them "bloom" over the next few weeks and months.

I was able to get all of the children in one place for a picture but believe me, it was not easy. Can you guess who the biggest trouble maker is?

The Daily Adventure

Our daily schedules are pretty crazy at BIS. There are four full-time English teachers who are responsible for teaching 170 students seven subjects. We each have six or seven different classes per day. Each class lasts 45 minutes and has 6-12 kids. Nearly every class, even within grades, is at different English level. Preparation has been key since there are so many classes to plan and organize. I still don’t know how I’m going to keep them all straight. The picture is our class schedule. Christopher is C and I am L.

Subjects:
RDB – reading
Language
Math
Social Studies
Science
Trophies – more reading
Vocabulary
R/C – reading comprehension
Writing

A Korean teacher teaches Phonics for the kindergarten children. I substituted this class yesterday and loved it!! There is just something about teaching children alphabet sounds for the first time. They are absolutely precious and it’s amazing to see the way their face lights up when they “get it”. It’s also pretty cute listening to them trying to distinguish between the ll sound and rr sound ;)