Vacation Coming to a Close

Tomorrow I will have my first class of the random week in which my students return to school as 4^th and 5^th graders for testing and who knows what (not me!) before graduating. Then they get three more weeks off and change into 5^th and 6^th graders. It’ll be my last week with my hellion-fifthies, and just a bump up for my fourth graders.

I wonder if I’ll still like them when they’re 5^th graders, or if they’ll just turn into the assholes I’ve come to know as Oh (5) – bahn!? Not sure exactly what will happen for the next week. All I know is that they’re coming back. What am I expected to teach them? I’m sure they’d say, “make it fun,” if I asked them, which mostly means torture for SusanTeacher, struggling to find something everyone can learn from. I’m expecting Chaos, dreading it, really. I’ve been running into various gaggles of students in the neighborhood—one of the perils of living right near my school—over the past few days. They usually grab at my back or shout my name and/or Sansangnim/Sam in surprise and delight, like only a kid can do when they see their teacher hanging out like an anomaly in the real world…what??? Then they try to remind me how I know them—as if there’s oh so many venues for me to choose from! They bow to me, and then they stare all silly-like into my eyes, as if they’re waiting for me to dismiss them. This is pretty funny to me, because they never wait during class time for me to dismiss! So I tell them “goodbye, have a good time,” and they bow again and prance off, happy, excited. I try my damndest to go a different direction than them, even if I had intended to go the same way, so we’re not forced into extra-awkward–and stressful for them—conversation that usually dissolves into tiny mouth-covered giggling or friend-punching.

I love-love having conversation with my kids outside of class. Especially because they are actually happy about seeing me; it reminds me that maybe I’m doing something right as a teacher. And extra-specially I love when they tell me about stuff—or trrryy.

Like,

“my little sister…” and she pushes at the nose of a little girl standing three inches shorter next to her.

“…wheya ah yougoing…”

“…vacation good…huh?”

“My mom…hairstylist…”

“Comedy-yan…sign! Yogio…mmm…nine—shirty”

I found last week out that Sam, the spiky haired kid with the big head—and one of my best students in 5^th grade—lives in the building next to mine, and his moms hair salon is directly east adjacent of my home. I find him occasionally walking with his mom in the cold mornings, and he waves his hands at me frantically, insanely like a clown. I say “hello, Sam” and “anyanghaseyo” to his mother with a quick bow. And now, I am uneasily aware of the quantity of students that reside in my direct vicinity, I feel like I have to be more careful about how I act in my day-to-day life. Not that I’m really all that outrageous to begin with. It does, however, mean no more walking around my sunroom in my underwear, or talking loudly on my roof at whatever hours, or…other stuff. It’s not all that much of an inconvenience. At least I know I know the kids who are shouting at me, ‘cause they’d be doing it anyway. And then I can stop and let see if they’re paying attn in class, kindof like a little impromptu pop-quiz, eh?

They're so cute when they're on-task...