Obsessed Much?

You have all been asking about how the school and teaching is going so guess it's about time I fill you in. Firstly, Korea is obsessed with Education. Most kids go to school from 8am until 4/5pm and then go to an English Academy for the rest of the night. For my older kids, most of them don't finish class until 10 or 11pm... AND if I give them detention they have to stay until Midnight. When do these kids get time to play? They die for their weekends, and even some kids still have school and academy's on Saturdays. It's just plain mean I tells ya!!

Right now I'm taking over for a teacher that just left, I've this week and next week to finish her classes and then next semester I have my own kids, hopefully a bit younger than who I'm teaching now, and also have my own syllabus and curriculum sorted out! The kids aren't bad, usually tired, I wouldn't blame 'em. But the thing that wrecks my head is that they don't get sarcasm!! So I can't really joke too much with them because they look at me like I've got ten heads! Urgh! I really wanted to try out working in a classroom environment but I think it has made me appreciate working outside alot more. I miss working with horses ALOT! I'm still going to give this a good go and enjoy it while I'm here though! It is defo different!!

One other thing that I've noticed is how safe Korea is. Little tiny kids walk around the streets on their own, they walk to and from school, take buses and even cross large busy roads. Most of my older kids walk home even after class or detention at 11/12pm! Anywhere else there'd be a kiddie snatcher on the corner waiting for them... or at least our parents feared there was, but here there doesn't seem to be any paedophiles floating around with lollipops.

Lots of things get overseen here that would not be allowed back home. An example would be Taxi Drivers with TV's in their car. They scare the shite out of me... Not only do they NOT stop for red lights, they also watch TV while they are driving and they don't care if they have a passenger or not. The only positive things about Taxi's here is how cheap they are. It costs us like 2 or 3 Dollars/Euro to get to most places around us, like downtown.