::A Geek in Korea::

I teach a solitary class of children now. I had to design the curriculum for the class right as the class was starting, and generally have been on my own for the past few weeks doing whatever I want. For Halloween we made masks. Last week we talked about the planets. This week we were going to talk about the Olympics and sports. I had gotten on the bus with plenty of time to get my materials prepared. I already had the lesson ready. All I had to do was make copies for the three students and I would have been ready to teach the entire time.

The bus got stuck in traffic frustratingly close to the stop where I had to depart. Instead of getting me to work with time to spare, it sat in nearly the same spot for 10 minutes and trapped me within sight of the bus stop. If the bus driver would have opened the door I would have been able to walk the distance I had ridden in the time it took to just reach that bus stop not far ahead. I was trapped and needed to hurry to get to my office. If everything went off perfectly, I could make the copies, grab the dominoes I had bought, played a game, and had a great class.

Of course, the copy machine refused to work. I made three copies of the first page and never got another paper made successfully in the teacher’s office. Every time there was a paper jam. The copier can make excellent accordion fans, but it can’t copy in a pinch. I had to run down to the first floor, where thankfully the secretary pool office was still open and make copies there. Then, I ran back up to the third floor, grabbed two sets of games, “Guess Who?” and dominoes, and went up to my classroom.

I thought I needed copies and lots of activities because there are three disinterested students. Turns out that two of the students have dropped the class, or were AWOL. One is going to study math on weekends at another university, and the other disappeared. I just have one student in the class for two hours. He’s a very nice boy, and without his friend harassing him all the time, he was a pleasure to teach. We talked and read about the Olympics. Instead of taking a break, he wanted to study through the break time. We got started playing Guess Who?, and he totally was brilliant at it. He beat me by one question seven out of nine times. I still kicked his ass at Dominoes though.

I thought I was going to have a disaster on my hands, but it was probably one of the more fun classes I’ve had so far. I thought the boy in question was better than he had shown me, and now I know it is true. I have a couple of more weeks, and I hope the other students don’t end up showing.