::A Geek in Korea::

Last summer break I taught this nice, cute, small boy with a decent English vocabulary.  He had a great sense of humor and wanted to know everything about my personal life. I’m not comfortable sharing a lot of details with students, because most of the time they don’t remember anything accurately. I’ve been teaching students for years that don’t remember I’m married. The more I tell them, the more potential misunderstandings that can arise. This boy, in particular, was interested in my age and marital status. I told him I was married, and he stopped asking me about it.

He is a bit unusual in that he is the youngest child in his family by a very large margin. He’s only twelve years old, while he has three sisters in their late twenties. It seems his mother had refused to give up trying to have a children until she had a son. As such, he’s the baby of the family and can say and do anything he wants. He’s also his mother’s favorite, so he must spend a lot of time with her. I think he’s picked up a few things his mother worries about and has started to try to find a solution for her.

He told my foreign coworker, who is single, his sister’s phone numbers. He said that my coworker should call one of his sisters and go out on a date. He wants them to hook up so he can hang out with his teacher when he isn’t at school. This is both touching, and also really creepy at the same time. My coworker couldn’t believe that this young boy was telling him to hit on his sisters.  The boy kept saying, “They are all SINGLE! They aren’t MARRIED! Call them PLEASE!”

Inappropriate? Just a bit.

I was in the bathroom, and walked in when this boy was using a urinal. I’m not comfortable using the second urinal when there are children next to me in the room. This is definitely the kind of student that is peeking at things he should not be. I walked straight to the stall and went to open a door. He said, “Oh teacher, will you use the stall to go to the bathroom? You shouldn’t. You should use this urinal instead. The stall is for sitting down only!”

I told him that I was a teacher and an adult, and that gave me the privilege of being allowed to use any bathroom facility any way I saw fit. He seemed really disappointed I wasn’t going to be his piss pall and use the urinal next to him. He not only waited me to finish what I was doing, but continued to chat with me in the bathroom while I washed my hands and walked out. That’s just….icky.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: weirdstudent, pisspall, teaching