My kindergarten class has gone remarkably well, considering I have ten students in class and haven’t required outside assistance yet. This doesn’t stop my manager from dropping in my class to see how I am doing. As if there is any pressure adding a manager to the mix when I have ten mothers waiting outside the door listening to my every word in case their child begins to cry. I haven’t had a problem yet, and I don’t expect to when he’s visiting either. I know the material like the back of my hand, and I know how to teach a fifty minute kindergarten class.
My manager sat in to see what I was doing. He was supposed to take pictures today and arrange a class room "board" where the students faces would appear on the wall. This gives the students a sense of pride, belonging, and ownership in the classroom. I fully supported this idea. He didn’t actually do this however. He was writing little notes. Perhaps he was counting the number of times I talked to the students in Korean or something. Whatever. No one cried today, everyone had fun, and they knew the words to the song and flash cards when they left. My mission was accomplished.
The first thing I did today in class was teach them the "Hello" song. I had to bring my CD player in from my own classroom just to accomplish this. The kindergarten room doesn’t have it’s own CD player yet. The other teacher that shares the room has told me, "I don’t sing. I don’t do songs." I used to be the same way. Children learn with music incredibly fast, and it’s worth the effort to try with bigger classes that don’t let you do enough one to one conversation. Turn a boring lecture in a song, and they’ll pick it up by the third time you sing the song. It’s really worth all the embarrassment of singing to little children. I can’t carry a tune, but I had all the students saying, "Hello and Goodbye" right away.
All except one little girl. This girl give me a, "You have to be shitting me" face every time I go near her. She’s defensive, and is clearly not interested in learning English at all. I’ve taught her four times, and she has yet to say a word. That’s completely okay as she’s never spoken to any other students either, or caused any problems in class. We have an unspoken (obviously) "Don’t mess with me" agreement going. As long as she doesn’t keep others from learning, she can be quiet as she wants. Eventually she’ll either quit, or start speaking. It’s not like there is much else I can do.
Today, this mute girl was using her new scissors to trim her new furry looking pencil case. She had sharp, non-child friendly "stabby" style scissors she used to cut the pencil case. Since my manager was in the room, I told him that she was the only person remotely problematic in class because she was too quiet. He took it upon himself to try to get her speaking. He sat right next to her and started trying to encourage her. First with English, then with Korean. Nice try. If she doesn’t open up to me trying the same thing for four days, nothing short of bribery is going to get her doing anything.
He simply wouldn’t give up, but she really didn’t seem interested. In fact, she started gripping her scissors in the "Dial M for Murder" Stabbing style grip. With my managers head down low, she could have totally stabbed him in the face. I think she was trying to warn him that the whole "Don’t mess with me or I’ll be bad" contract was in effect. He didn’t seem to notice when I backed off. It would have been ironic if my manager was the only person to cry when she went for his eyes.
