Intro to Korea: Uncertainty and Unpredictable

“There’s no reason for you to be here”

That was basically how I was introduced to orientation two weeks after being in quarantine. What a way to be welcomed, yes? Haha. Before I arrived in South Korea I had been told that teachers working at centers were told little information during training, and the information wasn’t wrong. Every class, lecture, training, was all “except if you’ll end up at a center.” I remember asking a question related to centers and the visiting teacher said “I don’t know, but being placed at a center isn’t likely” to which I had to laugh because I was placed at one. Every person I came across said “oh yeah I don’t know much, but everyone wants to work at centers” and yet I knew almost nothing about how they worked. To which many may question my willingness to move across the world to work in a job with little to no description beyond “teaching English” but I was up for the challenge, and it was something I really wanted to do, more than I realized. 

By the end of the training session “except for center teachers” became an almost joke, as those of us placed at centers gathered together in a corner to join in unity and tune out of the meaningless session we were required to go to. We had little to no new information from when we had left our home countries weeks ago. My co teacher had reached out briefly before meeting, but I had no clue who was picking me up, where, or when after orientation because it became clear then that public school teachers and center teachers were under different sections. Joining the teachers placed at public schools, those of us placed at centers arrived at the education center only to not know where our co teachers were and had to wait until they finally arrived some time later (to which I know my family back home will not exactly be thrilled in finding out haha, but gotta live on the edge sometimes, right?) From there I was shuffled into a car and driven to my new workplace and introduced to the few people there during the holiday. 

The center I would be working at was adorable in how it was set up, and I was given my own classroom. The previous teacher had left me a lot of items for apartment life at the school—more than I expected–so in the end I had all the teachers helping me carry it all down and put it in their cars. Which made me feel quite embarrassed as first impressions go, but I was so grateful. 

After getting lost on the way to my apartment, we finally found it, and after a run to Lotte Mart I had the weekend to adjust and clean my new place. And sit at a desk and pretend I knew what I needed to do the following week. We didn’t have classes for the first few days because the school was still on break, but the new teachers were given no direction besides show up, and we didn’t have our textbooks yet, so we had to make do with what we could figure out and learn where everything was. It was just the start of acting like I knew what I was doing and learning on the spot.

And yet, I’ve really enjoyed it. Yes, it’s chaotic with many classes and little prep time some weeks, but seeing the kids is rewarding and I love class time more than the breaks in between. I’m still not that great, and am awful when I have other teachers watching demos or sitting in, but when I teach my class on my own I feel like I can get to know my kids and hope it is a class they can remember as fun and not stressful. These kids work so much, and I want their learning environment to be in an encouraging place, not something that adds more anxiety to their other studies. I’m not sure if I really can make much of an impact, but the way their faces light up when they say hello, or laugh while saying the opposite of what I want them to say, it makes my heart happy.