So yesterday was our first day of school and wow did it fly by. I have 18 students at the moment, and they're all terrific. Yesterday they were all terribly quiet. One girl asked "How long is your contract here?" and when I answered "Two years, and then we get to decide if we want to go back home or not." She pleaded, "Please stay!" It was really cute.
The students are incredibly smart. The work ethic here for education is totally different than back home, though that might be partially because some of the Korean families beat their children if they don't study hard enough. We heard about a student who, if he went to be before 1am, his mother would wake him up screaming at him about how lazy he was. It's really a different culture. Roughly 60% of my classroom population is Korean, and the other 40% are Filipino, or Filipino/American. The families are extremely respectful. Korean students will hand me their papers, or anything else with both hands as a sign of respect. Korean parents offer slight bows when passing along the corridors. Filipino parents and students always seem to be smiling, and are extremely pleasant as well. I have no 'white' students in my classroom. Melissa has one or two. We're beginning to be OK with being the minority, getting used to the looks strangers give us as we walk through town and our neighborhood.
More to come on this post in a bit, but we need to go for now.
-Jordon and Melissa.
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