sad sheep?
... because I'm currently applying to teach in the northeastern United States! This photo is from a rural school in New York, so they COULD be my welcoming committee.
curious, excited sheep?
I'd prefer an urban area, but I'll make do as long as a paycheck is involved. Though I've managed to save a respectable amount of money here, my school loans are beastly. Teaching is my first love, and living my life outside of student debtors' prison is my second. (They have those, right? )
The realization that I've been in a learning position for my entire life sank in over the past several months, as I finally began to gain my footing as a teacher. With less anxiety-producing guesswork driving my lessons, excited confidence came with knowing that students would likely respond well to what I'd prepared. Of course, every school and group of students comes with different needs, but there's a massive difference between the person who walked into Juwol Middle School last February believing she was having an out-of-body experience and the one who's currently leaping along with the students in winter English camp. I just love it when I can include leaping in the lesson plan!
We were leaping to this. It's exquisite.
A further note on classroom content: while planning for this holiday-themed winter camp, my prediction of the boys' (oh, yes, there's one girl too) enthusiasm for Bollywood was an absurd underestimate. They were captivated. We even took some time afterward to list adjectives to describe their feelings about the video: "exciting. colorful, so exciting, wow, so great". On second thought, my surprise over their love of Bollywood was probably silly. We played New Year's Resolution Musical Chairs yesterday, and their song selection was the following:
This video was published one week ago, and there are over 22 million views.
K-Pop is... well, you can decide for yourself.
Trekking back to the subject before the Girls' Generation and Bollywood tangent, all of this means I'll be frolicking in western Pennsylvania for the month of March, and I'd love to see all of you. It also means that if I can't find a job, I could turn around and head back to Korea. It's a great place, and I'm certainly not storming out of here. My experiences have deepened my desire to teach art at a school where I can build on the lessons year-by-year, though I do have an ongoing list of alternative options, all of which include settings with less pervasive K-pop. Ohhhh it's fun when the future's wide-open and gloriously uncertain!
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