Remember back in grade school when you got those random days off during the week for so called “teacher seminars”? Ever wonder what that actually meant for the Teacher? Not me. I was jumping for joy at the thought of Mega Man 2 and beanbag chairs. But for the first time this past Thursday, I had to attend school on Teacher’s Seminar Day.
In preparation for the seminar, the teachers we were divided into groups of four and assigned a book from which to create an original lesson. This needed to include games and activities. Two speakers (called “teacher” and “presenter”) were then arbitrarily chosen from each group to present the material in front of the entire staff– some of whom did not speak English (thrilled, I’m sure those teachers were not). For reasons forever unknown, I was selected to be the presenter for my group, which meant creating an outline and giving a 10 minute demonstration of games for reviewing superlative forms of adjectives. This one is fat. That one is fatter. His is the fattest. Riveting.
Three days prior to the seminar was the due date for handing in our materials to the Academic Director. A few groups forgot to hand in supplements, or missed the deadline altogether, and this did not go over well. Rather than speak constructively to adults in a workplace, she chose to scold us like children in a classroom. Oh shit, someone forgot their homework… Get the stick! Koreans, from what I have seen at least, take things far too seriously at times. The seminar day, I thought, was supposed to be a fun way for us to share ideas. Sigh… Yet another communication error which does not involve the language barrier.
Actually, the seminar day was a pretty good time. It did bother me however, that although they said numerous times we were not going to be evaluated for the presentations, the director closed out the presentations by saying, “Nice job everyone. I will later be evaluating your group’s work and submitting it to the school owners”. Really? Another ‘misunderstanding’ here as well? After our free lunch, we played kickball and drank soju– occasionally stopping to admire cherry blossoms and the mountainous stone facade in the distance. A few beers and a couple of boxes of fried chicken later, we had a three legged relay race. Our team won the grand prize… glass lock tupperware.