the good and THE BAD DAYS

So, it was bound to happen right? With so many wonderful things, people, and experiences, I was bound to have a bad day. Well that day was today. It started off well, opening a Korean bank account, grocery shopping for breakfast, and applying for my alien registration card. So far so good, but today was my first day of teaching. I met with my head instructor at the school early and went over the procedure of conducting class as well getting acclimated to the school and its facilities.

Well 4 o'clock came around and class was to begin. My first class was Memory English (I had enjoyed this more than the other during training). What a disaster, things definitely did not go as I had planned: When called on kids were silent without knowing answers to the questions I was talking about. This started a chain reactions of issues which would progress throughout the class. I had to pry at them more for answers and show them how things were done. I started to lecture too much instead of actively involving them and keeping them engaged, I was losing the kids and I was losing the time schedule. Things taking longer and not being able to progress through the lesson caused me to try and hurry though the topic at hand and make up for my falling behind thus crippling my teaching them effectively. It is surprising how fast 3 hours can go by even when you feel like you have just been running into a wall over and over.

7 o'clock, the next class begins; these kids are more advanced hopefully I can manage the class better. Much better, they actually know what im talking about, this makes my job so much easier. While still rusty since it is my first time teaching this class I feel like im doing a pretty good job until we progress further on. I forgot to go over a part of the lesson with them properly which comes back to bite me in the ass later and have difficulty explaining to them how do do certain things. Im lecturing too much, im losing them, im slipping in the schedule. I get through everything that needs to be done but I feel it was done in a sub-par way.

The bell rings, its 10 o'clock and the kids run out of class. I am exhausted, my head is killing me and now i need to evaluate my performance for my head instructor to give me feedback on tomorrow. All i want is to go home and forget about what happened.

There is a saying that I couldn't help but think of on the subway ride home. Those of us who CAN'T do: teach. Well if this is any indication of anything, I absolutely feel as if I CAN DO. Tomorrow is another day and new students, hopefully its a better one.