That's a Class of a Different Color

Seemingly, the highlight of this week is and will be open classes. Let me explain to you about how the open class process works. Open classes didn't use to be so frequent, but President Lee Myung-bak likes his edumacation to be top notch, so he had more put in place so the teachers sweat a little more. This means that I have been a part of seven open classes thus far with at least two more to go by the time the semester ends. That's averaging one every couple of weeks, I think.

Having an "open class" means that parents, teachers, and the administrative staff can come and watch the class and leave feedback for the teacher. The thing that I find so hilarious about open classes is that they are so obviously contrived. They are so different from other classes. Teachers have some say in when their open classes will be, so they choose the best behaved class, their favorite lesson, when it will be, etc. As such, teachers will spend six hours planning the lesson for the open class, then they'll clean the classroom, practice, and even meet with the students beforehand to tell them how to act. The kicker is that everyone watching seems to realize that the classes are extremely contrived, but they just overlook this fact. It's like going to watch a show, honestly. It really is a production. Teachers get all nervous and do strange things they would never do in a normal class just to impress the principal (if he even stops by to watch the class for five minutes). But it seems like none of this even matters. The feedback is usually pretty cursory and I've never seen any bad feedback or anything bad happen in an open class. All it is is a show.

I had one yesterday, and my co-teacher made all these materials and fixed all the little things that were wrong with the classroom that he'd been meaning to fix and generally cleaned up his act. It went pretty well, I suppose. We had probably 10-12 people watching us perform, and the most embarrassing part for me was when I had to speak four Korean phrases to the children and they had to translate to English. Ever since I did this for one of my first open classes, it seems to be a hit. All the teachers want me to speak Korean in class. This is good, as I learn more Korean and get a laugh out of it at the same time.

Speaking of, I had a pretty random experience yesterday. After work, I met a fellow teacher downtown, where we grabbed a bite and some beer and strutted our stuff over to "Who's Bob?," a bar on what has been effectively named "Foreigner Street." We weren't out to get loaded on a Tuesday night, in fact "Who's Bob?" was having a free Korean lesson. My friend had found out about it when he got the bartender's phone number last week. As such, three of us just sat at the bar, had some beer, and learned many helpful Korean phrases for about an hour (you know, the kind they wouldn't teach you in a classroom. I'm talking about bad words and pick up lines if you haven't noticed). Although a little bit unconventional, it was probably the most effective Korean lesson I've had yet. I wrote a good three pages of notes. And she's planning on having a couple more. So, I'll be hitting up "Who's Bob?" again next Tuesday for sammowah. Ok, I gotta go to work, where I will have to view another Native Teacher's open class (which means I don't have to teach today). Whoopie Korean government!