The First Day of School

Today was the first day of school at Daejin Middle School, and it was fairly uneventful. I heard that the first day of school is particularly chaotic here in Korea because the teachers don’t know what classes they are teaching until they start, but it seemed pretty smooth and well organized at my school. The other native English teacher and I spent the day in the office trying to prepare lessons for next week, and we’re going to be observing classes tomorrow and Friday before starting our teaching in earnest on Monday.

At the start of the day all of the new teachers, Korean, American, and Irish alike were ushered downstairs to the school’s broadcasting booth (seriously, they have a whole T.V. studio next to the admin office) where we were introduced to the students. A quick bow in front of the camera and it was back to the English teachers’ office where we spent the rest of the day. At the end of the day there was a quick faculty meeting and then the native teachers went home.

Lunch was interesting, though. The teachers eat at the same tables as the students.  We had Duk-poki, kimchi, soup, and fried roll of noodles. It was pretty decent considering it only cost 2500W. Interestingly, the students clean the cafeteria at the end of lunch. For that matter, a student cleaning crew came in after the last period of class and mopped our office. Talk about a place where US schools could save a few bucks.

Anyway, the first day of my CAREER IN EDUCATION has passed. Kinda anticlimactic J.