Students say the darndest things

I was doing a little lesson on time yesterday. First, I we went through some pronunciation stuff, in particular differentiating between "thirteen" and "thirty" and the like. Then we played a game where I called out a time and the students had to draw it on a clock on their little mini-white boards (which are, by the way, absolutely the most revolutionary teaching tool I've found for increasing student participation, understanding, and retention). I would tease students (cheerfully) if they drew, for example, 2:50 rather than 2:15, and their teammates would heckle them until they corrected it. Lotsa chuckles.

Then I started working on alternate ways of saying the times. I wrote on the board, "5:00," asked "What time is it?" and got them to say both "It's five o'clock" and just "It's five." Then I drew up "5:15" and elicited "five fifteen" and, after a bit of work, "quarter past five." Next, as you might expect, was "5:30." "Five thirty," most of them say. Then one wiseass, with a big grin on his face:

"Two quarters past five."

Maybe you had to be there? Anyway, it was awesome. Sometimes I love my job.

Vacation again!

As if the last two and a half months weren't enough, I've just received some good news. Chuseok, the Korea 3-day harvest festival, which in past years has fallen on such lame dates as Fri-Sat-Sun or Sat-Sun-Mon, has decided to fall upon a glorious, vacation-maximizing Tues-Weds-Thurs this year. Add to this the fact that I naturally have Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays off, and I get a 6-day weekend. Oh, and also, the school has decided to give us Monday off as well, meaning I get to tack on one more weekend AND the Friday before it. Might as well count the Thursday afternoon too, since I finish at 3.

So, September 15th to the 26th off. Somehow I feel myself leaning towards resigning the contract. Uh oh.

Thanks, Josh

In order to substantiate the braggadocio from a few posts back, I'd like to relay the following sentence I just overheard here in the office.

Background: We have a common table where we lay all of our worksheets and stuff so that anyone who wants them can make copies. Nobody really knows what belongs to whom.

Niall to Josh: Is this one yours?
Josh to Niall: No, if it looks like someone could really learn from it, it's probably Mike's.

My College Redeems Itself, slightly.

This may come across as a little cocky, but so be it.

As you may or may not know, I generated for myself a fair amount of stress last semester by butting heads from time to time with my boss in the following ways:

Category 1: Things I Was Explicitly Told To Do, But Did Not
-Buy dress shoes and wear them to class. (Instead I wore all-black decent-looking non-stylized Pumas.)

Category 2: Less-Than-Subtle Unofficial Requests I Refused To Grant
-Get rid of my ponytail in favor of a more respectable hairstyle.

Category 3: Less-Than-Subtle Unofficial Requests I Deigned To Grant
-Remove my haphazard beard and 'stache.

Category 4: Unspoken Things I Knew Might Be Considered Inappropriate In The Eyes Of Some But Which I Did Nonetheless
-Shaving only on Sunday nights and wearing a shadow to class during the later parts of the week.
-Not changing my dress shirt or pants or tie between Monday and Thursday (socks, undershirts, and boxers changed as needed), except in cases of spillage or extreme, unbearable B.O accumulation.
-Using the text book only intermittently and in particular skipping anything to do with shopping, fashion, status, and pages where too many people were smiling.
-Talking as much about vegetables as possible.
-Making relatively difficult, thorough, and useful assignments and tests.
-Never yelling at or punishing late or talkative students.

Do I have some totalitarian tendencies? Indubitably!

Am I a curmudgeon? Twice over!

And yet...according to the student evaluations, which were filled out either right before midterms or right before finals, I was the second most popular teacher/professor/instructor in the college. Out of 183. (Seven of the ten English teachers made the top 20, and one of my best friends came in at number one, doubtless due in no small part to our Monday morning oh-shit-what'd-you-plan? sessions).

On a personal level this didn't mean a terrible amount to me, since I am betting the students were basing their evaluations criteria like "isn't too pudgy," "can crack jokes," "doesn't bug me too much," etc. Nonetheless, I feel a small sense of victory for having fought the school when I was told that the students wouldn't respect me if I didn't try to intimidate them with a professorial aura. For once, I was the one who refused to be cynical, and it paid off. And not just figuratively speaking - the week before classes started, we had a department meeting and photo shoot at which the semesterly bonuses were given out. I got third place, worth an extra million won; the award speech and letter cite my popularity with students and my "unique" teaching methods. Just as nice, the two guys ahead of me, who received an extra two and an extra three million, worked hard and also deserved it.

So, hats off to my school for, in this instance, recognizing, rewarding, and valuing hard work and an honest commitment to teaching well and all the other good things I like to think I do. It doesn't necessarily mean I'll resign my contract, but at least I'll feel a little more respected and a little less apprehensive during the semester to come.