Top Five Annoying Things about Students in Korea

I've already pulled the culture card once on here, so I might as well throw a round of Go Fish.

I mentioned this as a venting on my blog, but, come on, we can all relate..

1. Oh-my-god-my-____________-fell-and-I-have-to-get-it-right-now!!!!!!
Picture this. You're teaching class. Your kids have been a bit overly rambunctious and you're pulling your Satan-teacher card to scare them into being quiet. You've done it. They're all listening. You're telling them that whatever-important thing that they need to know _right now_, and, for once, you think you won't have to repeat yourself. Then a kid drops his eraser. Despite the fact that they're doing nothing relating to writing at the moment, the kid goes into a manic frenzy. Of course, it's the kid who sits in the middle of the row, so it's not just a matter of reaching over and picking it up. Oh no, whatever attention you had is now completely lost as the kid leans over his desk and looks forlornly at his lost friend. Then the once-quiet class becomes an eruption of grinding as the kid scoots his desk forward so he can capture his eraser underneath. Don't even think about telling the kid to wait until you are done talking. Oh no. Clearly, possession of the eraser is linked to bodily functions, and the kid NEEDS it right next to him AT ALL TIMES or else his lungs will collapse. The more important whatever it is you're telling them, the more frantic the kid will become if he drops something.

2. Umbrellas
This is probably a cross-cultural thing. When it rains, kids come to school with umbrellas, and they quickly become automatic toys. I think it's worse with kids here because more tend to carry umbrellas (I thank the parents for this). But we've all had it - the sword fights, the pretend machine guns, and, my favorite, whatever you call the game where they trip each other. The annoyance doesn't end with the mischievous ones, either - as umbrellas have no way to independently free-stand, rainy days become a chorus of "clack, clack, clack" as gravity bests the unwieldy objects and they clatter to the ground from their precarious perches. Related to the previous, the kids can't just let them be* - oh no - they need to jump up and fix it RIGHT NOW. No matter what is happening at the moment, they've got to right their umbrella. Because clearly it is a bomb and will explode if they don't fix it immediately.

*Well, 1% of them can, but they are the ones who like to sit on the edges, and their umbrellas are scientifically designed to fall right across my path.

3. Two volumes: 0 and 10000000000
Korean kids have one of two tones of voice. Either they speak at a volume that only certain species of bat can hear (because clearly foreign teachers are bats), or THEY TALK IN ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME. The quiet ones can't be understood - and they're usually insanely sweet, so you feel awful that you have no clue if they're saying "Teacher, I need help with number 5" or "Potatoes and bananas are a terrible combination." The loud ones - well, that's obvious.

4. "TEACHER, FINISHEE!!"
Does this one even need an explanation? Okay, from people back home who are reading this, a few things you should know.. There's a word in the Korean language for "teacher" - it's a very polite term, and that's what they use to address their teachers (they don't call them Ms. or Mr. So-and-so); there's no word equivalent in English, so they just call us "Teacher" - I expected this to be annoying, but it's actually kind of cute (and a bajillion times less annoying than choruses of "Ms. Eagle! Ms. Eagle!"

But I digress..

"Teacher, finishee!" is a whole new level of nails-against-a-chalkboard. I'm not sure if this is something their public school teachers encourage, or a habit that one kid started and the rest picked up on like a cruel Punk'd joke, but for some reason, Korean kids _love_ to announce when they're done with something. It's like a contest between them. You just want to look at the kid and go, "Okay, your point?" but you know that's not polite. My response is usually to tell them what to do next, and they always look so dejected that I'm not praising them for their accomplishment (sorry, but you don't get a cookie for numbering your lines).

5. "Teacher, me! TEACHER ME!!!!"
Remember that saying so shoved down our throats that we lost it's meaning: "Patience is a virtue"? We weren't entirely sure what it meant, but we did know that if we were ever impatient or demanding about something, we had to sit and listen to a long lecture. So, not because we sought to be virtuous or anything (hell no, we just didn't want to listen to our parents), we learned at a young age not to demand what we needed RIGHT NOW THIS INSTANT. Well, kids in Korea have missed out on this one. It is a truth acknowledged by all foreign teachers in this country that as soon as you start giving one student one-on-one attention, you will immediately be interrupted with a chorus of "Teacher! Teacher!" This whole lack of patience manifests itself in many ways. The most common include calling on one student to answer a question and having five other kids shout it out in the nanosecond it takes the initial kid to look in his book to fact check; kids mistakenly thinking you are blind, despite all evidence to the contrary, and feeling that they must shout "ME! ME! ME!" because you are completely unable to see that their hand is in the air; a student asks you a question, and mid answer, another kid "SHOUTS HIS OWN!!"

Oh, and my personal favorite, "Alright, turn to pag----""TEACHER! WHAT PAGE!!"