First First Day of Teaching
The school year is in full swing now. My schedule is, on paper, pretty decent this year. I am going to stay optimistic that the year will at least be decent (I’m working on reframing how I see things).
But every first day of the school year, I think about my first first day ever as a teacher. I had spent my entire life to that point swearing that I would never become a teacher. That is until I hit late graduate school.
Approaching graduation
My mentor professor is one of the few men I’ve known who I still hold in high regard. He was an important male role model for me in the aftermath of my father's death. He pushed me to do my first ever lecture, and gave me some great advice on how to speak and carry myself. I had left those times commanding his class with a sense of pride. I could be a professor, maybe, and lecture.
However, as my graduation approached at the end of the fall semester, I began to scramble. I was now in my mid-20s. I had been living a life dependent on those around me and, while I had been furthering my education, it was time for that education to start justifying itself.
But I also wasn’t ready to settle down. I was still in my mid-20s. I was young, single, and eager to escape from the same narrow patch of Post Oak savanna I’d lived in my entire life. I decided to look overseas because, surely, I could find an adventure? That was when I found teaching English in South Korea.
I would be making great money in relation to my cost of living, and it was honorable work.
Settling down in Changwon
Raising the funds, licensing, and timing of the move ate up much of 2014. But in November, I bid farewell to my family, packed my entire life into a single piece of luggage (with carry-on), and left the United States behind for South Korea. I would be entering near the last quarter of the school year to replace the previous native English speaker who had decided not to renew his contract. I thought the past month of spending, signing, and interviews had been a whirlwind, but it was nothing compared to my first 72 hours in Korea.
I was picked up at the airport by an employee at the licensing company and he dropped me off at a hotel for the night. My room came with a bag of toiletries as an amenity; I desperately wanted to brush my teeth after 20 hours on the plane so I rifled through the bag pretty much the moment I was alone. And imagine my surprise when I found condoms in the care package given to me by a hotel.
This was my introduction to love hotels. Explains why the bath had jets in it, I guess.
The next day, I was brought to the central office to meet my co-teacher. That second day was occupied by paperwork, getting my resident alien card, and taking a tour of the school. I would be teaching at two different public schools both about thirty minutes away, but in opposite directions from my apartment. We walked the route together twice. As we parted outside my apartment building, I spontaneously volunteered to make a game for the next day, eager to prove my worth.
I had no idea how to do anything then, though. I went home and put together a simple guessing game: the slideshow would flash a picture, and then the kids would have to name it. There would be one for all six vocabulary words they had learned the previous day.
Let me tell you, when that game ended in like four minutes, I knew I had trouble. My coworker jumped into action before the third graders got bored. I swallowed my emotions and played along, keeping the shame, guilt, and anxiety swelling in the pit of my stomach off my face.
What if I was bad at this?
I debriefed with my coworker after class. She pointed me to a website where I could find premade games and activities that other English teachers had created.
I checked it out and I didn’t like it. Not because the activities were poorly made, but because I wouldn’t be making things myself. I bookmarked it, and threw myself into learning how to teach language because the prep class I had been required to take to even get this job hadn’t prepared my incompetent ass for the classroom. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading over sites and forums to teach myself age appropriate activities for language retention. My contract ended at 4:40, just as the daylight was starting to darken. It was a chilly, windy, overcast day so I bundled my trench coat and wrapped my scarf. You would think, as a Texan, the cold weather would bother me, but I was happier than a pig in mud.
This was my first solo walk home. I had only walked the route with my co-teacher twice, and I had taken a taxi to work that morning.
The path to this school wasn’t a straight shot either. There were a few bends, curves and back alleys that made it somewhat difficult to navigate, with a Korean War monument as the only major landmark.
I made it to the monument and took a bend. After confidently walking for at least ten minutes I realized I no longer recognized where I was. There were multiple bends, but surely I didn’t have to backtrack all the way back to the monument? I decided to press on for a few minutes more. By now, it was starting to get dark, and the temperature was barely above freezing. My hope gave out after 30 minutes. I admitted defeat and hailed a cab.
When the cab pulled over, I told the driver the address. He looked at me quizzically and said something in Korean. At that moment, I knew a total of maybe twenty words in Korean, and none of them came from that man’s mouth.
“English?” I asked.
The man shook his head and pointed over my shoulder. I turned around to see my apartment building looming above me, just two blocks up the street. I turned around to say thank you (one of the words I knew), but the cab was already pulling away.
I made it up to my apartment and turned on the glorious heated floors. I laid on the floor of my apartment in my trench coat, looking up at the ceiling. I still needed to eat, but I didn’t want to get up. I eventually hauled myself up to make eggs and sat down at my computer to try my hand at a new activity.
Did that activity suck? You bet. They all sucked because I was new at it. But every day and every year I try to suck a little less. For the first time in my 12 years of doing this, I don’t feel much trepidation going into a new first day. I might even be looking forward to it. But it’s fun to reflect on the rocky launch I had into education, from time to time.
New year is here. To victory!