Thailand on Foot

HIYA!

I've been thinking for a while now that educating children is like hammering a block into a round hole. Bam bam bam, pound, smash, bang, bang, bang. Violent, in a way.

I can understand why it "needs" to be this way, but it sure seems incredibly unfortunate. Seems there is enormous diversity among children (and of course adults). So to try to squeeze everyone into any one way of understanding, thinking, speaking, and acting seems harsh and severe. You see the effects in classrooms. Some kids enjoy the lessons, other hate them. Most are sort of in the middle, conforming to the concept of "Bell Curves".

I know there are other ways and I'd sure like to work with something, and of course, get better results than what I'm currently getting. My students are enjoying lessons a bit more than before, but I don't feel they're learning more. They enjoy the games, card games and bingo mainly. They're are a couple of games that I've dreamed up that are big hits but I only use them with the littler kids.

What I want is some way to get kids interested. That may mean to give them something they themselves decide they want to learn, or, I don't know. My boss says we can change the curriculum at the end of the year so I don't want to try to make lots of changes just now. I'm reading about learning and making small changes but I don't want to do anything major until the end of the year. I don't have lots of time between classes so lengthy planning for each class is impractical. I do of planning for several classes before I start my first class of the day, but I don't usually prepare for the later classes of the day. Time. I don't want to go in so early to really extensively prepare. So, a book that kids like would be great. And various other materials.

I've been teaching some card games but without the betting. We've played Go Fish, a game that I made up, and most recently, Black Jack. Kids love these games. I want to give them new ones so we can learn new language.

Had a speech contest today at the local Ramada Hotel. 50 or so kids from 7 schools got together at the five-star hotel for a few hours. A Canadian guy and I were the judges. Had a pretty good time and the kids from my school were generally pretty good. I get along pretty well with most kids. Especially since I introduced more games, more when I started the card games, then most recently when I started giving the kids "noogie" (I learned from Saturday Night Live years and years ago), which is knuckle taps on their heads, just for fun. They love it.

The curriculum and the books I'm supposed to use are way inappropriate. Apparently the situation at my school is typical in Korea.

Troy.

My lifeline at the temple used to call the head monk at the temple "my monk". I chuckled the first time I heard it. She now says "the monk" though I tell her that there's a kind of charm, something special about saying "my monk" though I don't say this when talking about the monk. I don't feel that close. It seems like a real term of endearment.

Anyhow, a couple of weeks ago she told me about this website. www.koreanbuddhism.net I've been reading it, slowly. Several days ago I was looking for a Dhamma Talk to listen to when I came upon this one. http://www.koreanbuddhism.net/hwadu/content_view.asp?cat_seq=3&content_seq=457&page=1

I scrolled up and down to find a link to listen but didn't find one. Instead I found a picture of "my monk". My eyes bulged and I smiled.

Read it if you're interested.

Just today I found these other two. The first is some biographical information. The second regards fasting and meditation.

http://www.koreanbuddhism.net/master/priest_view.asp?cat_seq=12&priest_seq=93&page=1

http://www.koreanbuddhism.net/life/essay_view.asp?cat_seq=25&content_seq=467&priest_seq=93&page=1

He doesn't speak more than a tiny bit of English so for sure these are translations. I don't know for sure but I suppose these are all there are of his teachings in English. I'll ask.

I asked my friend if they believe "our monk" is enlightened and she said yes. I myself don't feel anything special around him but do see him as a generous person. You need to be around someone intimately to get a better sense of whether or not they are enlightened.

Last Sunday he invited me for breakfast, at 6:30. I've decided to go tomorrow morning, Sunday, Nov. 19. Rice porridge and I don't know what else. Vegan for sure. All the food is vegan and most or all of the vegetables are grown at the big garden next to the temple. The garden is all organic too.

Troy.

HIYA!

It's getting so cold. So cold. The jacket I bought a while back on eBay isn't doing the job. It wasn't advertised as a warm weather jacket, but since it's waterproof and windproof, and a ski / snowboarding jacket, I thought, it's gotta be warm. Plus, it was only $45! Well, now I'm hunting for something else.

I was online a few days ago looking for "vegan jackets" when I eventually got to Patagonia's website. There are several jackets that they have that I'm interested in. Most are about $260.

I really like Patagonia's environmental things. Just say "things". And the only two animal products they have are non-chlorinated wool, and down. I called and talked with a lady there and she said the down comes from birds that are not plucked while they're alive. They're killed for other purposes and the feathers are a by-product. Well, I don't want that either. There are plenty of synthetic things, which of course, have their own drawbacks, but, well, we all gotta choose something. I make my own choices based on my own views and understandings.

Then a couple of days ago I went shopping at the local outdoor market. I stumbled on some winter pants. $15. I figured I'd try them. Wow! I love them. Well, with reservations.

When I sit down there's a feeling of warmth on my butt. I always wonder if someone had just been sitting on the chair and made it warm! Yesterday at work I inadvertently brushed up against the wall and felt a warmth right there. So I touched the wall to see if it was warm! Nope. Can't explain it. But I'm pretty warm with these things on. One possible explanation is the static cling. I've noticed a few times there is static cling. I wonder if this is part of the reason for the warm feeling. And just what is static cling and why does it happen? Is there any reason to be concerned with static cling? I've long wondered about these two questions.

Then a couple of days ago I saw some winter jackets on the street. $5! $5! I didn't look at them because I thought that a $5 jacket couldn't be very good. $5! But when I compare $260 and $5, I have to say I'm interested. And I can have the jacket immediately. I'll try them on next time I go to that place.

From what I'm told, this is probably the second warmest place in Korea. The southern part of the island is a bit warmer. A tiny bit.

I'm glad to know that the temple has heaters so we can keep warm while we sit and meditate at night. Otherwise I wouldn't go. We haven't started using them yet but it's not so very cold.

Troy.

HIYA!

And I never got around to voting! I intended to when I got here but it was too early to register online so I waited then never got around to it. Boy. I'd'a voted for some drastic change.

Impeach Bush and Cheney? Sure. Why not.

I've been watching and listening to mostly left-wing media and boy the things they say .... I've been listening to a guy named Noam Chomsky quite a lot and he's got the most damning things to say about the US gov't that I hear regularly. Democracy Now! is one that I watch almost every day on the internet. Boy.

I've long been left-leaning. When I was about 20 years old and the US was doing things in Nicaragua I went to a lecture at a public library in SF. I wasn't sold on all the things that I was hearing and reading at the time but I was really really interested. Then when I joined the Navy and went to the Philippines I read The Philippine Daily Enquirer nearly every day. A columnist in this paper also damned almost every day Americans in gov't, the US military, multinational corporations, and others. I wasn't sold on all that he wrote but was, again, really really interested. Before I quit the Navy, I wanted to change my job and get out of the boring one I was doing. I wanted to be in the intelligence field because, in large part, I wanted to get a better feel regarding all these charges against the US. Never was allowed to get into intel. So I quit the Navy.

Now, I'm pretty much convinced that there's a lot of truth being told on the far left. Sure, some people are making things up. Can't believe everything you read and hear, for sure. But I feel there are lots and lots of things that some influential, powerful people don't want to get out into the general population.

I haven't yet gotten involved in doing anything positive. Don't know when I'll be ready.

Troy.

HIYA!

I teach only Monday to Friday from 2pm to 8pm. I look forward to the two hours that I have off in those times. They're a nice break. I'm the only foreign teacher; there are three others, all of them Korean, one of them is my boss. They don't work as many hours as I do. None of them sees all of the kids. They each take a set of the children to teach English grammar, pronunciaiton, and what else I don't know.

We haven't had a meeting nor have I had any training. There's a system here that I don't know. It's called Butter English but I don't know how it works. I don't know where I fit in. I know pretty well what I'm supposed to do but also know that I have lots and lots of freedom in the classroom. Whatever I see as appropriate.

I don't like the way this school works. There's no coordination amongst teachers as to what each of us teaches. So I'll teach, say, the Simple Past Tense, while another teacher teaches the same class prepositions. This is just an example I made up. I don't know exactly. But if that teacher were also to teach Simple Past Tense, students would understand my lesson much better, there would be more cohesion to the students' English language learning, and, just maybe, they'd be a bit more interested, and might even learn a little. They might become able to use the language. A little bit anyway.

As it is, most of these kids can hardly put three words together. Oftentimes they'll blurt out one or two words, sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don't. There isn't relaly much language ability being demonstrated here. My boss says that the past four years his kids have won the speech contests that are held among all the 7 schools using the Butter English method here on Jeju Island! If these kids are the most capable on the island ...!

I've told my boss my feelings regarding cohesion of the curriculum. About making lessons more coordinated among teachers. He says he'll change everything but has asked me to "endure" things the way they are until the end of the year. He's really busy. But he's honest so I believe we'll make some changes. He has told me the difficulties of making the curriculum more like the way I have told him I think is better. He agrees but says it's really really hard.

It's really frustrating for me when I teach the words "going to do" as in "will do" where the "going to" is not the verb "to go". The kids don't seem to already understand that this is not "to go". Yet explaining it to them and getting them to use it correctly is a real battle. There are other examples like this but never mind.

I've recently been adjusting my teaching style to use the books less. I really don't like them and the kids don't seem to like them much either. But I tell them that we can't play bingo all day every day. I have been using more games though because they're more fun than just drilling and doing the boring stuff all the time. I prefer to use material from the lessons for the game but that doesn't always happen. I'm trying to make the classroom environment more enjoyable for the kids as well as for me.

Plus I see that it's really a good idea for me to be able to speak Korean. Wow. So often I want to explain to them but just can't. I don't want to ask for help from others but have on rare occasions. Things would go so much more smoothly if I could communicate a bit in Korean. This is one of the things I've just started to learn: classroom Korean. Things like "Please read" and other things. I want the kids to understand these simple things in English though. But when I speak English, many of them just don't pay attention. Speaking Korean gets their attention much more. I suppose even that though, will wear off as they get more accustomed to hearing me speak Korean!

Enough, I'll write more about teaching in the future.

Troy.