welcome to the monkey show

you know those days where all you want to do is crawl back under the covers and give up?

today was one of those days.

first, let me give you a little behind-the-scenes peek at what i was up against today.

for the last month or so, my korean co-teacher and i have been feverishly preparing for our "Open Class." this 40-minute class is comprable to getting observed by the principal while teaching in the states... but 10 times more stressful because people who equate to the level of the superintendent, principal, and vice principal  are all in attendance, plus a smattering of other teachers/adults who feel like watching you squirm. being foreign and having most of the cultural nuances lost on me, i still understood this "Open Class" was a big, seriously serious deal (such a major deal that i am capitalizing it here in my blog).

my poor co-teacher edited and re-edited the lesson plan daily. she arranged for us to teach in front of the absolute best-behaved fourth-grade class in the school. she had us run weekly practices of our updated lesson plans in front of these compliant fourth graders. i was a little miffed by the fact that i didn't get to contribute to any of the creative processes behind our lesson plan - she did it all and expected me to "just memory the script" word-for-word. no deviations. but i figured, fine. i'll be the well-behaved native teacher and do as i'm told.

this way of thinking became more difficult as our day of reckoning approached.

yesterday, my co-teacher arrived, exhuberant, to our last "Open Class" practice. she had rented out a costume for me to wear on the day of our presentation. she pulled out a glitter-covered top hat and a sequined tuxedo jacket, complete with coat tails dangling down to the backs of my knees. she then told me that i will wear this outfit while doing a magic trick in front of the class.

ok... fine.

but that's not all.

i was to wear this outfit for the entire duration of our lesson.

i was also to hide somewhere in the classroom at the start of the class, and wait for students to call my name.

then, i would pop out of hiding like a jack-in-the-box, and proceed to wow them with my magic trick and shiny getup.

i was also to wear black for the Open Class, because it would look best with my costume.

are you kidding me?!?!

there is a stereotype over here in south korea, that when a native English-speaking teacher comes along, he/she isn't a "real" teacher. he/she is just here to play games and goof off with the kids. we babble our strange, inconsistent little language with exaggerated motions, and act like puppets for the "actual" teachers: the korean ones. recalling a term that we used often at camp, i'd say us English teachers are the monkey-show.

there's only one problem. i don't want to be the monkey show. i'm not at camp anymore. i'm a university educated teacher. i'm not a genius, but i know my stuff. and when i looked through our Open Class lesson plan, i saw all sorts of problems, inconsistencies, and mistakes, but i let it go because i trusted that my teacher knew what she was doing. but this? this outfit, this hiding, this magic trick? this all put me majorly over the edge. i felt insulted.

and yet, come tuesday AM, where could you find me?

hiding behind a bookcase in a magician's costume, waiting for my cue to hop out and do a magic trick.

on this morning, the day of the Open Class, i woke up in a miserable mood, with my right eye swollen from mosquito bites that happened in the night (as said in a previous post, i have a freakish reaction to these bites and i felt like i resembled quasimoto or at least one of the mole people on this particular morning). on my walk to school, my new black tights developed a noticable run in the knee. i knew, then and there, that today was not going to be good.

so why did i go through with it? why did i put on the outfit and play into the stereotypes i so despise?

because i'm trying to get over myself. i'm trying to quit being so prideful, and go with the flow. my american-raised mind keeps telling me i know a better way to do things, and maybe sometimes i do, but i'm a guest in this country. i was invited here to teach, to instruct, but also to learn. i don't understand their customs or culture in the LEAST, and so i need to continue to take the humble posture of observer, learner, and associate while i'm here. i need to respect that my coteacher has taught in this system, in this country, for years, and she will continue to do so well after i leave. she understands the culture of the korean school system better than i ever will.

it wasn't easy, but i swallowed back my pride, and jumped out behind that bookcase with all the enthusaism i could muster.

in the end, part of my motivation for going through with the "monkey-show" routine also came from my years at camp:

you do it for the kids.

for their smiling faces and shy giggles and wide-eyed surprise. for their rapt attention, for making learning fun (these poor kids see no end to the hours upon hours of classrooms, of public and private school, of private tutoring, of homework, & so the break of even a hokey magic show is welcome relief in their eyes), for their questions in korean and their murmur of delight at the end of the trick.

in the end, our "Open Class" went okay. i couldn't really interpet the response of the smooth-talking, pompous Office of Education guy (who's hand i accidentally shook in my nervousness, oops!), but at least our friendly VP gave us the thumbs-up and repeatedly said "excellent" so i'll take that as a good sign. and maybe the best part, as my coteacher said, is that it's done. sigh. just another day in korea.