Interruption!
My mom's friend Beth (a.k.a. Stretch) left a comment on my Chuseok post with an inquiry about our class sizes. I thought since it might be a question that some of you had and didn't even know it, that I'd share it here. I also know that the comment section can go unnoticed at times. I don't get e-mail updates about comments left, do any of you? Anyways, I didn't want this to get lost under the radar, as my response was pretty lengthy. So, here you go...Beth said...Molly, this is such an amazing record of your time in Korea! The pictures are great, and your stories are fun to read. I'm curious about your class sizes, though -- it seems you have only two students, and other teachers have three or four. How is that? Here, it seems all of those children would have just one teacher.11.10.09 molly said...Thanks for following! I've visited your blog a few times, too. I feel so much smarter having read it. If/When I grow up, I want a vocabulary like yours.I typed out an extraordinarily long comment to your comment and then my internet pooped out on me for a second and I lost it all. Since I managed to collect my thoughts in the process, though, I think I can sum it up better than the first time.Dongbaek, our city, is only 5 years old. Our school is going into it's third year. The growth is imminent, so I think the owners are trying to lay the ground work properly. To do that, they have to keep students separated into groups that fit their age and proficiency level. The word kindergarten is used loosely, students can attend our school from ages 5-7 (4-6 in America) before starting first grade at a public school.Zach and I have the youngest students. His, though, came in already knowing the alphabet and most of the letter sounds. Mine knew nothing. He has four students. Liz has three students that are a year older and are in their second year at our school. Dustin has five students and John has nine. Both are teaching third year kindergartners, but Dustin's are a bit more advanced than John's.Because the private school's here operate more for turning a profit than actually educating, the goal is to keep the parents happy so their kid keeps coming to school. To do that, the class has to be a good fit for their child. Long term, it makes more sense for the school to keep the levels separate even if right now they could earn more money buying pay one or two less teachers.Why do I get the light end of the load? To be frank, it sounds like the teacher I replaced wasn't the best and because its too expensive to fire and hire someone, they just lightened her schedule to where she could kind of handle it. I would venture to guess, hopefully without sounding too pretentious, that in time, the weight will be more evenly distributed. I've already picked up one of John's elementary classes so he could have a planning period. All the kids graduate in March, and then the new school year starts. I'll be interested to see what happens then.I hope that answers your question, without being too verbose. I like being reminded that things that are just common knowledge to me are not to my readers!
My mom's friend Beth (a.k.a. Stretch) left a comment on my Chuseok post with an inquiry about our class sizes. I thought since it might be a question that some of you had and didn't even know it, that I'd share it here. I also know that the comment section can go unnoticed at times. I don't get e-mail updates about comments left, do any of you? Anyways, I didn't want this to get lost under the radar, as my response was pretty lengthy. So, here you go...Beth said...Molly, this is such an amazing record of your time in Korea! The pictures are great, and your stories are fun to read. I'm curious about your class sizes, though -- it seems you have only two students, and other teachers have three or four. How is that? Here, it seems all of those children would have just one teacher.11.10.09 molly said...Thanks for following! I've visited your blog a few times, too. I feel so much smarter having read it. If/When I grow up, I want a vocabulary like yours.I typed out an extraordinarily long comment to your comment and then my internet pooped out on me for a second and I lost it all. Since I managed to collect my thoughts in the process, though, I think I can sum it up better than the first time.Dongbaek, our city, is only 5 years old. Our school is going into it's third year. The growth is imminent, so I think the owners are trying to lay the ground work properly. To do that, they have to keep students separated into groups that fit their age and proficiency level. The word kindergarten is used loosely, students can attend our school from ages 5-7 (4-6 in America) before starting first grade at a public school.Zach and I have the youngest students. His, though, came in already knowing the alphabet and most of the letter sounds. Mine knew nothing. He has four students. Liz has three students that are a year older and are in their second year at our school. Dustin has five students and John has nine. Both are teaching third year kindergartners, but Dustin's are a bit more advanced than John's.Because the private school's here operate more for turning a profit than actually educating, the goal is to keep the parents happy so their kid keeps coming to school. To do that, the class has to be a good fit for their child. Long term, it makes more sense for the school to keep the levels separate even if right now they could earn more money buying pay one or two less teachers.Why do I get the light end of the load? To be frank, it sounds like the teacher I replaced wasn't the best and because its too expensive to fire and hire someone, they just lightened her schedule to where she could kind of handle it. I would venture to guess, hopefully without sounding too pretentious, that in time, the weight will be more evenly distributed. I've already picked up one of John's elementary classes so he could have a planning period. All the kids graduate in March, and then the new school year starts. I'll be interested to see what happens then.I hope that answers your question, without being too verbose. I like being reminded that things that are just common knowledge to me are not to my readers!
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