Orientation at an awesome new school!

Today is Sunday March 2nd and I had one of the best days in Korea yet!  I’ve been here for 6 months and just got out of a contract with an awful school on Thursday.  We had tons of late paychecks, stolen pensions and a huge web of lies.  That doesn’t even count how they stopped paying rent on 5 of our apartments 4 months ago leading to an early eviction for some or attempts to renegotiate my contract and not pay me for my first two days.  But enough of that since as of last Friday I was fully paid and am stoked for my new job!

I meet my new 4th grade students bright an early tomorrow morning and had an amazing orientation today.  My 4th grade team includes 2 veterans, Mike and John and another rookie, Clare.  We clearly have the best team of any grade and are all excited to teach the little buggers with song, dance, jokes and of course legit lessons.

Today I went over my schedule, learned a lot about some of the inner workings of the school and was led through my first ~week of teaching.  My co-team leaders developed a powerpoint with lots of ice-breaker and administrative things to get me started.

I’ll go into more detail as the weeks go by but my classroom is hooked up with a Smartboard and lots of books, including a Roald Dahl set (who happens to be one of my favorite authors!)  Each grade has a set of Samsung tablets and I get one assigned to me tomorrow, not to mention tons of other resources at our fingertips with a great curriculum split up into 6-7 week modules.  In addition to all the daily perks at my new job I got a decent raise and have shorter hours with more vacation compared to my old hogwon, CPIS.

Its still Korea so some of the organization is lacking.  It was pointed out a few times that we stay on top of things even though we might have to roll with the punches due to some late Korean planning.  The transition from a privately run POS to a phenomenal elementary school couldn’t have been sweeter.  Well, that’s all for now, off to bed to greet my new 4th graders!