Tuesday, 11:30am.

“Hi Caleb Teacher.”

“Hi! How are you doing?”

“Um…I am doing okay.”

“Oh? What’s up?”

“Um…I…um…말 너무 힘들어. (the way to say this is so hard…)”

“What do you mean?”

“Um…I sorry if I always…dark. I sorry if I always angry look?”

*pause*

“That’s ok! I know you are trying.”

__

Wednesday, 9:35am.

“Caleb Teacher!”

“Hi! What’s up?”

“Teacher…I no…talk in class…”

“What do you mean?”

“I no speak. Want write…Ok?”

“Oh, do you mean you would rather write your answers than say them out loud?”

“Um…yes.”

__

There are moments where I feel overly equipped to teach rowdy high school boys—I’m teaching them slang from “Chill out!” to “What’s up!” to break up the monotony of me constantly correcting mix ups between simple singulars and plurals and dropped particles (I like game…I want to have car).

Then there are times where I am overwhelmingly unprepared to address the obvious.

The relatively innocuous “Teacher, he’s a soccer player” excuse that other students give for certain boys that walk in the door, put their head on the desk, and knock out for the full 50-minute class—that’s pretty easy. According to past and present teachers at the school, not much I can do when they barely have time to sleep at home.

But there is also the more insidious issues that are being tactfully ignored at best and compounded at worst. The neglect of the learning deficient. The struggles of the speaking-impaired. The writing off of mental health struggles.

It also doesn’t help when Google spits out the adjective “defective” when a more empathetic Korean teacher attempts to bridge the language barrier through online translation.

Another kind-hearted Fulbrighter asked her Korean co-teacher how she could help.

“They are bad,” he responded simply.

“So are we supposed to ignore them?”

“We can’t teach them.”

When she then tried to have one such student participate in class, the same teacher then took her aside and told her stop.

Thankfully, in my classroom and according to hearsay from other Fulbright teachers scattered throughout the country, the high schoolers tend to be encouraging of their learning-impaired peers, laughing and clapping when they participate. And not in a demeaning or in a way that overcompensates for their relatively lower abilities, but in an authentically supportive manner.

In a country where the suicide rate is extremely high for a first world country and there is a growing sentiment among the younger generation of dissatisfaction and helplessness, ignoring these issues can have severe consequences. Yet even at my high school—which is not even in the top tier of academically competitive schools in the region—ignorance seems to be the chosen panacea. No other teachers mentioned anything about these specific students beforehand. Other students had to call them special for me to notice or they had to try to tell me more directly.

Just a few conversations in broken English this week revealed troubling aspects of a high-pressure secondary educational system. This particular educational cultural barrier looks more like a barbed wire fence than a climbing wall.

For now, doing my best during the hour or so I see each of the 600 students is a start. Visual aids can help the reading impaired, personal affirmation can support the sad, and, well, maybe that soccer player does need sleep more than to learn how to say “That’s so chill.”

Probably the same for >50% of students every class.

News

Bitcoin 101 – explaining the basics of what you’ve heard of but what you don’t understand. Link

David and Goliath, a lesson on cowardice versus humility, confidence versus ego. Link

Did you know that Amazon had the 20-year patent on 1-click shipping and licensed it to only Apple? That expires in a few weeks. Link

Quoted

“Don’t call me, I’ll call you.” Bold first date power move. Link

For Fun

A writer with the drawing skills of a 2nd (4th) grader gets a call from Elon Musk’s secretary and… Link

The Martini, a boat that you can drink a cocktail on b/c it doesn’t sway. Link