Wednesday, September 21, 2005

The new kid

The day ended and I was sitting in the staff room, lucky enough to have a coworker take my elementary class so I could rest my still awful voice. The director came in to talk about his daughter, who started English kindergarten today.

"I don't want to talk about how her English is or how she's doing," he said to me. "I just want to ask you not to give her any special treatment. If you don't mind, can you treat her with equal or actually lower opportunity than the others?"

What? Did I hear that right? You want me to give your daugher less attention and encouragement than the others??

Turns out that since she's only four (read less than three and a half) she'll be in the five year old class for a while and I guess he doesn't want her to be too ahead of the game. But come on, like I would treat a child any less than the others(intentionally anyway). Nuts to that.

She's definitely way behind the others, with no knowledge of the alphabet and the same way of talking to me in Korean that Mindy and some others did before they realized I don't understand. It's an interuption to the smooth routine we have established in happy class, this little tyke waltzing in, but she's making friends and hopefully will do okay.

I just wish I had my voice in tact so I could keep order in the classroom. When will it end?

2 Comments:

At September 21, 2005 12:10 p.m. , Blogger Blake said...

Hope your throat is felling better.

Anyway, I should be in Japan next week for a visa run. I was thinking of going to Osaka, since I've been to Fukuoka twice now.

How was the hostel that you stayed at? Most importantly, did it have a curfew?

 
At September 21, 2005 6:27 p.m. , Blogger Jessica said...

Hey Blake. The hostel I stayed at was really nice and well-located. It's called Sumo Backpackers and you can reserve online.

Have a great trip.

 

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