"Overweight program" & beauty lesson?

Idk why I was surprised when I found out that our school has an "overweight program." After I thought about it for a little while, it makes sense given Korea's idea of beauty. Maybe I was surprised because there aren't that many overweight students in my school.. Maybe a few here and there, but not enough (in my opinion) at all to create a program for it. But anywho, I was informed that I was invited to go on a hike on an Olle (a mountain/hiking route) with this program, especially since the school is really dedicated to improving the student's English and so me going would mean the students would be speaking English. Regardless, I was pumped about it because it was an opportunity to get closer to some of my students. Actually, I spent that week making sure I memorized the names of the "overweight" students in my head so that when we went on the Olle, I could get the whole name remembering talk over with quick and get to some real stuff, you know how i'm all about the real talk haha.

well turns out that when we got to the Olle, those very few overweight students weren't there!! The handful of students that were waiting at the start of the trail were actually, in my eye's at least, mostly normal/average weight students.. honestly, I think they just had a little bit larger bone structure than the petite, little girls (but that's bone structure, not actual fat). And when all the Principal (the one with the visor) wanted a picture of everyone, half the girls ran away and the other half that stuck around for the picture covered their faces as you can see below:




but here is the thing, i could not sleep that night because my mind was just racing with thoughts about how i wanted to teach the girls at school a lesson on beauty. I was talking to them on the hike and bus ride back and it just shocked me how some cute girls think that they are so ugly and fat and much much more. So, that night, i just couldn't stop thinking of ways to make them think about some of these questions:

Where are they getting all these ideas of beauty from? Who is behind these ideas of what beauty is? and is it right to just give in to what a someone else's standard of beauty is?

ah, if i don't succeed in teaching them English, then fine but at least, I want to succeed in making them THINK. but how to exactly approach giving middle school girls that have such a wide range of English abilities the tools to think is a bit tough.

I thought about showing them the Dove commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U), but the other day I was at a Photo place with Erin and Liz and there were some younger girls there. They got their pictures taken (of course covering there face) and then without any request or anything, their picture was automatically put on the computer for touch-up, but not just any touch-up. Their eyes were widened and the sizes of their faces (jaw area) was reduced. And the girls were standing right behind the guy and were asking for more reduction and changes. So, I am afraid they would see the commercial and be like, "yeah, so what? of course they have to get that much done to look good." (ah well this would just be said but minus all the articles and with wrong conjugations of verbs)


Then, I got thinking of how this is the country where it is common for girl's to get plastic surgery as their graduation present from HIGH SCHOOL and 25% of Korean mothers will recommend that their daughters get plastic surgery (maybe this statistic includes sons too.. i forget). Regardless, it got me thinking of the TLC "Unpretty" video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeujqiv5i1g&ob=av2n)! It shows how a girl overcomes her boyfriend's pressure of getting plastic surgery and how another girl overcomes her not being happy with her weight.

But I am afraid that they won't take the message of the TLC video to heart because after getting up from my sleep to remind myself of the video - i noticed that all the scenarios that they are of African-Americans. I am afraid they are just going to dismiss this as something for darker skin people. I mean, it was just a two weeks ago that I had lunch with one of my students who is probably one of the smarter 3rd graders. We talked for a couple of hours on Korean History. She wants to become a diplomat and she knew so much about France, Italy, Japan, China, etc. But when Africa came up in the conversation, she said, "Oh, but it is very poor there and they have dark skin." I was shocked because this was coming out of the same mouth who had been thinking of ways to better the relationship between S.Korea and France. And of course I had to give her a lecture on skin color and just how diverse Africa is but after, I had to ask her what she or her classmates thought of me when they saw me. She said that half the class thought I was very pretty, but the other half commented on my darker skin color. well i knew that would happen but i just wanted to confirm it.

I digress but if they have a stigma implanted in their minds, then I don't think showing the TLC video is going to be as effective (and now i totally want to do a whole lesson on race, but I will really have to think how to go about it) but maybe doing beauty first might be a good starting point.

I was then thinking of having them think about those questions of beauty and show them the Christina Aguilera's "You are Beautiful" video, but after watching it again, i saw that it had two men kissing.. which i know would very controversial to show to middle girls.. at least at this moment. Sam morrow (shout out<3) recommended looking up the Glee video for "You are Beautiful," but I can't find it anywhere.

gah. does anyone have any other ideas about how to talk about beauty with middle school girls that range in abilities from being able to understand most of the things i say to others who do not know the answer to "what is your name?" or the alphabet.

take care,
Shreya

- p.s i am living off of 7,500 won right now. That is less than 7 dollars. Aug 25th can't come sooner

more pictures from the Hike:





girls washing off their feet because.. (next picture will explain why..)




THERE WAS COW POOP EVERYWHERE - who would have ever thought cows could navigate steep mountains?!






yay peppers!

Mishaps and all

Yesterday, one of my students came into class early to talk. Just some background to this story - I did this whole lesson last week on answering the somewhat dreaded question amongst middle school girls, “How are you?”.. so I asked her how did she feel BUT yesterday (I am all about challenging the students haha).. She goes:

“Teacha! Yesterday, my hand PEEING!”

I bursted out laughing because she just kept repeating (louder and louder each time) that her hand was peeing. At the moment, it didn’t occur to me that she was speaking konglish, which is a combination of Korean and English. It was only later that day when Rachel, Belin, Liz and I went to our first Korean language class (outside orientation) that someone said PEEING.. and I was like waaiiiit – what is that?! Hah. So, peeing in Korean means bleeding. I am pretty sure she probably thinks I am an insensitive teacher for not having more concern over her hand peeing – my bad.. my bad.

Ah now that I think about that – I’ve had quite a few other mishaps. The 2nd day of school, I was warned about this 2nd grade class. I had a great first day so I was feeling pretty confident about myself as a teacher. And yet again..how life proves to be so humbling! As the girls are walking in, I see a student walk in but was not wearing a skirt or the regular shirt uniform. Instead, said student was wearing what looked like boy shorts and a wrinkled white t-shirt. Said student’s hair was also short and I swear, there was a puberty mustache growing. I was convinced this bad class was trying to pull a prank on the new teacher by having one of their brothers or boyfriends come to class and sit in a student’s chair. But I was noticing all this as a cute little girl who doesn’t speak very much English had come up to me and wanted to talk to me. With the language barrier and having already covered the typical things you would talk to a student about during the first meeting, I pulled out my konglish, pointed to the said student and said, “why namja essayo??” this means “why is there a boy here” Sure enough, this quite cute girl turns around and SCREAMS to the whole class in Korean something…which I didn’t need to know Korean to understand that she had just told the whole class that I thought said student was a boy. Epic fail. Said student’s name is Bo Kyoung and apologized to her about 10 minutes in that class period. She was wearing her gym uniform. Good thing is that Bo Kyoung laughed it off.

Bo Kyoung is now a walking reminder to me of … well … of many things. Again, one thing remains constant, life is humbling.

Oh hah, I lied when I said I had a great first day of school. I had a great first day minus the heart attack I had the five minutes as a teacher. Instead a ding-dong bell, my school has this TINKERBELL/unicorn music. It’s really funny. So it rang and my first class (2-4) came in and sat down. So I thought “whew, at least they all came in and sat down –maybe everyone was right about them being sweet.” Because if you know me well, you know the first thing I do is imagine the worst case scenario, which for middle school girls was jumping on desks and spraying me with silly string. Seeing them all seated, I was so relieved. I proceeded to say “GOOD MORNING!,” expecting everyone to say back “GOOD MORNING!” AH, only a few students said good morning back and the rest kept talking to each other in the back. A few of them even got up and started “play fighting” with each other. I tried saying “Good morning” again, but it was even more futile than the first time. I thought all my fears about my students were coming true…

That instant I remember picturing myself in one of those cliché movies .. Dangerous Minds, Sister Act or Freedom Writers, in which the teacher walks in and the class is an absolute disarray … then because the teacher believes in them and inspires them, they become a disciplined class or win some prize or something. I even remember consoling myself, “It’s okay Shreya, they are not the sweet students that everyone said they were going to be, but you can totally pull a Sister Act or Freedom Writers on them and help them realize their potential.. yeah, you can do this.” (yes I have to talk to myself from time to time to calm myself down).

As I was about to scream real loud to get their attention again, the tinkerbell/unicorn music started playing again. They all sit down and are quiet. Hah. And then, the big Ah-ha moment – class doesn’t start until tinkerbell/unicorn music starts again. And that is the story if how I learned about our school bell system and when classes start. I still laugh with my students about the first day when I started to try to teach them during break time .. [insert the "you live.you learn" song by Alanis Morissette]

That’s all for now, folks.

Love letters to teachers in Korea all come in this shape:

Experiencing my first Typhoon

Well hello there, Typhoon Kompasu :)
thank you so much for greeting me this afternoon by blowing my umbrella away and making me walk home umbrella less. shit show? Yes, indeed.

Fun fact: In Korea, little babies are told that:

when it rains, it is God peeing and that when it is snowing, it is God pooping (or at least my host sisters were told this). My younger host sister laughed at me when i came home and told me to shower and clean myself off of God's pee-pee.

haha and God has white poop?! You would think the snow part would be more of God' tears or heavy dandruff.