We're almost done with the 7th week of a 8 week program, and the kids are getting frustrated. A few of them have dropped out over the past few weeks, and it pains me to see one of the situations turn really ugly.

There was this one girl who I feel is quite bright, but never quite applied herself. In class, she would give off the impression that she just didn't care, but her mom called and told wonjangneem yesterday that she had not learned algebra yet (which I think might be a misunderstanding on the part of the mom; how do you get to the 10th grade without algebra?) ... so she has pretty much dropped out. I wish she had told me beforehand that she had that much trouble with math ... I would of been more than willing to help her if she felt she was deficient in math.

It's interesting how parents complain; it never strikes them that it's the responsibility of the student to perform to the best of his of her abilities, and the teacher merely to lead. The teacher should not have to battle the kids in order to get them to do their homework.

I know I'm a horrible student, but I never never placed the blame on any of my college professors; I know that deep inside is just this THING where I cannot attend or study for my classes ... but I don't deceive myself by blaming others for my problems.

I just hope when I grow up that I can learn not to be blinded by the fact that my own flesh and blood is not perfect... I think a lot of parents would do a lot better to know that their kids are not the wonderful kids they thought they might be ...

In terms of a question I posed a long time ago (is it better to be an authoritarian teacher or a peer teacher?) ... I am definitely the peer type of teacher. But what I've found is that once you build that rapport, you have to manipulate the kids to push themselves ... the kids will always try to do a little less homework with a peer teacher, and so the peer teacher must always assign more homework than necessary ... so that when it seems like the kid is getting out of work, they're in actuality only doing less of a lot of homework (make sense?).

I definitely am learning so much about teaching and learning ... so much.

. . .

Another note ... I find myself analyzing social situations a lot more. Maybe it's my Asian heritage, but I'm always trying to find the "right" way to handle situations.

Case in point: I was working the last shift (I usually end up closing the hakwon ... as they gave me a key since I teach late) tonight ... as I was finishing up, I heard a rustling in the main front office. I peeked in (admitedly I was a bit startled) ... and noticed the secretary was back! She apparently was sent on an errand from the wonjangneem (she lives close by) and had to stop eating her dinner (poor thing!).

Now I know how scary it is to be in the hakwon alone at night, so I decided to be nice and started grading my papers in the front office with her doing her errand... while I was grading papers she got her errand done. Then she called her mom and told her to meet her at the bus stop.

Anyways, I went back to the classroom to drop off the graded papers and came back; she was browsing Yahoo! for clothes.

The question in my mind was: "Should I stay and do some more work until she leaves since being alone in the hakwon is scary?" or "Should I just leave?"

Asking her if it was OK to leave was pointless in my mind, as either she knew that being alone was scary and would leave with me since she wasn't doing anything, and if she didn't think it was scary, asking her if being alone was OK wouldn't ease her mind at all...

I decided that since she wasn't doing anything, she would of left with me if she was scurred to be alone in the hakwon, so I just told her I was leaving.

So yeah. Totally random and pointless, but damn I need to write.