4 More Days of my Hell Class

I have a hell class right now. It is teaching SSAT test taking skills to 2 13 years who SUCK AT ENGLISH.

For an analogies question, I kid you not, this is one of the questions they couldn't get:

Student is to School
a) beef is to cow
b) book is to library
c) jar is to glass
d) pain is to sane
e) girl is to women

I point out that the sentence should be "There are students IN A school." They couldn't get that the answer is book and library.

So like I understand if they haven't studied in America and that is why their english sucks, but no they have studied in America.

So then I think to myself to try to justify their idoiocy in my mind, well they're trying to take a test in a foreign language and that is hard. And then I think well I sucked in French in HS, what if I tried to take a weird French entrance exam.

But you know what? My french sucked but if the answer was 'livre and biblioteque,' um, best believe I would know that.

And not only are these kids dumb as rocks but they also have no personalities. They just suck and I hate them and I only have 3 more hell classes. It's unfortunate I had to end on such a sour note because all my other students were amazing and such a joy.

Wow

Lesson on brainstorming ideas for essay.

Me: Do you know who Malcolm X is?
Student: Is he the one that killed JFK?

Ugh Can't a Teacher have an Effin Smoke?

The really, really annoying kid in my morning class to me.

It smells like cigarettes. What is that?
No it, doesn't.
Yes it does, it smells like cigarettes.
No it doesn't. Be quiet we're going over Exercise 3.

Ugh, I know that they know that I know that they know I smoke. So like STFU and let the teacher have an effin cigarette between breaks without calling me out for being a smoker.
,
My third grade teacher was an overweight, diabetic, smoker who also spit when she talked. I still liked her because she was chill (besides the whole overweight, smelly smoker, spitting thing). I def did not make a big deal out of it when I was 8 years old, mind you half the age of these kids now.

Try to teach a Korean the meaning of 'ubiquitous' and you'd be smoking too. I have to put up with you for 4 hours and 40 minutes and then you expect me to be some sort of angelic role model also? Please, I don't get paid enough to do all that.

Dork

I just saw my teacher's photo and blurb on The Princeton Review Korea website. I look like such a tool. Um also, since when is a Marketing degree a Bachelor of Arts? Never.

Lia - New York University, BA in Marketing & International Business - TPR SAT Instructor

Engrish

Me: What is slander?

Jason: It is a lizard

Me: No, it is not a lizard, where do you get this from

Jason: Teacher, it IS a lizard

Me: Ohhhhh salamander....no it is not a salamander

My SSAT Class

So the middle schoolers weren't so bad.

From left to right: Jason my rapper student, david, noah my favorite! sooo chakhe, tim, jiwon

My life is so awkward

So I had to speak in front of a large group about why I liked NYU. I didn't really prepare and I was slightly hungover this morning. I talk in front of people everyday, no biggie, right? SO WRONG. Um, I froze like a popsicle and I have never been so awkward in my life, which is hard because my life has some pretty awkward moments. I guess talking in front of 100 people is way different than talking in front of 17 people. Life lesson noted, now I will go drink away my day at Club Answer.

My Class

I loved teaching this class. It sort of sucks I have to teach middle schoolers next month.

Me+ middle school kids = no bueno

This was my favorite class thus far. I wish you could make real money teaching in the states because I really enjoy it. If they learned nothing this month, I hope they at least walk away always remembering my favorite word 'ubiquitous' (in actuality my favorite word is coalesce but it never came up during the lecture, sadly).

They weren't the most participatory kids but they were all good kids. It's amazing how you can learn someone's personality in 19 days.

It made me nostalgic for high school days. It was really heart warming to see them on the first day and to see how far they have come in the end. They were so quiet and awkward the first day and now they seem sort of close. Even the cool older kids are nice to the younger kids and it was so cute as a jaded adult to watch them get to know each other. It also was so rewarding after explaining to them what 'meticulous' means 3 days in a row to hear them get it on their own.

Yes, there were frustrating times because they are after all teenagers, but all in all it was fun to teach them. I will miss some of them saying 'teachuh too much homework'.

I had to crop this picture because the kids expression is too funny. I might need to make it my profile picture.

What I have learned is that kids go crazy for gum, candy, Dunkin Donuts, TGI Fridays but not dduk. I learned this after buying dduk for the class thinking it would be nice and them being underwhelmed to say the least. American culture ruins everything.

Bootylicious

Today, we had a reading passage on slang words.

So when you teach new words you are suppose to identify roots and suffixes.

Lesson:

Me: Class, can we try to figure out what bootylicious means? What does booty mean?

Students: Uh....butt?

Me: what does 'licious' look like?

Silence

Me: Does it look like 'delicious'? It does right?! So bootylicious means your butt looks delicious. A good synonym for 'delicious' is 'delectable'. Write that down in your notes everyone.

Maybe not the most important word to know for the SAT but I have to spice things up and also technically the word is in the Merriam Webster dictionary.

Finally!

So whenever I bring up pop culture references in class, my students make me feel like a dinosaur because all I get are blank stares.

Has anyone seen E.T? (when trying to teach them 'alienation')

silence

O.J Simpson? (when trying to teach them 'acquit')

silence

Indiana Jones?

silence

Notorious BIG (when trying to teach them 'notorious')

SILENCE REALLY?!

Today I finally got something when I asked if anyone has heard of Lil Wayne. Some of my students were big fans and they got super excited. Further proof that Lil Wayne is the best rapper alive.