culture shocked

Today has been pretty stressful for me. Friday's make me want to tear my hair out! It's not just that I a solid morning of 6th graders but that I have my two worst classes back to back. If I can cleanse my mental/emotional pallette I can handle them but when they're on top of eachother...It wasn't helped that something is bothering Helen so instead of our normal good mood we were both a little tense. The first class went fine. The students played a game with Helen helping them while I finished a PowerPoint to illustrate the winter/holiday words they'd need for an upcoming assignment. For some reason all during class the windows had been open (Have I told you how cold it is here?). During the break I ask her if we can close the windows and we snip at eachother a bit. I guess she wanted fresh air...2nd class started off suprisingly well behaved but within 5 minutes esculated to out of control. We calmed them down enough to play the game and she went about helping them while I polished the PPT. I tried to show them the presentation but they wouldn't calm down enough to listen. I imagine there will be some interesting uses of the words since they won't know what a good quarter of them mean. It's really frustrating when you can tell some of the students want to learn and are behaving but everyone else is ruining it for them. When they left in a cloud of fury Helen locked the door. She told a few representitives of the next class to tell everyone to wait patiently and do what they needed to do before class (go to the bathroom, etc). Instead of waiting quietly in the hall they started banging on the windows. Not little taps or knock but hitting the window. Helen just ignored them. They started opening the windows (now finally closed but unlocked.) I told them they couldn't do that. No, they had to wait in the hallway. No they can't just put their books in. I locked the window and they moved to the next one and opened it. (One of the girls speaks fluent English and knew exactly what I was saying). I shut it, before I could lock it they started it opening it again. One ingenius child went to the next window, opened it and flung his book in. I managed to lock all the windows and confiscated the thrown book. I sat next to Helen and waited for her to open the door which she did a few minutes before class actually started. A handful of children sat peacefully in their seats. Several ran screaming in, dropped off their books and ran screaming out. One (of my favs) apologizes to me for forgetting his English Book. Someone along the line told him there was no English today so he left it at home. Normally when someone forgets their book they have to stand in the back of class (this is mainly for the several students who every day "forget" their books so they won't have to do the work). So, to help prevent that I give him the one I confiscated. He thanks me profusely and I tell him he has to give it back to the boy it belongs too after class. The bell rings. There's only a handful of students sitting. Over the next five minutes not the tardy students come in handfuls and Helen has them head straight to the back of the class. Eventually the class president (who's supposed to be a shining example of right behavior) strolls into class and Helen has a long involved discussion with her, yells at the class and takes her to the home room teacher. I'm left with the misbehaviors and the handful of students who were both on time and remembered their books. I wait a few moments (unsure where Helen went) and start the daily routine (what's the weather like? What's todays date?) Then wait...Finally I have all the kids sitting down come up front and give them a sticker (you can earn stickers for a variety of things and 5 stickers=candy) Waiting...waiting...Finally I explain the homework and show the ppt. Part of the ppt is a video with the christmas lights that blink in time to a song. Helen bursts in and tells me to turn it off, shut if off. I do so and she starts talking to them sternly. The phone rings, it's their home room teacher he wants them all to come back to class. They leave and she sits down and does whatever mystery things on the computer that she does.
The last "real" class for the day rolls in late, and loud. Several students are in the hall when the bell rings, I open the door to tell them to come in and the lie to me. They look me in the eye and lie to me. "Teacher, my homework no." "You don't have your homework?" "Yes" "Where is it?" "Homework classroom. Other classroom." "Well go get it. Hurry up." Their homework was sitting on their desk in my class room. Maybe they were confused? No. They just wanted to keep talking to their friend who really did forget their homework. Then over half of them cheated. GRRRRRR...Finally class is over (the cheaters all had to do double the work while everyone else played game) we open the doors to release them for lunch and their, on their knees, in the sub zero hallway are the main offenders from the class before. Looking down the hall it's the entire class. Many of them are stifling back tears. All of them are extreme discomfort. Some are sweating. Turns out they'd been made to hold their chair above their heads for a good 40 mins before being sent down to wait outside my class. Waiting silently. The spokesperson apologizing for them. All of them bowing. Apologizing. Helen makes them wait. At this point I don't think it's from meanness but shock. She's almost in tears herself to see them in this state. We send them off to lunch, the all get up, bow, apologize, several of them burst into tears...of relief? fear? frustration? I can't say. All I know is I was sick to my stomach for most of the rest of the day.
A bright spot: During my 4th grade after school class we made snowflakes and the kids were great. They were creative and funny and lifted my spirits. One girl (a shy girl named Karen who never raises her hand but always has the right answer when called on) hid something underneath my milk carton when she left the class. I looked...It was a heart. On one side it said "To: Teacher" and was decorated with Korean colors, the back said "Merry Chrismas" (yes there's not 't') I almost cried at the cuteness.
Then back to the grindstone. Correcting 6th grade finals. I worked to make sure the test wasn't to hard. There were definately a couple of freebie questions...and yet...I corrected half the grade and the highest grade was a 95%. There was 1. A single 95% out of over 100 students. (that'd I'd corrected so far) Maybe, MAYBE, there were 5 who earned 90%. This time I really did cry. I felt like an awful teacher. How could I fail so completely to teach these kids. What was I doing wrong that they couldn't tell the date, or the difference between a backache and breakfast...I'm crying and Helen tells me that they probably didn't study as hard as they normally would for this test "Why not?" "Their homeroom teachers say no." "Why?"
"Scores no effect school. Only math, science, Korean. Next year also there will be English" "So there's no purpose to teaching them English? It doesn't matter." "Next Year."

OH THE ANGST!!!!!!!!!!!!

The evening got significantly better in the evening as I went to Miguem, had birthday cake, bought reindeer antlers and a burger, ate said burger while watching "A Nightmare Before Christmas" with my building buddy.