The Monkey House

Hangovers, dirty facilities, partial nudity, and debauchery are all accurate indicators that I have arrived at work.
And no, I'm not working on the latest National Lampoon movie. I'm a conversational English teacher at Geumseong high school, the most dynamic educational institution I have ever encountered.
As one of the most important parts of my grant year, teaching takes up a majority of my time. I spend approximately 12 hours a week teaching conversational English to high school boys, while simultaneously serving as an "English cheerleader."  My role is simple: To get the kids excited to speak English. While the mere act of teaching places one in a position of great power and responsibility, being a foreign English teacher only complicates the issue. I am the ultimate authority on not only the English language, but Western culture in general, whether I like it or not. I am constantly approached with obscure grammar questions such as split infinitives ("to go boldly" opposed to "to boldly go") as well as more, well, subjective questions such as "Teacher. In Korea, women blah blah blah a lot. In America, women blah blah blah a lot or shhhhhhh?"
Needless to say, my work day is filled with lots of testosterone. With 800 teenage boys bouncing off the walls, I have my hands full. Rough housing, teasing, and sports in the hallways are all common sights around school. And I love it. But there are a few things that make this high school a little different from those back home...
When it came to classroom management, my philosophy was simple: The best lesson plan will ultimately fail without classroom management.  It is absolutely essential, and it is pertinent to establish the tone of the class early on. Not too long ago, I was an unprepared, ADD riddled high school boy who was struggling with the ebbs and flows of adolescence. I hid my cellphone in the elastic waistbands of my shorts, and became a master at the art of passing notes in class. I know the tricks of the trade. This should be easy, right?
So, I laid down a few simple rules for my students to follow. I call them the 5 P's:
Be prepared: Bring a writing utensil, paper, and your book to class everyday
Be polite: Keep your hands to yourself and respect your fellow students
Be productive: Work hard
Be prompt: show up to class on time
Be positive: Smile :)
By setting some strict rules early, I hoped to prevent some of the predictable problems I thought I would face, such as unprepared students and rough housing. Any infraction of the rules will result in a swift punishment, I told them. My weapon of choice wall sits (squats against the wall) prove effective. For the first few weeks, I handed them out liberally.
I also invented George, my pet soccer ball.  I explained to the kids that they always need to watch George, because I will toss it at them and they need to catch it. When they have George, they can talk and answer the question.  If they are sleeping in class, I will hit them with it. If they are talking I will hit them with it. The kids love it when I stare down a talking kid then bop him on the head with George.
Yet a few days ago, I was thrown a curveball. A few minutes after one of my classes started, two students barged into class chasing each other. Yet there was something very distinct about these two tardy teenagers.
Neither one of them were wearing pants.
And one of them wasn't wearing a shirt either.
So just as I'm about to launch into my lesson, I was interrupted by two lanky, exposed adolescents scrambling to their seats.
Now usually, my policy for late students is clear cut. If you are 2 minutes late, you will do a wall sit for 2 minutes. If you are 3 minutes late, you will do a wall sit for 3 minutes. Yet I could not bring myself to make these two unclad kids do wall sits in the buff. It was just too voyeuristic, and well, cruel.
After they reclothed themselves and the punishments were issued, I continued on with my lesson. I tossed George to one student and instructed him to come to the front of the board for an activity.
He gets out of his chair, and his Scooby Doo boxers caught my eye. It's not because he was sagging his pants, it because he wasn't wearing any....
"woah there, buckaroo!!" I said
"This is a no shirts, no shoes, no service establishment! Please put your pa....Better yet, can the whole class please stand up? We are doing a pencil, notebook, English book AND pants check. Yes kiddies, I understand the freedom of running around in your knickers, but we need to be FULLY ROBED for my class! No exceptions!"
Turned out he wasn't the only scantily stripped student-In total, I have had at least 5 kids this week come to class in their partial birthday suits.*
And I think I am adding a new rule to my class: Bring pants.
I immediately return to the teachers office to inquire about this peculiarity, only to find my coteacher passed out on his desk.
"Mr. Na, I have a question."
"Oh, hi Joshie. I am sick today. Last night I drink drink drink. Morning I am hungover. Today I sleep."
Great. Minutes earlier I had au natural students, and now I have a passed out co teacher.** Welcome to the Twilight Zone!
Then, if things couldn't get any more bizarre, an army of students armed with brooms and mops barge into the teachers office. With the efficiency of a NASCAR pit crew, every student assumed their role. Within 10 minutes, every trashcan was emptied and every inch of floor was scrubbed. As soon as they appeared, they vanished. And miraculously, they were all fully clothed as well.
Now the craziest part of this whole thing is that time and again, Korean schools outperform American schools in international academic rankings.  According to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) South Korea ranks 3rd in reading, 1st in math, and 10th in science among the top 20 developed nations in the world. The United States, on the other hand, did not crack the top 10 in any subject. Maybe this is because yearly, South Korean students are in school for a month and a half longer than American students, or maybe its because they average more than 10 hours a day at school. Or maybe its because they don't wear any pants in class.
Jokes aside, some serious studying goes down at Guemseong. Students don't leave school until at least 9pm, and sometimes not until 11pm. They study 9 subjects a semester and attend supplementary private  hagwons, or academies that specialize in various subjects. My tenth graders are doing trigonometry. My 11th graders are doing organic chemistry. And from what I can tell, most of this is probably done in the buff.
When I'm not dealing with day to day debauchery, I enjoy spending time at my on campus Korean religious shrine.  Apparently, the founder of Guemseong High school purchased the land from a Buddhist temple. The result: A 1000 year old Korean religious and historical monument in the middle of the campus of an all boys high school.  Not surprisingly, the temple wants nothing to do with the school. Neither insitution interacts with the other, and the students act as if seeing a group of buddhist monks praying next to their soccer game is just a normal occurance. Irony aside, the temple itself is remarkable:

This exists mere yards away from the debauchery known as Guemseong High School. The school's soccer field is on the other side of this structure

Sometimes after a long testosterone filled day, I retreat to this calming sanctuary

***

After a long, hard day at the office, nothing is more relaxing than returning home to my wonderful host family. My host dad is young, energetic, and speaks great English.  While her English is lacking, My host mom makes up for it through her genuine sweetness and care for me. And then there's my host sister, Heo.....

My lovely host family. But don't let those innocent eyes fool you, my host sister is capable of complete destruction. Heo, is it really necessary to  pour milk on my laptop? The glass was next to my computer, not on top of it!!

I usually get an hour to decompress and switch gears before the rest of the fam gets home, which is really nice. I consciously need to switch gears out of my school persona.  At school, I am "Josh Teacher," a young, and enthusiastic  cultural and linguistic diplomat. Josh Teacher is phased by nothing: Toilet humor, rowdy students and partial nudity are all within a days work. Yet afterhours, I morph into "Uncle Joshie," a shell of his former self.  This personality code switching has proved to be an unseen challenge in my daily life.
Once my 3 year old little sister gets home, the rules of the game change. She comandeers the TV, and "vroom riders" is fixed for the duration of the evening. Any attempt to change the channel will result in a terrible temper tantrum. Toys are strewn across the floor, and Uncle Joshy becomes her personal plaything.
Now I'll be the first to admit that  I have no first hand experiences with siblings, since I am an only child. One moment I want to annihilate her (like that one time she made me late for my ESPN fantasy football draft and the auto-pick drafted a kicker in the second round) and the next moment she just melts my heart:

Heo, you very well may be the cutest thing ever, but I won't forgive you if I lose this Fantasy Football pool this season.   

Sometimes, if I'm really lucky, Heo's friends will come over to play. Usually, about two or three Korean women and their young children come to our house one  evening a week. The moms sit around the table while the youngsters run amok.

If one three year old isn't enough, this troupe of tiny tikes pack three times the amount of fun!

As the resident native English speaker,  Uncle Joshie frequently makes guest appearances to read tall tales to the tots:

,

Uncle Joshie and the little ones reading "Thomas the Choo Choo."

Mere hours earlier, Josh Teacher was laying down the law- his class was gang shouting English sentences back at him while other students were doing wall sits in an elaborate play of masculine one-upsmanship. The testosterone was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Yet within 90 minutes, no vestige of Josh Teacher remained. Instead, this once proud man finds himself crawling on the floor while 3 year old children use him as their personal jungle gym. Instead of dissecting the nuances between prepositional phrases, Uncle Joshie is teaching the words to "Hush little baby." 

One day, I might just snap. The next time my class acts up, I won't make them do wall sits. Oh no, I've devised a much more conniving plan. We will listen to "John Jacob Jingle Hemmer Schmidt" on repeat. For 50 minutes straight. And the next time my little sister walks into the living room without pants on, she's giving me wall sits.

Until next time....

* It turns out that the gym teacher had been holding the students late, thus shortening their time to change in between periods.
**While drinking is a prominent component of the Korean work environment, general intoxication to the point of affecting one's job performance is unacceptable. For Americans, this idea  is hard to grasp-The US is extremely conservative when it comes to alcohol's place in society, whereas the time and space alcohol can be consumed is much more fluid (no pun intended) in Korea.