kids

I've had my camera at school for the past couple of days. At random times throughout those days, I used my hands (which have fingers) to pick up the camera. Then, I used my fingers (the same ones that are on my hands) to operate the camera. A camera, when operated correctly (usually as a result of precise finger/hand manipulation), creates pictures. As a result, I now have pictures.

One thing that you will notice while perusing (with your eyes (all right, I'm gonna stop now)), is a lot of the kids are giving what is commonly referred to as the "peace sign". The kids are not actually advocating peace. Rather, this is something that most Koreans will do when having their picture taken, and has no specific meaning. I think it's just something that they saw a famous person do one time, and now it has become common practice.

Also, I'm going to insert a jump break here, so you'll have to click on this link to take you to the rest of this post. Why am I doing this? Well, because I just noticed that it's an option on blogger.com's "compose post" menu bar. And just who exactly are you to query my decisions?

I know you can't really appreciate what I've done in obtaining these pictures. Most of my students freaked out at the sight of a camera, and immediately ran away or hid under desks. I owe these pictures to my powers of persuasion, and my surreptitious photo-taking abilities.

Here's a couple kids. They're young. I teach them how to read. All three of them were crying later in the day because they did poorly on their spelling tests. See the one hiding down there? I told you they freak out at the sight of a camera.

Here's a better picture of the girl who's hiding in the last picture, because isn't she just the cutest???

The first of many peace signs in your future.

This kid is as smart as he looks, but he's a good shit so I don't bust his chops too much. Really, he looks and sounds like a cab driver.

I like this picture because it looks like the kid in the back there is doing some kind of awesome dance.

One of the sneakier pictures I managed to take.

This kid here is an interesting fella. He's 4 years old, by far the youngest kid in the school. But, his English ability is probably only slightly lower than an average American 4 year old. He's some kind of genius, because he can also already do multiplication and division. He came into school one day with his mom and a documentary film crew, who were making a show about him. I'm not kidding. So, you could be looking at the face of the first person to walk on Mars or something.

Tubby on the left there is in tears because I'm making him re-do his writing assignment. I just feel that if I didn't include a picture of a crying child, I'd really be misrepresenting myself and my experience teaching.

8 months ago this kid, and the rest of her class, didn't know the English alphabet. Then, they met me. Now, they can read, and are correctly spelling words like "children" on their spelling tests. That's two different vowel sounds, a "ch", and a d-r consonant blend. It's probably the most meaningful thing I've ever done in my life.

Alright, I promised you peace signs:

Alright, I'm gonna just put up a few more random shots here because either they don't need captions or I don't feel like captioning them.

One more. Me, as seen through the eyes of an 8 year old Korean child.