My new co-teacher's name is Ee Geum Hee. She goes by Marrisa.

She is in her mid 30s and is single. She just moved here from another city in Korea about a half hour away.

So far we've done well together. She's a lot more uptight about teaching than my previous co-teacher. Before, we'd just use the textbook curriculum and wing our lessons. But Marrisa puts a lot of extra work into planning for each class. I think she's a good teacher and tries really hard. She has a lot of energy!

My role seems to be extremely small in teaching. I feel like I could easily be taken out or replaced and no one would even notice... seriously. I can't really do much, because the kids will not listen to me, and bad things happen when I try to go beyond my role (which is basically just saying "repeat after me... book/house/car/whatever..." I am basically a living breathing broken record player).

What do I mean by "bad things happen"? Here's just a few examples from the past 2 days: During our 6th grade class one boy pulled out a knife and held it to another kid's throat. I told the boy to put give me the knife and not bring it to school again. He just stared at me with a death scowl on his face, refusing to obey. I wasn't going to wrestle him for it... I was afraid I'd get knifed. I called Marrisa over and the kid immediately handed over the knife to her.

Korea is known as the "Hermit Kingdom," because they are so closed off in their thinking and ways of doing things. These kids don't respect me or take me seriously - because I am a foreigner.

Then today, in the middle of our 4th grade lesson, a boy was punching the girl next to him. I went over and calmly stopped him... when I did, he punched me. Yeah, normal day.

I am seeing that I personally have a lot of problems with the culture here. There are MANY things I do not understand or agree with... but that's just the way it is. A wise person reminded me this is not America... South Korea is a "Second World" country... of course things are going to be a little less civilized; rougher around the edges. That's just the way it is.

I'm a guest who is only here for 7 more months, and I can't try to project my cultural values and standards onto the people here.

All part of the experience... let me just say I am admittedly ethnocentric (think my own culture is superior) - something I'd always criticized other people for, but can't deny in myself. Most things are way easier said than done. I am far from perfect.

Also, with the lesson planning, Marrisa does it all and even when I ask her how I can help she doesn't give me anything to do... so I just find ways to contribute however I can - make extra worksheets, create extra games, etc... try to help with classroom management ideas, too (without being too intrusive with my own cultural standards of classroom behavior- which are a far cry from the expected norm here)...