Smiling Experiment

Everyday I walk by a car wash on the way to school. The same worker is there every morning. He's kinda goofy and very friendly. Everyday when I walk by he gets really excited to say hello to a foreigner and waves vigorously! Other teachers have said he does that to them too. Funny thing is, I oddly look forward to that "hello" on my way to work. When he's not there, I'm subconsciously disappointed!

In this city, or I suspect any city, people are not very friendly. Passerbys look down at the ground and purposely don't make eye contact. I'm conducting an experiment. I've decided to try to smile at everyone I pass, just to see their reaction. As I figured, most just look away, but some are so caught off gaurd that they'll smile back and even follow me with their eyes as I walk past. I think people are so surprised to be smiled at by a stranger that it's almost shocking! Whether someone is what other people would call attractive or not, there's something about a smile that is captivating and makes them stand out.

In my afternoon classes, I usually have a lot of extra time after we finish all of our work. I've been struggling to think of things to do. They're so incredibly bored by the textbook work, and to be honest I am too. It's been my complaint about the Korean education system that the students are only memorizing and have no individual thinking skills or creativity, but...I wasn't doing anything to help that. Yesterday I was trying to think of any way to get them thinking. I think the most learning takes place when they are interested in a topic and actually care about it. So, I taught them how to have a debate. My question was, "Are hagwons (any kind of private school outside of their regular public schools, like our English school in the evenings) good or bad?"

They debated it for a while and really came up with some good thoughts. They were shocked when I told them that there are none of these "after school schools" in America! Most of them came to the conclusion, "Teacher, I don't know." They saw the good and bad aspects. It was just so cool to see a lighbulb click on in their brain and see them thinking for themselves! I try to make the regular work as interesting as I can, but there's only so much you can do with grammar! So, it was cool to see them genuinely interested and excited about this discussion. I need to think of more topics like this for them to debate!