I made a student cry in class today.

It was in my basic level class, my young students. This student, Chris, is a new-comer. He hasn't quite grasped all the rules in my class yet, including the rule that the other students love to police: NO SPEAKING KOREAN IN CLASS. I have this system with my students, the infamous sticker paper. At the beginning of each month, the students write their name on a piece of paper and draw a cute little picture. Then every time they do their homework, get perfect scores on tests, or do other various tasks that I make up on the fly...they're awarded a certain number of stickers. If they speak Korean in class, act badly, yell, talk when I'm teaching, hit each other, etc.-- they lose a sticker. So poor Chris. It's his second day in class and he keeps speaking Korean. He lost all but one sticker today. As soon as he was down to one sticker, he burst into tears. He was crying for a good 20 minutes. I didn't know what to do. I kept assuring him that he would get more stickers and he just needed to remember not to speak Korean in class and he wouldn't lose more. I told him he could go to the bathroom if he wanted. He kept sobbing and saying things in Korean to me. I think that since this is a really low level of students that they get frustrated easily when they can't express themselves the way they want to. It's excellent practice for them, but still frustrating I bet. PLUS...this is a three hour class. In college, when I had three hour classes, I could barely focus even if it was an interesting subject. Imagine an 8 year old trying to focus for that long!

Anyway, eventually Chris stopped crying and he was quite cheery by the end of class. He earned back 5 stickers, two for perfect test scores and three for being the first one done with a worksheet.

It really breaks my heart when students cry in class though.

Anyway, it's February (in case you missed that memo). February 21 will be the halfway marker for me. August 21 is my last day at Youngdo. Not sure when exactly I'll be back in the States, it depends on when/if my parents come visit and if I decide to go to China/Japan at the end of my time here. I officially have an apartment in Dover's Crossing in Lansing with my dearest Erika, so that's all set. I'm still waiting for my application to the College of Education at MSU to go through, but I talked to an advisor about everything already.

I think it's going to be strange, but really wonderful, to go back to MSU and get back to that life. When I graduated in May last year, I thought my time at MSU was over for good. Shows how much I know...

Love you all! <3>