Game Tester for a Day

It's the Korean "SAT" today and tomorrow so my junior high kids get out early and most of the teachers go to high schools to proctor (what a limited verb).

Me? What do I do since I don't have afternoon classes?

Thank you for asking.

I'm preparing to use board games for English practice in the class. The games available to me are limited. My co-teacher acquired Scrabble, Monopoly Jr., and The Game of Life. I played them with two other teachers this afternoon. Here are my impressions that I urge you to memorize:

Scrabble - The edition we got is the British one or something. Only a little different from American. Mainly the board is a different color and the tiles are plastic, not wood. It also has instructions in English, Korean, Chinese and Thai. It's been at least a year since I played Scrabble and I think it's a bit overrated.

Monopoly Jr. - Monopoly Jr. is shorter and simpler than Monopoly and almost 100% luck. It goes by too fast to realize you don't care what happens.

The Game of Life - These are the lessons my students will get from "Life": life is about making and spending money and filling a car with a generic family. Life is complicated and unfriendly to non-English speakers. It also has the players ending "Life" by retiring. That's not how real life ends.

Morpian Nights

Looking at an ESL website I found this quote:

"Known as Noughts & Crosses in Britain and Morpian in France, Tic-Tac-Toe is incredibly versatile and useful in the classroom."

Morpian? Googling it isn't very helpful.

I know I have several thousand French readers, so maybe you lot can enlighten me. Morpian? Really? Methinksnot.

Gary Coleman and Garry Kasparov

I was gonna try to move by May 1 or 15. That seems a little impossible though and too much stress so I think May 30 is more reasonable. I really don't foresee staying on longer than that. To do so would be beating a dead horse and my job ends mid-June anyway so it'd be financially unwise.

I miss having a teaching job where I'm always on. This job is too empty. I spend half my day reading and watching the teachers I work with struggle with the students. I want my own control of the classroom, and I want students that actually want to learn.

There's a lot of funny stuff at my work because I work with a teacher who is the worst instructor I have ever known in my life. I refer to him as "Gary Coleman" because he's similar in so many ways. He's 38 and the kids think he's in his fifties. The kids are always ripping on his bad breath, and it's true, he has some of the worst breath that seems to waft around him like his own climate system. One of the kids once told him that his breath smells like a shit sandwich. He's always getting into arguments with the kids, calling them stupid and lazy, and one day this boy who's like 6' 10" almost beat the crap out of Gary Coleman. I think he would have if I hadn't intervened. Crazy stuff like that happens every day. Because it's moderate-needs special ed (as opposed to the kids who need diapers) the classes are small and the rules are flexible. The kids use ipods and cell phones in class, bring food in, and don't go 30 seconds without using the word nigga, bitch, shit, or fuck (interestingly, I've never heard them use the word "cunt"). A bunch of the kids live down in Hunter's Point or projects throughout the city and Gary Coleman thinks he can relate to them because he's black.



The students complained to other teachers about Gary Coleman and he almost got fired at one point. He'll be there the rest of the year though, then he's gone. As for me, I'm ready to move on anytime. I get along well with almost all the kids, largely because I'm not the main disciplinarian. I refuse to give myself stress when I'm only the teacher's aide.

This morning Gary Coleman said that he needs an external hard drive.

"I'll sell you my 300 gig for $60," I said.

Gary Coleman (without even pausing to consider): "I'll buy it!"

I instantly regretted setting the price so low (he's totally incompetent with computers, as with all things), and told him it might be a little while before I could sell it because I had to clear it off first (true) and make sure it would work with a Mac (false). If I sell it to him I bet I can jack it up to $90 or so. I'll probably try even higher than that on craigslist. Then sell it to a stranger and tell Gary Coleman it wouldn't work on a Mac.

Anyway, I don't have much to write. I just don't want another blogless day.

Started listening to Garry Kasparov's How Life Imitates Chess on my way to work. How long has it been since I played chess? Last time was with students or co-workers in Seattle.

Last week I played tennis three times.

I like one-on-one games, and tennis is the first time I've done a real sport in like foreverz.