Spring time is a wonderful time of year, the stage of rebirth, of warmth, flowers, and a reprieve from the harsh cold of winter. Spring is also allergy season. I've never been horribly wracked by allergies and illnesses, in fact before Korea I was rather healthy. Yet, it seems that since I've come back to work (and the weather has risen above freezing during the day) I'm constantly sick!
For what seems like weeks I've been irritated, if not wracked, by some form of sickness or another. A cough this week becomes a sore throat next week. A belly ache tonight will be a headache tomorrow. It seems as if I can only go a few days feeling relatively well before something makes me want to crawl back into bed and die!
Yet, I continue to hack and cough and gurgle my way about my business. I swear I've been sick more in the past seven months than I have in the past seven years! This month has been worse than all the others combined!
So what the hell is wrong with my body? How has Korea destroyed my immune system?
Through excessive research and intrigued idling on the internet I've found out (to a relative degree) why my body hates EVERYTHING right now.
1. Stress: I've been more stressed in the past two months that I have been in years! Mainly because I've taken responsibility for teaching an additional school. Also, I'm planning all my lessons on the fly. (but Michael, didn't you have a month to plan lessons for this semester?) the answer is yes, yes I did. However, I neglected to do a great deal of planning because my schools could not tell me anything about my students. When I say anything, I mean pesky little details like: class size, student names, textbooks, course materials, course goals, school curriculum, test procedures, class schedules, afterschool activities, etc etc. ad nauseum. Needless to say, I set up the bare bones of class structure with the no-information I possessed and prayed that I would be informed of some of this data before classes began.
To be honest, I still don't know most of this information, but I'm still teaching!
The truth is that my school is really apathetic about what I do in class. For at least two reasons: one, they don't speak enough English to really know what I'm doing, thinking, or needing (even if I try to explain). Two, English is an amusement, and they really don't care about students' language fluency or growth. All in all, they have no clue what they want from their students, and even less of a clue how to get them to invest in their language education.
Not to say that my school is bad, or they have bad teachers. They just have no interest in the English program, or in finding the most effective ways of utilizing Native English Teachers. So, their apathy is apparent in their "hands off approach" to me and my classes. It's more or less the professional equivalent of "here's a penny, go play."
To be honest, that's better than being harped on and micromanaged. Yet, it is more than enough rope for a rookie teacher to hang himself.... many times over.
But why is this stressful? Because, I actually want my students to accomplish something. Because I want them to earn their grades by producing something, anything, in English. I know my school will inflate all the students' scores so they will pass (they did last year), I wish they wouldn't, but it's how things are done here. I stress, because I've come to work thinking I need to find the best way to cater to student engagement, to get as many of them thinking and producing language. I stress because I want desperately to make each of my classes tailored to their unique needs, and I fail miserably the harder I try.
That's not self criticism, it's true. I fail more often than not, so much so that I find a 50% student engagement to be a wild success most days in Middle to High School classes.
So I stress, and stress is shown to be a key factor in deteriorating one's immunity. It inspires both physical sickness and psychological depression. It's probably the leading reason why my health has been suffering for the last two months.
I hate to admit it, but the less I care about my students' success, the easier it is for me to enter class. It's easier for me to teach as little as possible and play semi-relevant English games with the few students still awake. I hate it, but it's true. The less I care, the better I feel...
2. Weather/Environment: Korea is not just subject to the usual pollen issues of springtime that most the world faces. Korea is also blessed with being downwind of the Gobi desert in China. Every spring, yellow dust off the desert catches in the air and is tossed over the Korean peninsula. The dust is linked to many illnesses and is often described as a "private hell" for foreigners possessing chronic allergies. The Korean meteorological network even monitors the dust levels and will issue warnings if the dust levels are too high. So far, the dust levels are relatively low, but its out there and it sucks!
3. Kids, kids, kids, they're adorable little illness incubators: Korea is notorious for not taking sick days, for adults as well as kids. It's not uncommon for a student sleeping in class to look up with bleary eyes saying "teacher, sick." before passing out at his desk again. Koreans expect themselves (and others) to work when sick. In fact, they will rarely stay home unless they require a doctor (more often a hospital) for their aliment. Because of this, I've come to be wary of giving my kids high-fives in class. Which is a pity because my little ones love getting high-fives (especially since they have to jump to reach my hand, it's adorable)! Yet, they don't stay home when they're sick. In fact, Koreans are also notorious for not coughing or sneezing into their hands like we do in the West. Some foreign teachers I know complain of being coughed on by students (I prefer to stand over them to avoid this most of the time). A problem to be sure, but not nearly as big of an issue as when they don't wash their hands. Many students (and some adults I've noted) don't wash their hands after using the bathroom. Needless to say I'm suspicious of handshakes now as well. Alas, they are unavoidable. Germs circulate relentlessly in the Korean education system, and with medication being eagerly available, germs here seem to be of a completely different caliber than back in the States.
So my health is a mess, currently I'm fighting off a sore throat and hoping drinking more than two liters of water a day will help. I've also been avidly investigating any and all means of restoring my health with as few drugs as possible. Lately, I've been finding green solutions for house cleaning and health very interesting (more on that as I find it).
All in all, Korea is not for the sickly, I have come to discover that I need to be much more conscious of my physical state if I hope to improve my well being while working here. I've started by taking control of my diet (and not eating my school's lunch) and hopefully I can obtain more success as the month progresses. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping the good health is not so slow as to find me!
No comments:
Post a Comment