Holidays (Teachers Day)

Hello,

                Cover your eyes! Now guess who! Ohhh it’s me Wintermute and I’m here to bring you your Dumbr! Today we start our new segment, Holidays. Now why are Holidays important to you as a teacher and as my reader? Well for many reasons. Korea, unlike America, has few holidays and tend to actually be celebrated by the greater majority of the country.  And most have a great impact on teachers and the classroom. Today we start with your day, Teachers Day.

                Teachers Day is a Korean holiday that honors teachers and all of the wonderful work they do for children.  And what better way to honor them then to bring them wonderful gifts. Sadly every year my start date is rather pitiful as I start right after teachers’ day (May 15th, my start date, May16th) and so I don’t know the parents, and I leave too early for the next round of teacher day gifts. So I never make out too well.

                However, I have observed other teachers and they usually walk away with gifts that total in the thousands of dollars. Parents will buy them $200 gift cards, expensive tea sets, clothes, food, baskets, so on and so forth.  This is not a holiday to be taken lightly, in fact parents take it very seriously and will go way over board on you, unless however you are a terrible teacher, in which case it will show on this day what the parents and students really think of you.

                The students will bring a box of Pepero or some form of candy for each of their teachers. My first year teaching parents formed groups and all bought me shirts, I was amazed they got my size right. Again when I start at a new school it’s always right at the start of teachers’ day and I have very few fans.

               I decided to see what wikipedia had to offer and heres what I learned. In Korea it started off  as a way for young red cross members to go back to their former teachers who are now sick or ill and give them carnations. Why are all ex red cross teachers sick on May 15th? I don't know. And I thought this was interesting "Many schools now close on Teachers' Day because of the rampant bribery implicit in the expensive gifts often given to teachers. Schools can use the day to have an outing for the teachers." 

                Feel free to comment and ask questions. Thank you for being here and I will see you tomorrow for Childrens Day.

Your teacher,

Wintermute