On Mondays I like to begin my classes by spending a couple minutes asking my students about their weekends. This Monday after all my religion students told me what they did on the weekend one student asked me what I did. I excitedly told them about my first trip to Seoul. They were interested to hear what I thought of Seoul and were delighted when I said that I thought smaller Cheonan was much more to my liking (although I will never be able to think of even Cheonan as a small city). Then one of my students, Linda, said, "Did you go to Seoul to see where you'll be living next term? You're moving there when this term ends, right?" Linda is in my religion class at 10 a.m. and then moves over one room at 11 and takes Jonathan's religion class. She answered my unspoken question before I had time to ask it. "Jonathan mentioned that you were moving there last week," she told me. Yes," I replied to her questions, "we're moving to Seoul once this term is over." I told my other three students that I would be taking over my friend's job in the adult textbook office at the main institute in Seoul once she leaves to go back home. "No," Neo said when I concluded my story, "you can't leave so soon. You just got here!" Other students chimed in about how much they would miss me and I said the same back to them and assured them that Jonathan and I plan to come back to Cheonan once in awhile whenever we have weekends off and that we will try to visit them when we are in town.
The next day in religion class, when I asked for prayer requests or thank yous, Neo piped up, "My request is that you will be able to stay here in Cheonan." He had been my only student the first day of religion class until more students joined our class the following day. How in the world could I tell him that working in Seoul at the textbook office was my choice, not something the institute was forcing on me? How could I admit that before I even left the U.S. I wondered how I would get through two months of teaching before I could begin my "real" job? I stumbled through some sort of answer and we had prayer and started our lesson for the day. But while thinking about the simple and heartfelt prayer request after class, I realized that I'm really going to miss all my students and especially my religion students. Religion class is much more relaxed than the English classes. There is time to really get to know the students, really learn what they think about the material they're being taught. I have learned so much from them, about spiritual matters, everyday life and Korean culture. Although I'm looking forward to beginning work more in my field of study, I was startled to discover that I think I'm really going to miss teaching. I'll miss getting to know my students, learning about their lives and being able to encourage them and have them encourage me as we go through our daily trials. 10 a.m. religion class, thanks for being the best religion class I've ever had and for teaching me so much in only two short months!
