Day 213: And Then There Were Eleven

So this morning I learned some surprising and some sad news - one of my pre-schoolers has left POLY - and that student is none other than Eugene. Without any advance warning at all, her mother has removed her from POLY and has already enrolled her in another hagwon (English school.) This left me feeling confused and more than a little sad.

Eugene was actually one of my most favourite students, and I am going to miss her dearly. This may come across as a surprise, as Eugene was my infamous 'problem child' for the longest time. She was known as The Screamer at POLY and had a few breakdowns at school right when I began teaching. I had been warned about her ahead of time and the legend did live up to the name. Her tamper tantrums were atrocious and left me feeling frustrated and helpless. I was honestly afraid to set her off at school, cause like a dam bursting, once she let loose there was no stopping her.

But then the miracle of all miracles occurred. We developed a personal Behaviour Star Chart to help give her motivation and guidance to improve, and she pulled a complete 180. In the time span of just a few weeks, she went from being my most dreaded student to a bright and happy and cheerful five-year old. She was sweet and friendly and polite, and not only did she improve, she became one of the best-behaved students in the class. She was always giggling and having fun, and was so hard-working and meticulous. And when she finished her own work, she always went around to try and help out her classmates. She gave me big hugs all the time and told me on more than one occasion "I love you, Scott Teacher!" It was absolutely incredible. The whole POLY staff couldn't believe the change in her, and even her mother commented that she was much happier at home, and was very self-motivated in practicing her English reading and writing at home. Wow!

Given such a dramatic improvement, you can imagine that I was more than just a little thrown off when I was informed that her mother wanted her to go to a different school instead. I was told that although her mother was very proud and appreciative of her improvement, and commented that she liked me more than Eugene's previous teacher, but that her Phonics weren't improving fast enough at POLY and so she wanted to try a new learning environment. Yes, Eugene always had been in the bottom four in the class for her Phonics abilities, but she always tried really hard and had been starting to show some real improvement with her academics in the last month or so. Given more time, I sure she would've kept on improving and would've made great progress with her reading and writing abilities.

To be honest I kinda feel insulted. I worked so hard with Eugene to help her out and invested so much time and energy and care into her and then her mother pulls her out just like that. And not only me, but Cecilia my assistant, and Iris the school counsellor, we had all put a lot of ourselves into Eugene's time at POLY. Eugene's last day was Friday (but none of us knew until Friday night) and she started at her new school already today. Obviously her mother had to have planned this ahead of time, but didn't even give us the respect to tell us ahead of time. Here one day, gone the next. It feels like a slap in the face. What about all the hard work we all put into Eugene? We all really cared for her and she loved being at POLY. How is moving her to a whole new learning environment surrounded by teachers and peers who she has no history with going to help improve her English? POLY is consistenly ranked among the top English schools in all of Korea. What could this other school offer that we can't? It makes no fucking sense to me. I'm not a parent and I'm not Korean so maybe I just can't understand these things, but it seems like a stupid idea to me.

And I guess I'm just mad cause I'm gonna miss her. I never even got the chance to say goodbye or give her one last hug. I guess I got more attached than I should've. It really sucks.

And then there were eleven.