My Strong Willed Student...

This school year my co-worker and I came up with new games to play with the students to shake things up a little bit so we weren't just doing the same old routine day in and day out.  One of the games we came up with was a "Word Race".  The class would divide into two groups and each student would be given a word.  The two teams would get the same words.  When a word is called each student brings there chair to the front of the room and gets ready to race to the whiteboard and try to write their word as fast as possible.

I must say that sometimes strong emotions have been displayed since the implementation of these games, especially of those that lose.  On Friday two students had the word "farmer".  One of the students was one of my dear favorites Soo-Min:

She just has a fantastic personality and is pretty smart.  The pictures above just show how special she is to myself and my fellow employees.  She actually is welcome to just wonder into our office and just sit down on a chair and hang out with us.  Most of the other kids aren't so welcome to do that from what I've noticed.

Anyways getting back to the story at hand.  Soo-Min and the other student (who I believe was Chae-Hi) battled it out for supremacy of the speediest writer of the word "farmer".  Unfortunately for Soo-Min, she was not the fastest.  It was very close but I ruled in favor of Chae-Hi.  When I turned to Soo-Min to tell her that she did not win simply put her hands together, gave me a very accepting look and also did a little bow all symbolizing to me that she accepted my ruling.  I turned to the whiteboard to erase the kids writing.  I turned around to find my dear Soo-Min still standing where she had been before but in a very sad emotional state.  She was crying significantly.

On a side-note I really wish I didn't have favorites but it is really quite difficult when dealing with such a cute group of kids and also considering the many unique personalities they all have.  With that in mind there will almost inevitably be a tendency to find favor it some over others.  Soo-Min has for sure become one of my favorites.  Seeing a kid that I really like and care for standing there in tears kind of made my heart sink.  But what happened next only added to why I think she is so great.

I knelt down to her to try and console her a bit.  I tried to give her a hug but she pushed me away.  I felt at that moment that I understood her better.  Before when she bowed to me she was trying to be really strong and accepting, but sometimes for a kid that is just a hard thing to do because little things mean a lot to them.  I just stayed beside her a bit longer while she cried and eventually she returned to her seat and cried a bit more.  She was basically crushed for the rest of the class.

At the end of the class I told everyone to go but had her stay behind.  She was unsure why I was doing this.  I wanted her to try again with the word she was given before and race me.  Now obviously I knew I could probably write "farmer" faster than her but I wanted to bring her spirits back up.  I just felt so bad for her.  It really makes me wonder how parents feel when there children are hurting.  Soo-Min isn't even my child and yet I still felt so sad for her and wanted nothing more than to cheer her up.  It must be ten times worse of a feeling for a parent then it was for me.

So once I finally got the message across to her of what I wanted her to do we began our race.  I started first (but I seemed to develop some kind of hand cramp :D).  She then went on writing and I tried to keep up with her but I just couldn't.  She beat me by one letter.

When she realized she beat me she got this huge smile on her face and started jumping up and down with delight.  The feeling I got when I saw her go from looks of devastation to looks of joy because she beat me in a race made so joyful myself I almost started crying.  It was by far one of my most favorite experiences as a teacher of these kids.

So in the end I like Soo-Min because she is funny, smart, sweet, independent, prideful (which isn't always a good trait but for a kid it can be cool, cute and good as well I think) and desires to be strong (even if she fails at it sometimes).

I'll tack on this video I took of her a little while ago.  She wasn't aware I was videoing her so she wasn't really trying to do anything for the camera.  She was just being herself...enjoy.