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Pencil Cases and Baby Wraps | |
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Baby Wraps One of the best things that I see used in asia that I havent seen anywhere else is the baby wrap. They dont use strollers, they strap the baby to their backs with sturdy padded material. I love them. One of my lessons said that she will give me hers before I go. How to wrap up your baby Lay the baby on your back as you lean over and put the wrap over them, up to their upper back. Pull the the sides around you and wrap them back around your shoulders and tie the straps under the babys butt, on you back. And thats it. I cant believe how simple it is. Pencil Cases, Pencils, Erasers Obsessions In America it is said that our national pastime is baseball. Here in Korea, I would say it is the sport called pencil paraphernalia. Anything related to pencils really is the national pastime. Regular wooden pencils here are eraser-less and always have some sort of cute little character on them. It is impossible to find any sort of stationary that is without the cutesy character. It all begins with the pencils: Since they dont have erasers, people need separate, hand-held erasers. There are many types of these but none are the familiar pink erasers we have at home. They are all the white ones. There are mechanical tube erasers and square ones wrapped in some cute character covered cardboard. Then there are the mechanical pencils called sharps. these are so elaborate and filled with cartoon characters or made to look like candy or food. The assortment is astounding and every kid needs a lot of them. In addition to the pencils, a korean kid wouldnt be caught dead without a rainbow pencil and an assortment of colored pens. then, there is the most important piece or gear. . . the pencil case. This a very personal expression of character and whim. Most kids have a ton of them and change them out for different academies or weeks. Some have soft sides and some are hard cases with ten different compartments or games that fold out of them. They have video games built right into them for when class gets REALLY BORING. One of my students has a fold out basketball court with a ball that is flipped up into the baskets on his pencil case. Some students have cases so big they look like luggage. Some are made of plastic and look like a milk juice carton. they can be flat, skinny, rectangular, cylindrical; small enough for only one or two pencils or big enough for a small arsenal. Then, there is the obsession with erasing. Americans, cant be bothered with erasing, in most cases. It usually doesnt matter if you paper look perfect, so we just scribble out mistakes and keep going. Then, when it is a final draft or just really important, we are meticulous and make sure the page looks good. Korean children are so worried about doing everything perfectly that they will spend ten minutes looking for their erasure (because remember the pencils dont have them attached) just to fix one little mark on their paper or one wrong letter. If I ask them to just dont worry about it and keep going they will stubbornly refuse and waste time on something that does not even remotely matter. In my younger classes I have had to ban erasures completely otherwise we get nothing done because they spend so much time erasing. It can be more than a little frustrating and yet cute at the same time. |
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