When I migrated from Blogger to Jekyll a few years ago, I left a bunch of posts behind, with the vague resolution of importing them at some point. Today, I excavated a few more from the archives, all about teaching:

  • The benefits of a nonnative teacher (2020): A very long-winded way of saying that language learners often benefit from having a teacher who isn’t a native speaker of the target language, because then the teacher has empathy for the student. I think I stand by this take.
  • Things that are a thing here (2018): Just a few days into my Fulbright job, I was enamored with how seriously Korean teachers took their profession—and still am. But knowing what I do now, I would not write “Art, music, literature, and ‘morality’ class matter [in Korean schools] just as much as the STEM subjects.” Of course, all these subjects factor into your GPA, but as in the US, many Korean teachers and parents believe that the best jobs go to STEM graduates. And thus, even if it’s not their intention, they tend to celebrate students’ success in those subjects with a bit of extra energy.
  • Centering students as creators (2017): Notes from my undergrad internship. I think I see the germ here of an idea I’ve grown more certain of since: When you don’t know how to proceed, the first thing you should do is start. You know—open a document, put your name and the date, choose a font. These first steps shake off the fear of failure and assure the brain that it is safe to proceed.