Be surprised!

Over the Thanksgiving break, my family and I visited Jeju Island, South Korea, and explored its coastline, its many museums, and its other unexpected treats. And of the unexpected variety, there were many!

The tomato wine from the World Liquor Museum, while unexpected, couldn't really be considered a treat (imagine watered-down tomato paste), but finding ourselves in 30cm of snow atop Hallasan on our way across the island to the airport definitely was! It was completely unexpected, and my absolute highlight (being the deepest snow I have EVER encountered!) of the long weekend. It changed my perception of Jeju completely!

Admittedly, I really didn't do much research before we traveled. I had heard a lot about the island from others and thought I had a fairly good impression of what to expect. It was a smallish island, had a couple of international schools, apparently not much to do there, but would be warmer than Seoul so a good place to spend a couple of days. I was largely ignorant.

And it occurred to me that my trip to Jeju was similar to how we treat our students.

We think we know who they are based on the conversations we have with other teachers, the lunchroom table chatter, and the letters in their grade book. We don't take the time to learn about who our students are - what they love to do, what they dislike, what makes them smile, where they have lived, what their parents do, if they have a pet, how long they have lived in this country, what other countries they have lived in, how long they spend on a bus each day just to get to school, etc, etc, etc!

I discovered the snow on Jeju half an hour before I left.

Spend some time today finding out about who your students really are - maybe there are some undiscovered highlights that will change your perception of who your students really are!