Pre-school outing to Emart

Last Thursday we took our pre-school classes on an outing to Emart, a huge national big box store comparable to Wal-Mart. The idea was to give each student 1000 won (about a dollar) and teach them how to buy stuff (glad to see that we're teaching kids to be consumers at a younger and younger age). It seemed like a made-up trip to me, since these kids go to the store with their moms all the time, but I figured "What the heck- it gives me a break from teaching, and if I'm really lucky we just might be able to 'accidentally' lose a few of the bad kids along the way."

At 10:00 we loaded up the Ding Ding Dang buses, which are yellow 10-passenger vans with the D.D.D. logo on the side, and headed off for Emart, a twenty-minute drive away. I played with the kids along the way, and instead of calling me "Brian teacher", which they normally do, they started calling me "Brian opa", which means "big brother". I thought that was kind of cute. In unison the kids urged the bus driver to go faster (they were pretty sure we were racing the other D.D.D. buses), and we finally arrived at Emart. Following brief instructions to the children (stick together, yada yada yada), we went inside to show them the wonders of Emart. It was entertaining to see a bunch of kids in their uniforms (orange and white T-shirt and shorts set), yelling the name of fruits and vegetables in English. When the kids unabashedly protested the smell of the fish section, we decided it was time to move on.

We wandered through the rest of the store, and helped the kids find their items and make their purchases. With their 1000 won, they ended up buying a variety of items, most of them school related, like pencils, erasers, and the like. They seemed thrilled at the idea of having their very own money, and being able to pay all by themselves. Although I'm not sure of the educational value of the experience, it was fun, and when you're a kid, I guess that's what really counts!