Cotopaxi Questival

The Questival is in Nashville, and here we are playing cornhole at the kickoff:

 

It’s a lot of fun — watch for the Questival coming to your city soon!

#17 Deskwarming

Deskwarm

verb

To come to a workplace and sit at a desk despite a total lack of any possible work to be done

I wrote about deskwarming just a couple months into our first year of teaching here, and it’s funny to read now: A Short Reflection on Deskwarming. I was so hopeful, so optimistic, desperate to find some meaning in the act of sitting at my desk for no reason. It’s not that I’d necessarily disagree with anything in that post now — it’s just that I eventually accepted the fact that for many hours over the course of the year, I was being paid to occupy a desk and have free time, and I didn’t need to justify that fact.

Foreign teachers in Korea have a variety of working conditions, so deskwarming is not a given. But in general, the amount of classroom teaching hours per week is capped, in order to allow time for proper preparation. In our experience, and for most of the teachers we’ve known here, the amount of preparatory hours far exceeds what is necessary for the job.

Allow me to peel back the curtain and give you an example: Last semester, I taught grades 3-6 and saw each homeroom once a week. That’s four grades, so four new lessons a week. I had 21 hours a week of classroom instruction, leaving 19 hours a week to prepare 4 lessons. I do not need 19 hours to prepare 4 lessons. 

The remaining difference is what we refer to as deskwarming. When I am done teaching for the day, and all my upcoming lessons are prepared, I can’t go home. I must remain at school until 4:30. I’m not required to physically sit at my desk, but there is little else to do.

In addition to the daily potential for small periods of deskwarming, there are occasionally entire workdays of deskwarming. This may be due to a testing day, or a school trip, or a full 3 week period in February in which all we do is deskwarm (it’s the time between graduation and the start of the new school year — some teaching programs are given vacation during this time, but we are not). These days can be daunting — a full 8 hours with no structured activity, no goals to work towards, and at most schools, little to no personal interaction.

So what can we do while deskwarming? Unless our superiors are unusually strict or overbearing, whatever the hell we want. Some teachers decry deskwarming, saying it is a waste of time. We like to see it as an opportunity. As the saying goes, only boring people get bored. Some deskwarming activities we’ve enjoyed:

• Read a book. We’ve both read over 50 books a year while living here.
• Read the internet. News, blogs, columns, humor…read what you like.
• Take online classes. There are a wealth of free, university-level courses available online.
• Listen to music or podcasts. No reason to miss out on the latest releases.
• Do crafts or art. How often do you say “I’d love to have the time to practice watercolors.” Now you do, and you’re getting paid for it.
• Exercise. This requires a space at school that is unused and affords a bit of privacy.  Fortunately, we’ve both had such a luxury.
• Watch a movie/TV show. Just be careful — Youtube is a rabbit hole from which it is extremely difficult to climb out.
• Sports. Do all of the sportsing! (this one only applies to me)
• Play a musical instrument. This also requires a space to do so — seek and ye shall find.
• Play a game. Online game, PC game, phone game, board game (if you have willing coworkers)…just be sure it isn’t disruptive to those around you.
• Catch up with loved ones at home. Write postcards/letters/emails, or even video chat (again, as long as there is space and privacy).
• Take a nap. Sleeping at one’s desk is not uncommon in Korean culture, nor is having a place at work to go off to “rest,” so napping at work will actually help you fit in!

This influx of spare time will most definitely be missed. For four years, our leisure hours and working hours have overlapped, and we’ve not taken that for granted. We’ve tried our best to use that time wisely. The trick will now be learning to distill those leisure activities to fit in a smaller time frame. I think we can handle it.

Miss scale: 7

-Michael