Farewell Week, Part 2: S'mores Festival

Full disclosure: My school has had a "Science Festival" every year, an event which I am totally in favor of, which led me to wish for an "English Festival". My new co-teacher Nicky, without my input, actually just did it, although it was less school-wide than classroom-wide. Though none of us knew it at the time, the event coincided with my "farewell" lesson. This was fortuitous, as it turned what could have been a dreary occasion into quite a lot of fun. You have already seen the gestures many students and classes made to thank me for teaching them during the last (up to) four years. I was moved by the genuine emotion many of them expressed. And we had s'mores!

S'mores are are a kind of sandwich wherein a melted/toasted marshmallow and a piece of chocolate are smushed between two crackers--usually graham crackers. Not much in the way of grahams available in Korea, but I have to say saltines worked just fine. 'Cause s'mores are somewhat an American cultural phenomenon.


Nicky went somewhat overboard in requisitioning the supplies, but I always think it's better to to have extra than not enough. We treated the whole "Festival" as a camp out, so the English language connection was to sing campfire songs--"If I had a hammer", "I love the mountains" and/or "Puff the magic dragon". It was great!

In America, we would doubtless melt the marshmallows in the microwave, but this being Korea, we roasted them on open flames over what most of us call the "samgyupsal burner".


Don't worry, forceful instruction in English and Korean insured they stayed seated, blew their burning marshmallows out upward (not to the side or down into the burner flame) ...


...and never put crackers, chocolate or plain wooden skewers into the flames.


A tasty and delicious time was had by all.