A Visit from Flat Stanley

Today I was visited by an American all the way from Scottdale, Pennsylvania. His name is Flat Stanley and he is a good friend of Austin Bixler, a student in Mrs. Kaylor's Geography class at Southmoreland Middle School.


Flat Stanley came to visit me at Guji Elementary School in Guri, South Korea. Guri is located about 10 miles to the east of Seoul and a whopping 6,818 miles from Scottdale!

I wasted no time in putting Flat Stanley to work, and he really seemed to enjoy teaching English to third graders. He started out by attempting to explain that today is a very special day in parts of the western world: St. Patrick's Day, or as it is know in Korea- Wednesday!

You should have seen the blank stares Stanley received when he told the youngsters to pinch anyone who neglects to wear green. They wondered aloud,
"Why not just pinch, punch and kick your friends in class everyday like we do here?"

March is the start of the school year in Korea, so today's lesson was very simple. Basically, the kids just reviewed saying "hello," and "goodbye."

Stanley really wowed them when he shrunk himself down to get a closer look at the textbook.






All of this hard work made Stanley very hungry. During lunchtime, he was treated to one of Korea's most famous foods- bibimbap, or mixed rice. The rice contained bean sprouts, mushrooms and beef and was mixed together with a spicy red pepper sauce. There was also kimchi and a serving of eggdrop soup with tofu. Stanley had never tried tofu before, but it wasn't too bad!

The cooks must have known that Stanley was coming to visit, because they prepared his favorite- spaghetti! The spaghetti was a little bit different than the kind his mom used to make. It was surprisingly sweet and had carrots in the sauce as well as green peppers, onions and mushrooms. The hardest part was trying to eat the spaghetti with chopsticks, but Stanley eventually got the hang of it.





A piece of cinnamon toast accompanied the meal, which Stanly thought strange, but tasty none-the-less. For dessert, Stanley ate 3 small tangerines, known as gyool. They come from Jeju island just south of the Korean penninsula and they were the sweetest oranges he had ever tasted!



After lunch, Stanley headed out to the playground to work off the extra serving of spaghetti. He joined some new friends for a game of soccer and even posed for pictures with some of my favorite students.



















Today was a special day at Guji Elementary School. All of the students' parents came to visit with the homeroom teachers. Stanley was called into the student broadcasting room to be introduced to everyone on TV! Stanley was impressed with all of the broadcasting equipment.




I had a great time with my new pal Flat Stanley. I wish he could have stayed longer, but he said that he was off to another part of the world. He told me that the best part about being flat is that he can travel around the globe for the cost of a postage stamp. I hope he had a good time in Korea and always remembers Guji Elementary School, soccer and Korean spaghetti.