::A Geek in Korea::

I have a class of obnoxious preteens that I teach once a week. These are the worst kinds of classes. Seeing students once a week means I don’t build up any rapport with them, and they treat me like a substitute teacher. The same annoy stuff their more frequent teachers stamped out long ago get foisted on me regularly. The only good part about teaching a pain of the ass class on Friday is that I am supposed to the teacher that hands out vocabulary tests to the students. This eats of a good ten minutes of class where students are actually quiet. I like that a lot, and it makes this particular class a lot more bearable.

Today the secretary in charge of tests told me she hadn’t prepared the this classes’ vocabulary test on time. The second teacher would be handling their tests. Bad luck for me, but I had a quiz prepared, and plenty of material for the hour. I don’t need to vocabulary tests, but I certainly don’t mind them allowing me a few moments of silence if they are available. The very first thing I said when I came into class was,”Sorry, I don’t have your vocabulary tests. I don’t have them because they aren’t finished yet. If the secretary makes them before the class is finished, I will let you take them as soon as I can fit it into the class. Get out your homework, we’ll have to start class.”

This elicited a chorus of moans. Students don’t really study words for vocabulary tests. They load thirty words into their short term memory as quickly as possible before class sequentially. Anything that disturbs their memory or requires them to think in any way will force the words out of their brains. Even if you spent the entire time TEACHING them the words they needed to know on their tests out of order, the simple act of talking about the words instead of letting them memorize the words how they appear on the test will cause them to forget. It’s one of the small concessions you give when you ask students to memory thirty words a day at their level. They can’t actually use the words, and if you don’t let them take the test as soon as possible, they’ll forget and fail. Well, the bad ones will, and that’s who is going to complain. The Korean parents love it regardless, because the students spend lots of time retaking tests they fail until they get the ability to quickly memorize words before a test. This isn’t a useful ability, but it’s what Korean parents are paying for. It’s 10 minutes of silence for me, so I just do what I’m told.

Anyway, this time around the students didn’t get to offload their words onto the paper as fast as possible. They said it wasn’t fair I wasn’t giving them the test right away. I said that if they had studied the words correctly, they should be able to write them before my class OR after my class. Students told me I wasn’t “allowed” to start my class, and that I had to go back out and get their tests for them. I’ve never had a class have this reaction to the news of a test, and I certainly don’t permit students to tell me what I’m “allowed” to do in class.

“There is no test. There is nothing FOR me to get. Get out your homework. We’re studying my book. Let’s go.”

Of course, the same students that complain about the tests are the same students that don’t do my homework. I made sure that they never had time to both follow my work we caught them up on the homework they should have done and study for their vocabulary tests. Don’t do my homework and don’t treat me with respect? No way I’ll do a favor. There was about ten minutes left in class when I finished the book. It takes roughly fifteen minutes to take the vocabulary test when you add in grading. That’s the time I usually use to check homework, but I had already finished that earlier. It takes about five to seven minutes to explain my homework because I had to assign a longer written essay which they won’t do and I’ll spend the entire NEXT class reviewing, like I did today. If they don’t get to take their test in my class next time, I’ll still have plenty of work left over from everything they didn’t do today because they were too busy complaining about their vocabulary tests being late.

I could have done the class a favor, gone out and bothered the secretary to see if she had made the tests. In a class full of students that are civil with me, I probably would have done just that. I would have had to stay after the bell to proctor the grading part of the test. These students cheat and help their friends, so without a teacher watching over them they’d all miraculously pass no matter their actual score. If I had to spend another minute in the class hearing them whine, I was going to get more angry than I needed to be.

My other option was to walk out when the bell rings and let the next teacher deal with the students. I chose that option.

I handed out my homework and explained to them in detail. A smarter student would have realized that this would be a great time to start studying for the vocabulary test again that you know you would be getting in a few minutes when the next class started.

In this class? A student actually grabbed a pencil and started stabbing the paper in frustration. I believe he thought the vocabulary tests were finished when I walked into the class the first time, and I wasn’t passing them out to be mean. I had TOLD them, repeatedly, that I had no tests available for me to give. The secretary would be annoyed at me if I don’t get graded tests back during the same class hour. Otherwise I’d totally be doing that to this class every time from now on. If they wanted to get pissy and stabby, they could do it on their own time next hour, because they weren’t going to get any favors from me.

The real problem with this class is that they are teenagers, but they aren’t yet in middle school. Teenagers in elementary school think they are in charge of everything and can do whatever they want. “Big man on campus” syndrome. Parents feed into this by giving in to their children’s desires constantly. Parents know it’s their children’s last chance at happiness and freedom for the next eight years. Until they finish studying around the clock for their college entrance examinations, these children will cease to know free time or joy.

It’s not until they reach Korean middle school that these students discover “HOLY SHIT MY LIFE SUCKS.” Then they are too drained from studying all day and all night to put up resistance in class. This is the point in time that marks a distinct change in their behavior. If they give their Korean middle school teacher’s crap, they’ll be beaten physically in front of their peers.The worst I ever do is maybe waste a few minutes of their time with a test once a week.

Soon, these very same students come back to my school the first week after their vacations in their middle school uniforms as broken husks of children. They shuffle in, with their new school hair cuts, uncomfortable pants and mountains of books. Finally they understand that a teacher in Korea isn’t someone you want to make angry. It is the sweetest shadenfreuda EVER. I mean, it sucks to see children stripped of their innocence and forced into a pointless world of memorization and endless study, but some kids are real brats, you know?