I hope they got their money’s worth.
Teaching February 5th. 2007, 10:49pmThe students that left for a month home stay in the United States arranged by our school have arrived back in Korea. They came back on Friday, which means their first classes back in the school will be this week. Some of the student’s I used to teach, and some of them were students I never had in class. One of the students that went to the United States joined my class for the first time today. I wish he would have stayed in the United States longer, because I certainly don’t like him.
When class started, it was their second hour of the day. I took over for the director who shares this class with me. She’s got a class in another room. Since I had already taught the class on Friday, I was surprised to meet a new student that I hadn’t seen before. I asked him his name, to which I immediately got a sarcastic response. He responded that he wanted to be called, "Tom Alexander Jude Junior, the Third," which more honorifics and names inserted each time I asked him to repeat it. Yeah, funny. I told him if he couldn’t pick a shorter name, I’d call him, "Pencil" for the rest of class. Eventually he settled on his name properly.
Next came his challenge, to see how well he would need to behave around me. In an exceedingly condescending Korean tone, he asked me, "Do you like bread?"
I gave him a look like, "Don’t waste my time kid. My Korean isn’t that bad, and me being able to speak, or not speak Korean has no impact on me teaching you English right here and now. Speak English in class, or I’ll start to get angry at the way you are talking to you."
All the other students in class were like, "What are you doing? He speaks Korean, and he understands everything you are saying!"
When called on, he would say, "I don’t know!" in Korean, but in a tone similar to "Eureka!" as if I was dumb enough to fall for such a trick.
He wasn’t satisfied with that, however. When told to read a paragraph for repetition, he refused. Other students in the class were volunteering to read, but he tried to set the terms of when and how he would be participating. No deal. I’m the boss in class,not some smart ass kids.. "Read, or I’ll be sure that my director sees every minute of this tape."
He then tried to call my bluff. He replied, as if I was a complete moron, "The director has class now, so she can’t be watching this tape. You can’t punish me. That’s a close circuit television. No one is watching."
I got a rather wide grin on my face. Everyone in the class turned around and said, "You don’t know? They upgraded the system while you were in The United States! She can record, re-watch, and hear EVERYTHING now. These are NEW cameras!"
I turned around and waved at the camera. I had a large smile on my face. "Say, Hi!"
When class finished and we were writing down homework, a student asked about his trip to The United States. He commented about how he said rude things in Korean to everyone he met. I commented he must have made lots of friends that way. He also didn’t know where he had gone, and was unable to list a single place he had seen. I hope his parents are happy on the money they spent on that trip.
After the class, I talked to his usual teachers, wondering as to his behavior in previous classes. Everyone was shocked as to what he had said and how he had acted. The Korean teachers theorized that the trip to the United States had turned him into some sort of devil. My director agreed to watch the tape of the class. She said that the audio was muddled, and the only thing that could be heard clearly was my pose for the camera. She promised to watch the footage with the students again and give the student in question hell. She took my word for it, even if the audio wasn’t definitive. I’ll have witnesses too, since most of the students in the class are rather nice girls that like me. Since my director shares the class with me, the student will be under scrutiny for half the time he is at school too.
I’m worried. The student I have the most problems with also went to the United States and will return to school this week as well. If their trip turned a previous nice kid into a sarcastic brat, what will happen to a student I want to throw out of my class nearly every day?
7 Responses to “I hope they got their money’s worth.”
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February 6th, 2007 at 5:13 am
The opposite will happen. Nice kid becomes brat. Brat becomes nice kid. So the one that returns next week will be your best student. It will all be very After School Special-y.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:51 am
The kid that’s returning is the Electronic Translator kid?
February 6th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
I got lucky. Electronic Translator boy was not in my class today. He might be in my class later in the week however. I’m not sure.
February 7th, 2007 at 6:32 am
can’t you just hit him?
i’m writing a paper about corporal punishment in korean high schools. i would appriciate your thoughts on korea’s tradition of hitting in the classroom. i’m not sure about this, but was it made illegal in 99, then reallowed recentely?
perhaps you would be so kind as to blog something about the subject, or maybe email me at el1lis.1ada1m @ g1ma1il.com (remove all 1’s, its an anti spam trick, dunno if it works).
저한테 쓰면 좋겠습니다.
February 7th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
I don’t hit students. I also don’t work at a Korean high school.
At the private school I work at, we have a well developed discipline system involving points earned that can be used for actual cash at Internet shopping sites. If I punish students, I’m actually taking away money they could later spend. Even the worst behaving students figure out that some free cash is better than nothing when they see their friend order something online and it gets delivered at the school.
When “delayed gratification” no longer works, or students never get wise to the system, Korean teachers intimidate, threaten, and call home. Parents are spending big money to send kids to our school, so they usually are the muscle for us.
As to Korean High schools, law or not, DO hit their students, or at least my students tell me that do. It’s simply accepted as a discipline measure here. As to why? It’s a long standing tradition, I guess.
February 8th, 2007 at 4:29 am
Thank you for your reply.
That point system is very interesting, especially when compared to the traditional punishment system. That’s also good that the parents take the bigger role in child discipline. I heard somewhere that parents used to send small rods to teachers as a way of granting them the freedom to use physical punishment on the student.
Another question then. You don’t work at a high school, so at an elementary school perhaps? One of my Korean teachers told me that her elementary teachers forced their students to be in uncomfortable posistions as punishment, such as kneeling on the desk holding their chairs above their heads. I’ve also learned of other traditional punishments where the student must support his weight with his forhead, like a pushup posistion with hands behind the back. Are these kind of practices still used in your or other elementary schools in Korea?
February 8th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
I work at a private academy. We are a for profit organization licensed to teach English. Students go to our school for supplemental English instruction. We aren’t part of the public Korean education system, don’t have unions, aren’t held to national curriculum, etc.
My stories of discipline come from children themselves. They tell me teachers slap hands with sticks, force students in awkward positions for extended periods of time, etc. Older teachers with tenure tend to be the most physically abusive, since complaining won’t get them fired.
Our Korean teachers at the school tend to be physically intimidating at times, occasionally shout, and use the aforementioned money system to deal with problems. Very, VERY rarely have I witnessed any sort of physical contact used as a discipline measure.