::A Geek in Korea::

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…unless it rolls down a hill or something. The very highest student in all of my classes is a girl that has a younger brother that I also teach. They couldn’t be more different.

The girl has been [tag]studying[/tag] English forever, and has always been the brightest student wherever she goes. She has a monstrous [tag]work ethic[/tag] that awes me. She would stay up for hours to register for a test online when seating was limited. She has the highest level speech for a student that hasn’t studied abroad for long periods of time that I’ve ever met. Her vocabulary is impressive, even more so considering she studies Chinese characters, English, Korean, and French in school.

She’d tell me that she’d do her vocabulary tests during the break period in a class because she wants more time to prepare and study, and didn’t want to waste my time on a test she couldn’t pass the first time. She’s always asking the director about ways to improve her vocabulary and testing ability. She’s basically the best student anyone could ever hope to get as a teacher.

Her brother is sloth incarnate. He’s never spent more than the minute it takes me to walk around a classroom on his homework, if he bothers to do it at all. His English is as poor as his sister’s is good. He’s been studying for a long time as well, but isn’t doing well.

He fails every single test he takes that I give him. He puts no effort in paying attention in class, and often disrupts class with the sorts of questions that make other slackers in the class look annoyed for wasting THEIR time. Last week, I snapped and yelled at him for his rude behavior when he kept turning around to annoy someone that was doing their work. He wanted to stop class to have a water gun fight. Now that I’ve tried disciplining him, he’s even worse.

Today, he intentionally tried to get every question wrong on a homework assignment I gave him, but accidentally got one correct. The students in the class were cheering him on as I went down the page, slashing at every answer. He grew more smug as things on his test got worse. I removed as many reward points as I saw fit, but he didn’t care. Of course, he had the admiration of his moronic classmates to buoy his self-esteem instead.

I brought in my director, who knows the family well. She had been teaching them both for a long time. I explained that the boy had missed nearly every question on the test on purpose. She was extremely shocked by his behavior. This got the boy to behave in class as she gave him a look of death, but doesn’t help the fact he wastes all my time with his poor attitude.

I’d probably say that his poor behavior is closely related to his sister’s overachieving behavior. He has no work ethic, and she gets all the praise for the grades. He gets negative attention and thrives on this instead. From now on, I’ll avoid grading papers and letting other students see results as I go. That way there won’t be the competition and “build” to see who can get more wrong in this particular class.