Differences in teaching and motivation
Korean life, Teaching February 23rd. 2006, 9:03pmI was talking to the husband of one of my old college friends. She became a teacher in her hometown after she graduated. She’s been working at the same school since then, and her husband made it clear that each year her students have gotten progressively worse. He said that because there is no discipline possible from teachers, and parents are either too busy or apathetic to keep their own children in line, his wife’s classes had decayed far past a reasonable level.
I joked that if parents started caring about their kids and would threaten to beat them like some of my student’s parents, maybe the students would act better. It’s not that I condone child abuse, it’s just that the parents that expect good grades and good behavior tend to be harder on their children. He agreed. He said that whenever the words, “Phone call to parents,” were uttered, he would always act better. While I didn’t face an abusive punishment from my parents, I didn’t want to face their wrath either, so if I was ever in a “call home” situation I knew I had better act better. He said that the students have gotten so used to calling everyone’s bluff that teachers don’t even attempt discipline anymore.
I contrast this with the story of something that happened when my wife visited her aunt. It seems that one of my wife’s cousins hadn’t been studying. He had been hiding his books around the house claiming to have lost them. He had failed several tests. He hadn’t been doing his homework. The aunt had been furious when she had gotten a call from a concerned teacher, and while my wife was present, took him into a private room for a little “attitude adjustment”. He got a few “behavior modification” taps with a ruler to the hands.
This left my wife in the awkward position of watching this boy get embarrassed and punished at the same time. My wife said that considering the money the parents spend on his education, he’s lucky they weren’t harder on him. She said she would have said something if they had touched they boy’s head, but there wasn’t anything besides a few sore knuckles. I’m sure the psychological scars are worse than any actual abuse he received.
While I don’t want lazy students in my class, it’s not often that I have to deal with what parents do to “motivate” their children. I wouldn’t want to be in that rather uncomfortable position of having to see a student or a relative physically punished by their parents even if they hadn’t been studying hard enough.
It’s a difference in culture that leaves me conflicted. Children do achieve a lot more here at much younger ages. They study harder. They do more work. They deal with monumental levels of stress better than I can. They also have less free time than most adults and hardly know what to do with unstructured free time. Their motivation, whether it be healthy praise from a job well done, or intimidation from a parent, does bear fruit. Would that still work in the American educational environment? I don’t know. I’ve thankfully never been in the position to see what American teachers put up with on a daily basis. I’m not sure that I could handle it.
3 Responses to “Differences in teaching and motivation”
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February 23rd, 2006 at 9:41 pm
I think you have better students than I’ve had. Many of my students are quite lazy, and protest every assignment I give them. It’s gotten worse lately, although that may be a function of the new schedule, with its overly-long class hours. That being said, yesterday two of my middle school students told me that their mom’s got really upset with them. One boy said his mother threw a pencil case at him, causing it to break. He was sporting a pencil bag, rather than his old case. But he’s certainly been improving in the last few months.
February 23rd, 2006 at 10:08 pm
I don’t know if it’s a question of students used to calling the teacher’s bluff. One of the number one rules in discipline is not to bluff at all. You don’t make idle threats. If you say you’re going to call home, you do it. Many teachers dilute the effectiveness of threats by making them too often and not following through.
On the flip side, if you call parents and they don’t follow through, then you’re really screwed. Kids need consistency. That’s very hard to do nowadays in our pluralistic (American) society. From what I read on your blog, Korean society sounds a bit more traditional and homogeneous so a more consistent educational culture is possible. Of course, I don’t actually have a teaching job, so this is all conjecture.
February 24th, 2006 at 11:29 am
I think you might have hit the nail on the head Eric. You can’t rely on the parents to do anything once that call is made anymore. People do all sorts of irrational things, like blaming a child’s poor behavior on teachers, or trying to sue schools that give students bad grades that damage their child’s self-esteem.
The education system here is traditional and homogeneous to a fault. “Group think” is a problem with some students never getting exposed to outside ideas or cultures. Of course, I am usually breaking that barrier wherever I go, so it’s getting less common as more foreigners crowd into Korea and bring their “traits” along with them. Sometimes this does more damage than good.
Tolerance for deviation from the norm is highly discouraged. Students wear uniforms from elementary school to high school, have teachers cut their hair if it’s too long (or on a whim if they need to be punished), students pick on each other because of age, social class, or grades, etc.
But, for the most part, if their parents raised them properly, they respect teachers to a degree unheard of in America. Even though the stories of teachers abusing this trust are common (hitting students, extorting them for outrageous sums of money to keep good grades, etc). American teachers are abused and don’t receive much respect. The expression, “Those that can’t ‘do’, teach,” is a very American idea. It shows the contempt people feel for teachers very accurately. When I explain that phrase to my Korean students they are shocked anyone would have such a view.