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[water rat]

Just yesterday at Hogwart's (see http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=108526&highlight=nickname ) where I work, I saw a meanass looking older teacher walk up to a female student and pull her ear. You know how sometimes when you think you see a fight in China, it turns out to be a couple of buds roughhousing? Well, this wasn't one of those times. This old man looked so pissed (angry) that I thought he was joking - a parody of the outraged disciplinarian. I'm climbing the stairs, and on floor three I see this geezer stride purposefully over to a teenage girl and commence pinching her ear! It hurt! WTF!? I know 'hardass' is the preferred East Asian teaching method from, I dunno, Sendai to Istanbul, but c'mon! What right does that old fart have physically abusing a young lady? Or young man,? Which I am sure he does as well! I even knew a Chinese-American in Arabia who was quite gruff with his students. I would have thought he'd know better! But all they had to do was ask a question between classes while he was chatting with my rodent-like self, and he was like, "What!?" He didn't want to give his students the time of day.

I am a firm believer in the saying that 'Gentle ways are best.' I live and teach by this philosophy, and I've used it to move mountains.

My Javanese wife used to help our daughters with their civics and history homework. (I couldn't because it was all in Indonesian. Their English homework was my forte). Sometimes she'd get impatient with wrong answers and yell at them. I had to tell her that what she was doing was the exact opposite of teaching them anything. They were unlearning civics and history forever. Learning to loathe these subjects. (You see them now, mostly grown. Their English is flawless and they could care less about citizenship or history of any kind)

So this is the Asia hardass method. We can't stop it, so I say we counteract it, subvert it so the students love English best. I do it by always being gentle, kind, caring and polite in class - no matter what! The students love me for it, and here's the thing: they learn gobs from me! The megalomaniac masochists that teach them to be good citizens and understand the dismal science are left behind. I have them singing Ch-ch-ch-changes and Israel Kamakawiwoʻole 's version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and in this way I am doing my part in the fight against totalitarianism, fascism and capitalism. So there! (Bleeding Blue and mateacher, I'm talking to you) any one who doesn't like it can go to hell.

[rogerwilco]

[Sashadroogie]

Off to the re-education camps you go!

[water rat]

[damn_my_eyes]

There's a bit of ear tweeking and "friendly" cuffs around the back of the head goes on at my school. If there's ever another cultural revolution here a few of the so-called teachers might find themselves lined up against the wall, with their trousers round their ankles for good measure.

I started primary school in the UK the year that corporal punishment had just been banned. The headmaster had his old wooden thwacking cane mounted on the office wall like some kind of trophy. Dreaming of the good old days when you could thwack a ten year old.

[water rat]

[kev7161]

I've seen Chinese teachers at my school rap the students' knuckles with a ruler, pull on ears, smack the kids in the face, and shove them away when they (the teachers) are frustrated. I've reported this sort of stuff to the higher-ups, but it looks like this is an acceptable teaching methodology. In our foreign teachers manual we get at the beginning of each school year, it expressly forbids us from any sort of punishment like this, yelling at the students, demeaning the students, etc. I guess our Chinese counterparts get a different manual.

But saying this, not all these students are sweet and innocent. Some are lazy, belligerent, offensive, and downright rude. Work in a private school filled with kids from rich families and you'll see what I mean. Not to say I want to smack my students around, but there are days . . . .

[water rat]

[jm21]

My girlfriend was really surprised about the idea of teachers whacking students when the topic came up a while back. She thought the parents would raise hell if something like that happened, and it's been a decade since she left school. Maybe different parts of the country are different.

[ESL104]

I'm in two minds about this. In my school in Thailand, the Thai teachers also hit the students with rulers, hit them round the ear etc.

All of these kids are far more polite and well behaved than the kids back in the UK (I was a teaching assistant there for a bit). And I can definitely notice the difference in behaviour in the class when my Thai TA is sick or absent for whatever reason, and I have to take the class alone. When they don't have the fear of a good smack over the head they will pay much less attention to the teacher. When the Thai teacher is there, just about all 50 of the kids in the class are quiet.

Of course I teach Primary level, so there's a lot more need for that kind of discipline down there than there would be at university level, where presumably the class sizes are smaller and students are more mature, so they're easier to manage.

[water rat]

[Sashadroogie]

Dear respected water rat

Your comments have been recorded and passed on to the relevant authorities. Please have a small bag containing one change of clothes ready for when the organs pay you a visit late this evening.


With Communist greetings

Sasha

[ESL104]

[Markness]

[coldcucumber]