Job Discussion Forums

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

I gave a test to my students last week and one of them did very poorly. Of course my boss is very strict and the parents demand this of him.

In my office, I told her her parents must be notified of her 1/10 mark on her exam.

In tears and near hysterics, she begged for me to not tell her father; hit her instead like the Chinese teacher does.

I told her in Canada, we do not hit students. The boss' wife was laughing at this specticle because she knew exactly why the student wanted me to met out the punishment. Rolling up the sleeve to her arm were burn marks.

"This is normal", I was told.

Wholly crapola...

Anyway, now I understand why the students hold out their hands to me when I scold them for doing poorly.

I have been told that if I wish, I may apply the strap to the palm of their hands. It hurts! (it was demonstrated on me).

But I figure it is better than having cigarette burns to your arm, whip lashes on your back, or being locked in the washroom until you finish your homework.

Is there anyway I can save these kids a beating both from the parents and the teacher? Any ideas would be appreciated.

[johnslat]

Dear The Great Wall of Whiner,
Oh man - that's a tough situation. I'd fudge her grade, after telling her that you're going to give her X number of points BUT that you'd deduct those points - gradually - from her future grades. Maybe not the "professional" solution, but cripes - cigarette burns!!!!! I WOULD NOT tell the father that her daughter had failed, no matter what. Just be as gentle as you can with these poor kids - they clearly don't see much of that at home. If you HAVE TO apply the strap, do so gently. Mama mia.
Regards,
John

[Kapt. Krunch]

Wish I could spank the odd juvenile A55HAT!!
Seriously, the students ability doesn't seem that important now does it?
I'm pissed off just reading this post...

[ilunga]

There doesn't seem to be any middle ground in China.
The kids at my (private) school get away with murder. There's no discipline whatsoever. The school knows full well the cost of informing the parents that they're pissing 20,000rmb a term up the wall on their unteachable son/daughter. That's why the Chinese teachers are made to go on pointless 'recruitment drives' all the time.
My inability to control some of the junior students disheartened me at first, until I realised the Chinese teachers have the exact same problem.

Beating students for poor marks is though is something else! For being an annoying, disruptive little runt, fair enough, but for poor marks???

[Gonzo]

I wouldn't work at, or send my kids to, a school that practiced corporal punishment.
If I saw it happening and the victim was not capable of self defence, I might just help them out.
Terror and bullying, let alone sadistic self gratification, is not education.

[Lanza-Armonia]

Our school is the same. The kids are, by-and-large, huge a$$holes. As I work in one of the most respected privately owned schools in China, the kids here know that they are rich and are loving it. They just don't give a f-uck. Note, I didn't say feck, I said F-UCK!!!!

Sometimes you just want to rip those high pitched-voice boxes outta their little throughts and feed it to them again. I mean, how does anyone find that kinda noise comfortable?

On the other, I personally would never hit a kid. I saw one teacher do it in this school and I pushed her; consequently fell onto the floor and embarrased her, or made her 'lose face' in front of her peers. I don't care how much of an a$$hole a kid is there is no need for violence.....

ONF

LA

[Roger]

No one has remarked on the illegality of said corporeal actions against students; while Chinese teachers may get away with it you won't!
And, in more sophisticatyed towns - Shanghai comes to mind - parents would ever so happily seize on the opportunityh to penalise the school so as to get their tuition back from them!
If you are a foreign national then all hell may break loose should you lose your temper!

Some students are so mortified by shaming actions that they commit suicide!

[Kurochan]

Wow! Is your school in the interior?

When I taught at a primary school, one kid's parents were told to come to school to get a talking-to from a head teacher for beating their daughter when she did poorly at school! The kid told me they stopped! She said her parents were from the countryside, and they believed that was the right thing to do when kids didn't do well enough in school.

From what I heard, some of the kids I taught got a switch to the back of their legs if they were bad, but nothing like being burnt!

[batman]

i saw the title of this thread, and i was going to make some smart ass comment about how i beat students all the time, but then i read about the cigerette burns, and really, this is quite serious. like my name sake, i can be a bit fanatical about justice, and one day i will witness something in this country that makes me react in a totally violent way.

lanza: i just got fired from a school just like yours, cause the little rich snots had too much power over the management, who was a spineless loser who caved everytime they made some whinny noise. best thing that happened to me. now i babysit rich bored housewives, and they love me.

i have a story to relate to u all that illustrates some of the basic problems here that leads to this kind of behaviour just being accepted. it was told to me by a friend/colleague:

he was taking a train somewhere and met a woman who was clearly upset, and he bagan to talk to her to find out why (his chinese is very good). turns out she saw the conductor toss a baby out of the window. this poor baby had been abandonned on the train because he/she had a cleft palate, and the parent(s) didnt want it. it was crying, and without food maybe for several days, and finally the train staff took it upon themselves to just toss it out a window. my friend asked the lady why she didnt stop them, and all she could say was that the conductor was a figure of authority, and she could not tell him what to do.

i think if any one of us saw this happening, we would make some attempt to stop it, and a few of us would even be tempted to punish these reprobates summarily. i know i would. baby killers rate pretty low in my book. i was shocked, and even felt sick when my friend told me about this.

[Ricepaddy]

Bats, I really don't want to believe that story is true...but I can easily imagine such happening. Fer phuxache. Don't know what I'd do if I saw something like that, but whatever happened it would probably end up with me seeing the inside of a PSB station before long. When that kind of thing happens before your eyes, it's hard to keep control.

Back to the topic at hand, one of the great skills of teaching is putting up with the little darlings (of all ages). Yeah, they can (and do) drive you batty (sorry, Bats..), but that's the gig. If you don't have the (considerable) patience, then you shouldn't be in the classroom. I'd have no problem with a school dismissing a teacher for hitting a student. Might even give the offender a little momento of my own.

The domestic violence is something else. A student here recently asked a colleague for permission to miss class. My friend asked her why: turned out that she wanted to go to the hospital, as her boyf had beaten her and injured her arm and back. Beating children is even worse (if one cares to grade such things), but other than becoming the Charles Bronson of China, it's hard to know what to do.

[Kurochan]

The student I had who was beaten was also a girl. She was born in the countryside, and her grandfather, who was pissed off that she was a girl, named her "change into a man."

My friends in Henan say they often see guys hitting or shoving around women in the street (and they have sometimes interveigned). I've never seen it on the east coast. Have I just been lucky? Once I DID see this female student hitting a guy student and trying to drag him by his hair. It was on my campus. I wasn't sure what to do!

[batman]

hi burl. drinking and posting is fun huh? it doesnt make alot of sense for the rest of us, but thats ok. we are all here to just have a good time, while all this shit goes on around us.

[ilunga]

Kurochan, I'm in Henan and I've lost count of the number of times I've seen Chinese men being abusive towards women. Most often I see girls being forced into cars against their will. Once in the disco there was a situation involving a friend of a friend. I felt very awkward just being there but as the only male I felt inclined to try and help in some way.
Violence in the discos is very common and I'm quite lucky never to have been involved. I turned down the chance to go a few nights ago and it turned out the boyfriend of a girl I know and his mates seriously beat some guy with bottles and all. The police were called in.
If I'd been with them drinking it wouldn't have looked too clever!

[stephw]

while i support all your anti-domestic abuse posts, please be careful of getting involved!

my friend was in a bar in shijiazhuang (sp?!) with some friends in 2001. a guy was beating his girlfriend up at the bar. he went over to try to stop him, and the couple left.

everything was a-ok for an hour or so, and got even better when the guy came back with his friends and they were all sat round drinking and talking together. until the guy smashed a bottle over a laowai's head on his return from the bar....massive fight ensued, resulting in laowai's going to (and one staying in) hospital.

but it was ok though (!) because the men were caught and had to pay the laowais compensation...

i know this is a second-hand story, and obviously i will have heard the 'chinese in the wrong/laowai in the right' version, but the guys still had a fair few stitches between them and the girls were still upset days afterwards...

be careful!

[batman]

just out of curiosity, how much will you net for getting smashed in the head and taking a few stiches? could work into a new job description for me...getting into bar fights for the comp! just like canada!