Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later, I guess. Today, I was teaching a grade two MS class that can get a bit rowdy or too chatty sometimes, but which I've generally got a good lid on. Five minutes into class I could see that a certain pair were going to spend the whole class chatting away with each other unless I was standing over them or moved them out to the corridor, so I made them trade places with girls up at the front of the class. Ah, what a difference that makes, I thought, good for me. Not. Fast forward to near the end of the lesson...

I've given them a puzzle to do while I go around to each pair checking their pronunciation on the first four lines of the dialogue. I'm at the back of the classroom. All of a sudden the girl sitting beside the naughty girl I moved starts yelling and swearing at the naughty girl with tears streaming down her face. I rush over and she won't stop, as I'm ready to restrain her in case she attacks. This particular student is not very bright but has always been very well behaved, nice, and respectful to me. Now all of the sudden she's swearing her head off at the naughty girl, who I'm guessing said something awful to her (I think the dimmer girl has some life problems the naughty one may have brought up). I'm completely at a loss what to do and so I just move the naughty one to the back again where she spends the time remaining screwing around with her friends, and the dimmer girl overhears something that sets her off again.

I hope that by the end of the lesson things have calmed down and I can get them both to apologise to each other. With some teachers I'm sure the dimmer one would get a caning for the language she used but I'm going to assume that something really set her off and that apologising to each other will work. Well, the naughty one insists she did nothing wrong, the dim girls sets off again, the naughty one starts tearing up because she thinks I'm blaming her (which I was, far too presumptively perhaps), and the dim one runs out of the classroom in tears.

How would you have handled that one? I'm just glad that the dim one didn't get violent. Should I have a conversation about it with their homeroom teacher getting an English teacher to translate? I'm really at a loss.

[bosintang]

Do you teach in an all-girls school or something? This kind of stuff is a daily occurence here!

It hasn't happened in any of my classes, but when it happens in other teachers classes, usually the homeroom teacher sits them down in opposite corners of the room where they spend the rest of the morning or afternoon, and they write out their stories on a piece of paper. After reading their stoires and talking to them, the teacher deals with them the way they see fit.

As far as your job..send them to the homeroom teacher and let them sort it out.

[passport220]

[yingwenlaoshi]

Send them both to the principal's office and let them deal with it.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[manlyboy]

Ouch! I sympathize. Do you even have authorization to get involved and arbitrate over something so emotionally-charged and personal? I don't think a homeroom teacher would appreciate me stepping on his or her turf like that. Not to mention how the parents might feel about me digging around in what could be sensitive family issues.

For me it would be either:

Option 1: Hand it off to the HR teacher, or

Option 2: Have them take out their retractable stanley knives and let God decide.

[spliff]

[The_Conservative]

I'd sit them both down and tell them in no uncertain terms if anything like this happens again, they're off to the Principal's office or their homeroom teacher. Then let it go.

[khyber]

This is just my opinion.

When the naughty girl said she didn't do anything, THAT was where I would have said something because I HATE it when people lie to me.

1) NOBODY cries and suddenly gets angry at another person for ABSOLUTELY no reason. It just isn't done...unless someone is mentally unstable.
So the naughty girl saying she didn't do anything is, so obviously a LIE. And I don't like lies. So I would have switched to FIRM gear, where I begin talking much more firmly to the naughty girl until I get the TRUTH from her or at least a story where she acknowledges her role.

I would accept anything, even something small because then she at LEAST owns up to doing something wrong.


It isn't fair to the hurt girl to do let the naughty girl lie herself out of the situation, but you cna't necessarily trust the hurt girl to give the truth (thought I tend to be obliged to).

I would have held them both after class. Expecting them to give each other an apology that would mean something is irrational and my opinion would be to just avoid doing that. Tat said, I'd make it dam fucking clear that the naughty girl NEVER EVER did that again in class.
In addition to holding them after class, I wouldn't let them leave until I was satisified with their stories.
When I'd let them go, I'd walk them out the door and watched them go as far down the hallway as I could. If ANY words are exchanged, I'd call them back.

[bosintang]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Well it turns out the dimmer girl does indeed have mental health problems and has done this kind of thing before. I talked to the head of English at my middle school, who wasn't the least bit surprised and told me not to worry about it. He relayed on the story to her homeroom teacher and she didn't seem at all surprised, either.

The thing that got me was that she's always been so nice and polite around me, bowing deeply when she passes me on the street in town, etc. I've been teaching her since she started middle school and I've always known her as the nice, quite, somewhat strange, not very bright, and extremely respectful kid. My initial think was more along the lines of Kyber but after this I can really see the point of leaving situations like this entirely up to the homeroom teacher to sort out. I still think there's a good chance that the naughty girl did something to set her off but in the even that she didn't do anything on purpose I feel a bit bad for presuming it was something she precipitated.

Oh well let's hope it's more than a year before this kind of thing happens again.

[yingwenlaoshi]

Yeah. Let them deal with it. You're just a teacher's assistant. You don't speak the language. Not your job. Wouldn't be my job, either.

"Hey! We've got a problem here! Thank you."

[khyber]

I don't want to be a damper here, but yu, sometimes wan--tta students are completely left by themselves with no support from their teachers either.
It's possible that this girl does has mental health problems but I have seen PERFECTLY NORMAL kids marginalized by their peers for their wan-ttaism. And then watched as teacher after teacher would say "oh she hasn't problems with her mind". Or "she is very strange" while not making any effort to protect this girl from the bullying or help them to make friends in their class..

If this girl has been kind, polite, and curteous to you it's probably because you have treated her BETTER than any other teachers or students that she has had. If I were you, I'd try and keep that relationship close if you can.

The only thing I would suggest you do is keep a VERY close eye on how people relate to her over the coming weeks and see how she really behaves.

Wan-ta: (social exclusion by peers and marginalized by teachers) Problem #3 with the Korean Education system.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[FUBAR]