Korean Job Discussion Forums

mrsquirrel · Joined: 13 Dec 2006

Have you ever met a bad student? Not a student with discipline problems or wh doesn't do their homework, but a genuinely bad student who is on the way to a life of crime.

Back home in the UK when I was at school (a good school at that) there were several boys at school who were on their way towards being locked up or career criminals. They were bad, everybody knew it. They did end up being in trouble with the law. Some are banged up, some are on the run and some are still going about their business.

Working in Thailand and Korea I have never met any students yet that were like this. None which were obviously heading on a different path to everybody else.

Have you met any like this?

koon_taung_daeng · Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Location: south korea

Ive only taught elementary so i have yet to meet any students that i knew where going to go to jail, but when i was in high school half of my friends ended up in jail because they were too lazy to go to college and thought selling drugs would be easier, so stupid

bellum99 · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Location: don't need to know

I taught a true psycho...I mean he lacked any real empathy or thought of other people. He stabbed a kid next to him in the hand with a pencil for no reason and laughed (kid went to the hospital). Then he threw a pencil and hit next to my eye and clapped and laughed about it. The kid was like ten years old. Eventually his mother quit the school...I mean she quit...the director wouldn't kick the monster out.
He was going to eventually get old enough to have trouble with the police.

yingwenlaoshi · Joined: 12 Feb 2007 Location: ... location, location!

I don't know, but if I ever meet a student like that they'll be getting some creative English names. Like Charlie Manson or Ted Bundy.

koon_taung_daeng · Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Location: south korea

if a kid ever threw a pencil at my face i would launch him straight at the door and scream at him untilled he pissed himself in front of everyone

cbclark4 · Joined: 20 Aug 2006 Location: Masan

I have a middle school kid who spits at all the other kids, I mean all of them even the ones that look like they could tear him apart.

The other day he stuck a sewing needle through his ear lobe in the middle of class (Summer Camp). One of his class mates took a picture on his cell phone. He did not return to class the following day, and I haven't seen him since.

mrsquirrel · Joined: 13 Dec 2006

Not mental kids.

I'm talking about kids who are on their way to prison rather than university.

LuckyNomad · Joined: 28 May 2007

I have quite a few students who I know are destined for a life of Chinese Food delivery/PC bang living.

VirginIslander · Joined: 24 May 2006 Location: Busan

I worked at a detention center for "bad boys" for three months. Very sad
situation. It tested me more than I have ever been tested. And I was only a counselor, or enforcer.

Several had HIV. How do you tell a 15 year old boy--and his mother gave him HIV---that he should study math and science because he'll really needs to know about earthquakes and equations during his last three years on this Earth.

Or, the 19 year old rapist who had to be released because he was too old for the program. But, we all knew that he would rape again and then be sent to prison.

Or, the 16 year old gang banger who had a third grade education?

Or, the 12 year old boy who was molested by his step parents?

Or, the Cambodian with severe depression who couldn't speak English but was thrown into this program with everybody else.

Or, the Crack Baby.

Or, the Dominican who was usually friendly, but occasionally very violent. It got to the point where the other counselors has to literally punch him in has face to prevent him from fighting. I saw that on my first day.

Or, Ray. Who had a cold, disturbing look in his eyes. He was only a child but you could tell he loved nothing in the world and nothing ever loved him

bosintang · Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 11:52 pm Post subject:

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

Not in Korea, I haven't (I've mostly been teaching adults here).

But at home:

a) I taught a kid who was as nice and polite as he could be, but he didn't have much of a work ethic to get him over his lack of intelligence. He became a meth dealer and was killed in a shoot-out with the police. I wasn't entirely surprised when I heard about it, but I was sad, because he was a good person when I knew him.

b) The kid I spotted as being headed for a life of crime was an 18 year old high school sophomore. He was 6'7" or so and had been coddled all through junior high by the basketball coach. That didn't pay off once he got to high school. I insisted he actually do something in study hall; he got p****d off and quit school. That alone should tell you a lot.

The next summer he bought a hot car and started bragging that the Australian Olympic basketball team was negotiating with him to come over and play for them. ^^ He even talked about DRIVING to Australia from Iowa. (I told you he wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier.) Then his 8th grade girlfriend got pregnant.

He agreed to pay for her abortion. To get the money, this 6'7" kid put on a ski cap with holes cut in it and armed himself with a squirt gun and drove down the road about 20 miles to a burg of 300 people that had a bank. He robbed the bank at squirt gun point.

He didn't even make it out of town before he was arrested. It's very hard to hide when you are 6'7", especially in a town of 300 people.

He was shocked when he was convicted of armed robbery (It was ONLY a squirt gun!) and sentenced to a few years in the federal pen...Leavenworth, I think. While there, his roommie was really named Bubba and our friend really did have to go to a shrink after he was released because Bubba liked his sex young, white and rough.

johnpeterson2008 · Joined: 23 Jul 2007

There was a student at my last hagwon who would urinate on a plant in the hallway. The plant was one of the biggest plants in the school. The staff would place bets up to 10,000 Korean Won for the exact time he would do his daily deed. I won 80,000 Korean Won one day.

Lizara · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Location: Seoul

None until this year, but now I have two...

One boy who's about ten who consistently comes thirty to forty minutes late (for a fifty-minute class) or not at all, isn't remarkably badly behaved in class, but only because he obviously can't be bothered... he generally does what he wants regardless of what I say... and lies to his parents all the time about coming to school. He once skipped his regular school for a few days and told his teacher it was because his grandfather had died; the teacher called to check, and of course no such thing had happened. He may well be able to keep himself out of jail and settle for a career as a cheating hagwon director or some such thing.

And the really sad one... I teach a pair of eight-year-old twins with behavioural difficulties. Sometimes they're very eager to study and be helpful, and I try to praise them as much as possible on those days, but they don't know how to deal with things not going well and they tend to react by kicking things or screaming or throwing tables, and when they're in this mode they're very strong... no one can move them... and it's impossible to get them back on track. I would like to think the good side of their personalities will win out in the end, but from what little I know of the Korean school system, Korean society, and how they're usually treated (they come to hagwon with bruises all over their legs...) I'm inclined to think that once they get old enough to *really* get in trouble, they'll have given up on the world and will end up bitter and angry at everything.