Korean Job Discussion Forums

rockstarsmooth · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Location: anyang, baybee!

i teach first grade high school students, in segregated classes. in one of my girls classes, there's a student who is wangta. unfortunately she is the stereotype of wangta, and as soon as i saw her i knew.
she refuses to work with anyone, and everyone refuses to work with her. flat out. poster project: she makes her own poster, everyone else works in groups. conversation activities: she doesn't speak, and no one in her group bothers to engage her.
i have this class twice a week, and i have 2 different coteachers with them. i've discussed it with both of them, and not much has happened. my younger coteacher sighs tragically, and my older coteacher explained that since it's a smaller city, kids don't have the chance to go to a different school when starting high school, so once a wangta, always a wangta. they know the same people all through elementary, middle and high school. so she doesn't see any hope.
today when i came back from break, the wangta kid had her head down and refused to lift it off the desk. another student told me she was crying, and she was covered in tiny scraps of paper. she stayed like that for the whole class. 50 minutes. her head on the desk. crying.
my coteacher asked what happened and everyone was silent. later she told me that the girl was being bullied but no one would give up any names. i have an idea of who is involved, the girls at the next table were making a pile of shredded paper. duh.
at the end of class, one girl came with me to my office to get tissue for the wangta kid. she's a really nice kid, we do the weekly conversation videos together, we have rapport. i asked her if she would tell me who did it, but she said no, though she was apologetic about it. i understand where she's coming from, and i don't want to push her.
so what can i do about this? my coteachers seem to be resigned to it. i have never been in this position, and have no idea how i should respond. on monday i'm going to ask if there is a counsellor-type person at the school, and ask my coteachers how we can stop it. but i'm not feeling too optimistic there.
this kid is miserable and i hate seeing it.
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Bibbitybop · Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Location: Seoul

Good thing there aren't guns in Korea, or this could be Korean Columbine (or VT in Korea).

In my school, a problem like this got so bad the parents were called in. The offenders cried, a lot, and stopped bullying.

It is not your job to regulate behavior or change lives outside of learning English. Put the burden on the Korean teachers' shoulders where it belongs. Be cool to the kid, but professionally, it's not your job nor do Koreans want you to do anything. Sad, but true.

Typhoon · Joined: 29 May 2007 Location: Daejeon

There is nothing you can do. You are not considered a teacher here. It is the homeroom teachers responsibilty to deal with any problems like that. If the hr teacher doesn't care that sucks, but nothing you can do.

VanIslander · Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 3:21 pm Post subject:

Ilsanman · Joined: 15 Aug 2003 Location: Bucheon, Korea

Sounds a bit nanny-ish, but you can always spend more time around her, or sometimes ask her to follow u around in the hallways when you have spare time. The kids won't dare bully her in front of you.

Young FRANKenstein · Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 10:50 pm Post subject:

Snowkr · Joined: 03 Jun 2005

what is "wangta"? I also teach in a public high school.

I'm assuming it's some kind of Korean word for outcast? Or orphan maybe..?
I'd really like to know what it means..

pkang0202 · Joined: 09 Mar 2007

Maybe get the wangta involved in something that she can use as an escape. Get her interested in art, music, books, anything. Who knows, maybe your wangta has a special talent.

Young FRANKenstein · Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 4:34 am Post subject:

Yu_Bum_suk · Joined: 25 Dec 2004

We're lucky that the bullying isn't too bad at my smalltown middle / high school, though there are a few wangta's I feel quite sorry for. The students are very physical with each other but I don't get involved in cases of friends sorting out their differences. In the odd case of students being nasty to each other I jump right in. Regardless of what happens the other 23 hours of the day I make it clear that it's not going to happen when I'm around (and it very rarely ever does).