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DRAMA OVERKILL
Joined: 12 Apr 2005
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 Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:28 pm Post subject: Handicapped Children in Class |
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How many of you have (mentally) handicapped children in your classes?
I have about 4 or 5 kids at my school with mental disabilities who attend my classes. It can be tough!
I wonder, what the heck are they doing in English class to begin with??? Or, for that matter, public school???
In a way it's good that they are integrated into their classmates regular classes, but in other, with such a small capacity to learn it's kind of pointless for them to be there.
At my school, these handicapped kids aren't even included in the lessons. Typically, he or she is given some markers and a few sheets of paper and just let loose to do whatever.
A few of the kids I teach are really quiet, nervous-like. But, they sit in class staring off into space behaving themselves.
But, of course, there is one little girl who just drives me bananas - she wanders around the class as she pleases, bothers the kids sitting there paying attention, and because she acts like a little brat the other children aren't very easy on her.
There's not much my co-t can do. If someone attempts to discipline her (i.e. getting her to sit down) she freaks out and there's a whole big production. What a headache. Again, what the hell is this child doing in a regular class in a public elementary school?
During my off-class I saw her wandering through the hallways eating toothpaste and screaming at the plants! WTF?! Seriously, the kid needs help.
Ahhh... All in a day's work in Korea, I guess. |
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branchsnapper
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:46 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, a few. I ignore them for the most part, what can you do? There are supposedly normal kids who sit and do nothing in English too, and nobody frets about it.
I did used to let the one retarded guy come into my "office" and tug my nose now and then, I didn't know how to stop him really, but eventually the special needs woman persuaded him not to do that. He and his retarded sister both call me "Hello My", which is sort of cute. |
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Darkness
Joined: 12 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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| I dont have any mentally handicapped kids, but a bunch of the teachers are definitely fucken retarded... |
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R. S. Refugee
Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:59 pm Post subject: |
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| branchsnapper wrote: |
| Yeah, a few. I ignore them for the most part, what can you do? There are supposedly normal kids who sit and do nothing in English too, and nobody frets about it. |
There are some retarded kids, some problem kids, some kids whose parents dumped them on relatives to raise and took off, some children living in extreme poverty with many relatives in one-room dwellings.
From what I understand there is very little in the way of social services in Korea to help out such troubled kids.
Sometimes I get angry at the worst behaved ones for disrupting my classes and making it difficult for me to teach the others. However, when I hear about their truly horrid circumstances in life (some of the trouble-makers) I find my sympathy for their suffering grows and I try to see beyond my own personal annoyance with them and their disruptions. Now, that my class sizes are cut it is a little easier to deal with them in a positive way.
I've given one formerly non-participating retarded boy enough attention, enthusiasm, friendliness, and encouragement that he was very excited and participating in the games I use in his very low level class.
I was happy to see that. When I told a KET colleague about that she appeared to have little to no interest in hearing about such improvement by a retarded boy.
Anyway, by empathizing with their suffering and relating to them in a better way, and giving them more positive attention and encouragement, I have seen in a short time some real improvement with some of my problem children. But certainly not with all of them.
I just wanted to say that it is possible to improve the situation with some of these students. However, don't expect any of the K colleagues to give a flying f. . ., er, to care at all if you're able to help the troubled students. If Korean colleagues care about these kids it is definitely not obvious to me.
A little more unsolicited advice about these kids. One of the abandoned by his parents kids told me he hated me. This was because I got angry at his constant disruption and distracting the other students in my class and yelled at him.
Then when I saw him out in front of the school the next day, he told me he hated me again. I responded by going up to him with a friendly smile, shaking his hand and wishing him a good weekend -- it was Friday.
Since then he's always been happy to see me and has made some improvement in his behavior in class. So, I think it is important to try to practice positive regard with these difficult students and give them tons of positive feedback for even the simplest things that they do right. Many of them desperately need some adults to care.
Last edited by R. S. Refugee on Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:12 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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DRAMA OVERKILL
Joined: 12 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:11 pm Post subject: |
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| R. S. Refugee wrote: |
| she appeared to have little to no interest in hearing about such improvement by a retarded boy. |
And I guess this is wherein the problem lies. Too often it's almost like as if there's this collective attitude amongst the teachers: "He's f*cked. Hopeless. Helpless. Retarded. Can't be helped. Just leave him alone and hopefully he won't stir up any trouble."  |
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Rutherford
Joined: 31 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:31 pm Post subject: |
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I'm dealing with a similar situation at my hogwan. I have a boy in a beginner class of 7 year olds who in my nonprofessional opinion might have autism. His language ability and behavior seem far more immature than the other kids. He doesn't seem able to communicate very well with his classmates, even in Korean. He'll spend entire classes doing annoying, repetitive things like ripping paper out of his workbook, rolling it into a little ball, and throwing it in the air.
I brought it up with my head teacher and her response was basically "just pretend he's learning so his parents will keep paying". I also brought it up with that class' Korean English teacher. She's very nice and is concerned about him, but didn't seem to understand either. She said things like "he doesn't like to learn new things."
It's frustrating because I know his parents are paying almost 1 million won a month for him to not learn English. My understanding of autism is that the earlier you work on it, the better off a child will be in the longrun. It's a shame to see them wasting so much time and money. |
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R. S. Refugee
Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Rutherford wrote: |
I'm dealing with a similar situation at my hogwan. I have a boy in a beginner class of 7 year olds who in my nonprofessional opinion might have autism. His language ability and behavior seem far more immature than the other kids. He doesn't seem able to communicate very well with his classmates, even in Korean. He'll spend entire classes doing annoying, repetitive things like ripping paper out of his workbook, rolling it into a little ball, and throwing it in the air.
I brought it up with my head teacher and her response was basically "just pretend he's learning so his parents will keep paying". I also brought it up with that class' Korean English teacher. She's very nice and is concerned about him, but didn't seem to understand either. She said things like "he doesn't like to learn new things."
It's frustrating because I know his parents are paying almost 1 million won a month for him to not learn English. My understanding of autism is that the earlier you work on it, the better off a child will be in the longrun. It's a shame to see them wasting so much time and money. |
I have a Canadian friend who taught in Korea for many years, married a Korean, had a couple of children. I think his 2 sons were 7 and 8 when they returned to Canada 3 years ago. The older son was autistic and had never spoken. One of the things he said was great about going back to Canada (Edmonton, AL) was that there was a ton of government support for helping his child whereas in Korea there was none. |
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branchsnapper
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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| At my school they seem to have a great full-time special needs class, but those kids seem to seldom spend much time in it. I'm not sure why. |
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R. S. Refugee
Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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| branchsnapper wrote: |
| At my school they seem to have a great full-time special needs class, but those kids seem to seldom spend much time in it. I'm not sure why. |
Well, Korea has a distinction of being one of the world's fastest changing societies. Some middle-aged Koreans I've known have emphasized to me the dizzying, rapid rate of change in this society over the past 30 years. Hopefully, there will be big improvements in this area over time.
Notice, I was using Canada as an example based on a Canadian friend's personal experiences and not my own often politically mean-spirited delusional home country. |
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ardis
Joined: 20 Apr 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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| DRAMA OVERKILL wrote: |
| R. S. Refugee wrote: |
| she appeared to have little to no interest in hearing about such improvement by a retarded boy. |
And I guess this is wherein the problem lies. Too often it's almost like as if there's this collective attitude amongst the teachers: "He's f*cked. Hopeless. Helpless. Retarded. Can't be helped. Just leave him alone and hopefully he won't stir up any trouble." |
Yeah, I agree that I've seen much of that kind of attitude here. |
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branchsnapper
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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No, I mean the facilities seem really advanced, and the teacher is cool. They still send the kids into regular class though.
I must admit that I feel western education worries a bit too much about the bottom rungs, and not enough about creating a general atmosphere of good education. Life is never going to be perfect, and I think that anyone who seriously disrupts the education of others, for whatever reason, should be dealt with first and cared for second. |
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R. S. Refugee
Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:21 pm Post subject: |
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| branchsnapper wrote: |
No, I mean the facilities seem really advanced, and the teacher is cool. They still send the kids into regular class though.
I must admit that I feel western education worries a bit too much about the bottom rungs, and not enough about creating a general atmosphere of good education. Life is never going to be perfect, and I think that anyone who seriously disrupts the education of others, for whatever reason, should be dealt with first and cared for second. |
I don't have the personal experiences (and haven't sought out secondary sources) that would allow me to give an informed response to that assessment. |
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nomad-ish
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
Location: On the bottom of the food chain
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| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 7:25 am Post subject: |
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at my last school, i had a student i nicknamed (mentally) "the cutter". she'd sit there with her exacto knife and slice her english textbook into very long, parallel lines during class.
i approached her once, and instead of getting a student chorus of "crazy" or "no english", i got "psycho"
needless to say, i let her do her own thing.
some special ed students i just left alone, only one would disturb the class, and the others i would try to have them repeat after me a line or two during the practice time, just so they don't feel ignored |
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