Korean Job Discussion Forums

[fidel]

Scott
I clarified my original post as you presumed beaten, entailed blood, police and jail sentences. Getting whacked with a baseball bat in my mind is a beating. The students were left with large bruises I'm told on their butts. My original post was meant to highlight a few incidents that I have witnessed at my school not to generalise for all of Korea. I know that many schools do not allow corporal punishment policy and I would hazard a guess that they are the schools where the middle, Upper class send their kids.

Hitting the students for infractions large or small is an accepted form of punishment at my school and the staff and parents see no problem with it.
I personally don't use corporal punishment, however as a result the students aren't as well behaved in my class as a Korean teachers class.

[Homer]

Fidel,

Did those beatings take place them same week they approved firing squads and torture at your school?

I seem to have heard the little dudes at your school got tied to a chair and tortured with electricity because their hair was messy.....

Time for you to strap on the ammunition belt, get that headband on, load up the ole M-60 and go to town on these mad scientists...

I find your story entertaining but have a real hard time believing it. Sounds more like a fabrication to me.

I, like others here, have seen some sort of corporal punishment in schools. This usually involves a rap on the knuckles or sitting on your knees with your arms in the air.
But baseball bats and kicks to the balls...
Come on now....

[rapier]

Scott in HK: I agree on certain things: the threat of physical punishment (more accurate than your emotive sensationalist word "violence") should not be the only thing keeping a child from badly misbehaving.
At my school, that was far from the case- the community as a whole was a positive and dignified one..
A school is a reflection, microcosm of the community its in...Which is why parents and teachers should play active roles in fostering a good community spirit in the school-supporting the teachers and attending sports events etc...
There are so many elements that go to make a school good or not- and yes it is simplistic to lay the blame for poorly behaved or motivated students on a lack of physical discipline.
But physical punishment and discipline does help in school, and is a fact of life as well... Do you think that Kim Jong Il would respect anything less than the potent threat of force/ violence?? No. I don't think some delinquent students do, either.

[Korea Newfie]

[captain kirk]

The students I asked were mixed, high school and middle school. The boys said;
their math teachers were especially 'crazy' about using physical punishment. Females, they would twist the nipples of the boys in math class (an all-male school).
Another method was cell phone antennas to repeatedly 'tweak' the students forehead or hand. This makes the spot redden and is very annoying.
Using a tansori (flute) to strike the palms or thighs while kneeling.
Using a baseball bat to strike the buttocks.
If the whole class is acting up, everyone kneels on their desks while holding their chair overhead with a pen between their teeth for an hour.
Slaps across the face.
P.E. teachers (gym teachers) use a baseball bat to the buttocks if the student forgets their uniform (shorts and shirt). NO excuses about forgetting it. The male P.E. teachers twist the head of the 'trouser snake' slowly which causes considerable pain, as well.
All the students said that attempting to reason with the teachers to avoid punishment isn't done. Students would just rather take the punishment. Attempting to reason doesn't work and just increases the punishment. If boys cry, they get hit more and harder.
Girls get slapped, hit, the bat. Just like the boys. But not as much.
I just asked two classes, five students each, and the above is what they said, more or less.

[Alias]

It is kind of ironic. At Korean public schools they go to far, and at the English Hawgwons they don't go far enough. Can't discipline a kid because he might drop out and cost the business money.

[peppermint]

I've heard students in their mid twenties tell me they were beaten with hockey sticks and baseball bats, but then again. .

When I taught at a public elementary school last spring I had a "love stick"- a wooden dowel around 45 cm long and a cm in diameter. I could never bring myself to use it , but twirling it like a baton was more than enough to keep most kids in line.

[desultude]