Korean Job Discussion Forums

[CentralCali]

At least, so says the Korea Times:

[ThingsComeAround]

No, no- they covered that too

[CentralCali]

Thanks. I missed that about the corporal punishment. Okay, so how much do you believe this will happen?

[jvalmer]

Who are these education yahoos in Seoul and Gyeonggi setting up rules without consulting teachers? Hopefully the other provinces waits to see the results before half-@ss changing their policies that will be as effective as trying to force office workers to eat at their desks. You just can't change work culture without having the people in agreement

They tried banning corporal punishment about 10 years ago, but nobody was on board. They need to get all the stakeholders on board like the parents, teachers, schools and students in order to change school culture.

[CentralCali]

jvalmer: They need to have decisive and effective consequenses for violations of the rules by both the teachers and the students. For the teachers, those rules are (or should be) the laws against physically abusing the students. If the teachers whack the kid, they should be held accountable with real consequences such as loss of pay (suspension), termination, or even prosecution. For the students, this namby-pamby "writing apologies" doesn't work now. The students need to face such disciplinary measures as suspension (getting an automatic fail on every assignment during the termp of suspension), expulsion, held back a year if the grades aren't good enough to advance, and prosecution if the violation is something along the lines of assualt, rape, manslaughter (this one actually happened at a school in Busan back 2005), or the like.

Right now, the government and the schools are flailing around with half-measures. They won't work until full measures are introduced and someone is actually punished for violating the new laws.

Of course, none of this will happen in Korea.

[geldedgoat]

My coteacher told me about the corporal punishment ban a couple months back. Roughly thirty minutes afterwards, his homeroom class filed in, and the tardy students and smokers (amounting to well over half the class) were sent to the front of the room to do the usual downward-facing dog while he yelled at and smacked each of them in turn. As usual, I was amused (it's hard not be at the overacting on both sides of the stick).

Really, corporal punishment and verbal "abuse" are the only effective methods at my school, it being a technical high school with a freshman drop rate nearing 30-40%. Since holding students back and issuing failing grades (or any grades, for that matter) are off the table, I really see few other options. Some habitual troublemakers are forced to clean the school nearly every week, but really all that amounts to is them grouping up and slowly dragging a slightly damp mop up and down the hallways while they chat with each other... during normal class time... unsupervised. Apparently I'm the only teacher at the school that sees these students are actually happier causing trouble and getting kicked out of class. And even if they could get expelled (which can't be done for grades, and is really hard to do for any other infraction), that would serve as an equally ineffectual deterrent, seeing as how half the troublemakers beg their homeroom teachers to quit every other week anyway.

That having been said, there obviously is a need for some form of anti-abuse legislation. We've all probably seen pictures, heard stories, or witnessed firsthand the bruises, broken bones (I've seen this one), and scars that some overzealous assholes cause. However, a complete ban is not the answer. Corporal punishment has its uses, and, contrary to popular liberal belief, it's not equivalent to barbarism.

[Captain Corea]

[AsiaESLbound]

Suspension is a real threat that works for discipline, because it means they get in trouble with parents and fail a semester or be held back an entire year. This was very common when I went to school, including elementary, middle school, and high school. We were also terrified of the principal wielding a paddle who used it. It was scary to be sent to the principals office, a real threat that encouraged students to listen and act right. I seen a middle school student physically expelled by the principal dragging him by his ears all the way down stairs and out the front door for throwing a desk when a teacher moved him to sit outside the classroom for being disrespectful upon being told to be quiet while the teacher is talking. They had 0 tolerance for disrespectful students when I went to school. You didn't get away with talking while the teacher is talking and then question her order to be quiet.

I threaten I will make you sit outside if you repeatably cause trouble, but students don't take it seriously as there's no discipline system in place or it's been anything, but abolished. It floors me how much disobedience and insubordination students are allowed these days and Korean teachers just let things pass. Up until a point they do until they get angry and slam the stick on the big desk and then having a few students stand with their hands up. Students find that a joke to the point they don't care and just laugh about it. With kids, there has to be control measures to instill right from wrong in their minds so they can actually learn and perform in school and life. There is a huge difference between instilling discipline and abuse. The treat of suspension for misbehaving is discipline while saying a kids T-shirt looks retarded would be verbal abuse. This is what allows civility. Without it, you got nothing, but students not learning much of anything and ultimately the education system failed them out of trying to respect them and these new laws set up to protect them from harms way.

[ThingsComeAround]