Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jrwhite82]

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[jrwhite82]

Hangray -

I know you must be very frustrated by this situation and it sucks to have a student in class who is ruining it for everyone else. It isn't fair and it really speaks volumes about a failure of your school's (and perhaps education in general) discipline systems for students like this.

However, realize that this student is troubled. He is suffering too. He either has a behavior problem or emotional disorder. Or he learned that this behavior is acceptable. Can you guess where he learned that? Home.

I am willing to bet money his family is in bad shape. His father or mother or both are abusive. They are not stable financially. They fight all the time at home. He doesn't receive the attention he needs. The only way he gets it is by acting out. He has learned that he isn't good at school and the only way to get teachers to focus on him is by acting out. He is sending a message. No one cares about him unless he is bad and hurting others.

So what can you do? Well you need to anticipate what might set him off. Prevent those things from happening. Give him preferential seating that will limit the number of people he can disturb. Avoid sitting him next to other kids who might set him off. Don't move only his seat, move everyone's so he doesn't feel like he's being singled out. That will set him off and cause a power struggle.

Avoid power struggles at all costs. A great way to do this is give him choices. For example, let's say he's acting out and you want to move his seat. Go up to him and warn him. Tell him if you interrupt my lesson again, you are going to have to move, you can either sit by the window or in the back of the room. Either spot you move him to are ok with you. And he feels empowered because he is making a choice for himself. It doesn't work every time, but it helps a lot to avoid power struggles. Stuff like that. Don't give choices that are undesirable. Like you have to sit by the window or stand in the back with your hands up. That's not really two good choices for him.

Go out of your way to talk to him and say hi to him. He might resent you for it at first and even be spiteful about it. He's never had a teacher or adult who cares about him, so he doesn't know how to act. His spite is his way of testing to you to see if you are genuine.

Keep yourself realistic. No matter how much you do for him, he still has all those other problems. Just do what you can.

Flipping out and yelling at him are falling right into his hands. They are showing him that this is normal behavior for how people interact. It is reinforcing his bad behavior because he is getting the attention that he wants.

Good luck.

[shifty]

[edwardcatflap]

This whole topic was one of the reasons why I got out of kids teaching for good. Corporal punishment works to a certain extent, we all secretly know that. It works in the sense that it's about the only deterent that is truly effective for really bad kids who just don't care. On the other hand, it's been abolished in countries which consider themselves more civilised than others and let's face it, once that happens, it's about as likely to be reinstated as smoking in bars is.

Liberals won the corporal punishment debate because they said things like 'beating little defencleless children is wrong' and put like that, you'd have to be a monster to disagree. however they never came up with an efficient alternative and that's why the education system in my country at any rate has problems. The 'solution' and the way to avoid the whole problem was to shift the emphaiss back onto the parents who were supposed to bring the kids up to behave properly in schools but often that's placing the whole responsibility into the hands of people who don't even know where their kids are or what they're doing half the time and have even less idea of a the decent way to behave as their offspring.

We know that broken homes and lack of discipline at home causes kids to misbehave at school, there is overwhelming evidence for that but there is nothing the teachers can do to sort out problems like that. What do the liberals say teachers should be doing right now to control kids who are swearing at them, physically attacking them and causing classes and sometimes whole schools to fall apart?

[cj1976]

Don't ever hit your students. That's the job of the Korean teacher.

[Son Deureo!]

OP, I second jrwhite's advice about how to deal with your very difficult situation. From what you describe, it sounds like everyone at your school has already given up on him. This makes dealing with him even more of an uphill battle.

I'd add to that that it's very important to try to include him in activities as much as you can, and reward and sincerely praise any efforts he does make. In the end, you may have no choice but to try to contain and limit his distractions to the rest of the class, but do your best to help involve him any way in every single class.

Good luck.

[TheUrbanMyth]

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[jrwhite82]

Calendar is an obvious troll. To the OP, please ignore everything he is saying and do not follow his advice. He is posting it just to get a rise out of people and to start an internet argument.

[ZIFA]

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[rednblack]

As I have mentioned before in a different thread, I have a study room. My rules are simple ( and parents are informed before signing up)
1) 5 times no homework = out,
2) 5 times no books = out.
3) 3 times bad manners = out.
The thing is, I have only had to cut 3 students in the past 3 years. All my parents supporty this philosophy.
BTW, I have 80 students, with another 40 waiting on the books.

Now, many years ago I worked for a hagwon. My boss had the same attitude. 14 years later he still maintains student numbers (300+). Not bad for a mum and pop place.

Think about it!

And an edit.
OP, if you really , or even in you dreams, wish to punch a student, then you are scum. Simple as that.

[Chris.Quigley]

Use his culture against him...

Embarrass him... make him look like an idiot in front of his classmates.

Take time out of class just to correct his English...

Here is an example from my experience (Dear Mods: There is a swear word in this, not because I am swearing but because this really happened).

Student: "Teacher you weekend *beep*? hahahahahaha"

Me: I wrote his sentence on the board... and then wrote: "Did you ____ someone on the weekend?" I explained that to a native speaker his sentence didn't make very much sense. I also explained that English is a SVO language.

I embarrassed him. I didn't laugh. I took him completely seriously. (I was laughing on the inside though...)

His classmates weren't laughing either...

That kid never talked in my class again.

To deal with Koreans you have to think like a Korean... the thing they fear the most is being an individual... standing out... being embarrassed.

Use this against them.

Koreans are gluttons for punishment... Punishing a kid isn't going to work... they already don't have lives... there is nothing you can do to them that would make their lives any worse.

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