Korean Job Discussion Forums

Doctor Gonzo · Joined: 31 Mar 2004

I have been hear a while now and I have heard some weird methods of discipline being implemented by various teachers around this weird and wonderful country: from holding desks & chairs above their heads to being taped down to their seats...I was even in a school once where the students were beat on and kicked by a few Gestapo style freaks. I was just wondering if any of you had heard or witnessed any unorthodox methods in your time.

Corporal · Joined: 25 Jan 2003

VanIslander · Posted: Sat May 01, 2004 12:49 am Post subject:

A Korean co-worker has told me that some teachers used to tape heads to desks, though I find that no more humiliating than having a child sit with a dunce cap on in the corner facing the wall. as was Western custom.

I've seen the Korean method of having a student stand outside the classroom with hands up in the air. The teacher can watch through the window to the hallway and the student's arms get tired. It was the oddest thing to see the first time, then it seemed humourous. Later I thought it was too degrading.

I prefer to yell.

Toby · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Location: Wedded Bliss

Holding a piece of paper to the wall.......

......with their nose.

Eazy_E · Joined: 30 Oct 2003 Location: British Columbia, Canada

Those wacky Korean corporal punishments never seem to work for me.

My boss is a former captain in the military. It was literally on the way back from Inchon airport on my first arrival in Korea that he started lecturing me on the merits of sending an insolent kid to the corner to kneel and put his arms in the air.

These punishments just seem to give the kid the attention he craves, and after it's over he just continues the same behaviour that earned him the punishment in the first place.

I think punishment has its place, but this is one type that is for the satisfaction of the angry teacher rather than for correcting the kid.

Mr. Pink · Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Location: China

NearlyKorean · Joined: 15 Mar 2003 Location: Phoenix, AZ

Soap Box Mode engaged....

I am in favor of what ever works, to teach the child (and some adults) that bad behavior isn't acceptable and must stop immediately. Punishment is about teaching. If corporal punishment and being humiliated works better then "You're in time out, Mister" or "Teacher doesn't like it when you make that boy's nose bleed" then so be it.

I think the Korean punishments, overall are effective. I would have liked to them used when I was a part of the American public education system. Can Korean punishments be overdone and get to the point of being abusive? Yes, they can. As within any system, regardless of what country they are in, there are going to be people who don't do their jobs well, including teachers punishing students. I think we need to hold teachers accountable.

I also believe that a child should be get a dose of humilation once in a while. I think it's okay for there to be a winner and a loser. I think it's okay to let children fail or try things on their own. I think where we fail as adults is that we do not to teach children, how to cope with these life events. We need to stop shielding them from the agonies of defeat, and teach them how to deal with that agony.

Children need to be taught. If we don't teach them, they will try to figure out how to overcome their events on their own. As we have witnessed in our own generation, that can lead to serious consequences.

There are some who will say, "Holy <insert your own word here>, batman, what does that have to with teaching English. I am not the <insert your own word here and add 'ing'> social worker!!!"

I am not asking you to be their social worker. I am saying that teachers need to create an enviroment where the student can learn. I am suggesting that in order to create this enviroment, we as teachers need to deal with issues not related to our subject matter as these issues are a part of the student's lives. They will interfere with the student's ability to learn. I am suggesting that creating this enviroment goes well beyond making sure the classroom isn't too hot or too cold.

I am not suggesting we as teachers need to solve all of the student's problems. We can't. I don't think that one person can.

There is not a system that is perfect. There are no perfect teachers. There is not one teacher who has all the answers. We should, as teachers, make the most out of the time, resources, abilites, and students we have been given. Realize also, you are not going to be perfect and realize whatever you do, someone isn't going to like it. We can not be all things to all people, but should make the most out of what we have been given.

My two cent's worth.

Soap Box mode... off

mindmetoo · Joined: 02 Feb 2004

peemil · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Location: Koowoompa

You know... Corporal punishment is something that you'd never use in the west. But here. It seems like the only thing that they respond to.

You can't sit there and say to little Tommy who is complete ignorant of anything in English...

"Now Little Tommy. When you are climbing the walls and jumping around while I am trying to teach it makes it difficult for the other students to learn anything. I would like it if you don't do that and have respect for all the other students who want to learn."

Nope. Quick smack'll fix that...

Scott in HK · Posted: Sat May 01, 2004 5:02 pm Post subject:

Soap box on...

Coporal punishment is a reactive from of classroom discipline that although it can work....

(and I am not sure how you get a kid to sit on the floor quietly if you couldn't get them to stop doing whatever it was that got them punished in the first place...)

anyway as I was saying..it can work..for the ignorant and the lazy....too ignorant to know of better methods of classroom management and too lazy to look them up and implement them...

Soap box off

mindmetoo · Joined: 02 Feb 2004

Scott in HK · Posted: Sat May 01, 2004 5:41 pm Post subject:

mindmetoo...

You have a lot to say about my style of writing, but nothing to say that might actually make me think you know anything about classroom management.

I can write in complete sentences, if it will make you happier. My message will be the same. People who use coporal punishment tend to use it because they don't know any better. They have no training as teachers. There isn't an education program in the West that advocates physically hitting or humiliating students as a form of classroom management. First, it does not really work. It is reactive and does not get to the root of the problem. Classroom management begins the moment you step into the classroom. By building an effective learning atmosphere the moment you enter the classroom, you will stop most problems before you start. By building up a sense of respect in the classroom, students tend to discipline themselves.

Second, it is just wrong to inflict pain on a kid or humiliate them for something they do in your classroom. You are teaching your students that it is okay to do these things to othe people.

Try to educate yourself before you come to the table to talk about classroom management. Go to amazon. Look up the top ten books on keeping discipline in a classroom. Try to find one that advocates using coporal punishment.

Unfortunately, to run a classroom properly it takes both an education and a willingness to work at your job. Something that many people seem to lack in classrooms in Korea.

I hope the sentences satisfy you...now it is your turn. Find me an research that states coporal punishment is the most effective way of managing a classroom. Just one piece of research. One authority figure. Not opinions...not personal examples...bring me proof...

mindmetoo · Joined: 02 Feb 2004

Scott in HK · Posted: Sat May 01, 2004 11:54 pm Post subject:

mindmetoo...

It is a tool of the lazy and uneducated. If you have never learned how to manage a class, then it might be the only tool you can use. That is too bad. If you take the time to learn something about classroom management, then you will find that it is a tool that is both not needed and in the end counterproductive.

Your personal experience can be cancelled by mind where we never had the threat of the strap hanging over our heads and yet still, we never became little monsters.

I never took your examples seriously. From them, I took the idea that you find coporal punishment (by this I mean actually inflicting some sort of pain) acceptable in the classroom. And I think you are wrong. The classroom is not a place for pain or humiliation. If you can't control your classroom in others ways, then let them go wild. This to me is better in the long run than using pain and humiliation. If this is not true, and you don't find it acceptable, then I am not sure why you are asking me to explain the idea of effective classroom management.

Your last sentence simple proves what I am saying. You don't have an academic background in education, so you are left with the easiest of tools to control your classes. You have taken on the job as a teacher; you should learn how to do it properly or just accept it.

I am not puffing out my chest. I am just against children being hit or humiliated in school. And I don't think people who think it is okay should be teaching.

captain kirk · Joined: 29 Jan 2003

It can mean, if you resort to (or once you start to 'resort to') physical discipline methods (like standing in the corner facing the wall, for example) that you are approaching class from the wrong angle riding a slew of mistakes you've made along the way, and have lost 'rapport'. Or it can mean that the kids are getting bored with the routine having gotten to know your style over the months and are 'bucking out' a bit. Or it can mean something outside of your control is going on with the kid.
If you get into class a few minutes late for running around to get some tape or cassette player there may be some whacky shennanigans going on. A boy is chasing a girl around the desk and shouting and she's squealling and when you get int the door you're the last thing on their minds. I think if you don't assert a studious mood and you're authority upon entering the room (and let them run around while you're setting up) that's courting a situation to come, where some kid goes over the top. And when it becomes a confrontational power struggle to get the kid to back down and revert to being more student who follows the ropes than loose cannon.
There's a new teacher at our school and he stresses rapport. I think that's more necessary when you get into middle school aged students. For me it's difficult to stress rapport because I see them as 'just kids'. I'm doing a job of 'processing them'. I'm in a hagwon with back to back classes for hour after hour. After three months they are checked for their knowledge of the Let's Go book, then on to the next. It's fifty-fifty, the interplay. A class can't run without the students participation and co-operation and the students happily suspend their resentments at having to be there to do this. We joke and game and drill but I don't wander to develop rapport asking about their lives individually much and maybe that's a way to go.
Physical discipline isn't as deep or as memorable as rapport and tends to get worse, right? Rapport get better.