Korean Job Discussion Forums

[liveinkorea316]

WTF?

[andrewchon]

EZE: have you considered wearing a jock-strap? You know, the cup that the baseball players wear.

[joeteacher]

[yfb]

I have yet to see any positive improvements from banning corporal punishment. What I have seen and read is increased disrespect to teachers and school property.

Don't worry, give the bleeding heart libs enough time, and eventually the MOE will be doing this.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-adv-lausd-discipline-20130513,0,1402738.story

[silkhighway]

Aside from external factors such as socio-economic and a teacher's own classroom management skills, I think the biggest factor is admin. Schools that have strong admin that have clear-cut rules and consequences, support teachers, and handle remediation of the worst-behaved students run much tighter ships than schools that do not have this.

Corporal punishment was always ridiculous. There are many, many Koreans (and Older westerners) who not just didn't like school, but absolutely despise their public schooling because of it, and not just low achievers. Read George Orwell's "Such, such were the joys" to see how he felt about his public schooling experience.

[PRagic]

I agree with the comment that it all begins at home. So the teachers and administrators need to start lobbing the ball back to the home court.

If the child is disrespectful and violent toward other students, and especially a teacher, they need to be immediately removed, taken to the principal's office, and then given diciplinary action, for example detention. Do it again and it's suspension. Again? Expelled. Period. This would initially eat into the coin the parents are dropping on institutes. If expelled, the parents would have to possibly move in order to get the kids enrolled in a different school.

Plus the embarrassment factor. Make it the parent's fault, which it is. Teachers need to grow a pair and start insisting on administrative measures that support their efforts to run an organized class.

[andrewchon]

PRagic: In practice, badly behaved students usually come from either extreme poor or filthy rich. The former, I've nothing to say. The latter, if threatened will more likely to have the principal removed � la New England old money style. Public school teachers are not known for having backbones when their pension is on the block. Korea also have been experimenting with Michelle Rhee methods and that also scares public school teachers very much. Rhee's methods puts students i.e. bullies, in charge, but Korea loves Korean news makers in US. So, detention, suspension, expelling may have worked in past, but not now.

[Mix1]

CP or no CP, there has to be standards of behavior for kids, and adults have to hold that line. But those standards have slackened considerably, to the point where many kids feel they can do anything and act however they want.
(Just saw some fat kid hitting and biting his own dad in the supermarket yesterday. Then he'd run down the aisle screaming and laughing. We thought the kid was retarded at first, but it turned out that's just what kids turn into when they have zero limits from parents.)

It starts with the parents, but teachers also have to hold that line. It's true that in good classes with good teachers, CP is almost never needed anyway. But it could be nice as a last resort. The teacher should at least be master of their own classroom and if kids don't like it, they can be ejected without question.

The coddling and spoiling is bad enough, but the disrespect or lack of manners is a big problem. IF the parents won't teach the kids that, the teachers need to start doing it, and need some kind of punishment system to back them up.

The new trend seems to be to give kids WAY too much room to negotiate, and WAY too much leniency when it comes to basic manners and behavior. Kids now learn that everything exists for THEM and they don't have to mind or consider anyone else, even adults. They are now mostly entitled brats who get incredulous when an adult even tells them to do ANYTHING. If they have to do anything against their will, some people think it's some kind of human rights violation. Now imagine the entitled brat adults they are going to become.

Considering the alternative, and the overall context, controlled, moderate CP really doesn't seem so bad. It's part of holding that line, especially for younger kids who need clear limits and checks on behavior. They then grow up respecting that line both consciously and subconsciously. It sets the tone that adults are not to be messed with, which curtails most behavior to some degree. Yes, you will get the few psycho kids that will act out anyway, but for the majority, it's good to have that line.

Fear is a great motivator as well, even if we don't want to admit it. I was a punk kid who got spanked once in awhile at home or in school, and the focus was on MY behavior and the CONSEQUENCE for it. As such I always knew there was a line not to cross and this curbed my behavior.

Even in the cases where I was not physically frightened of my teachers, just the fact that they could dish out that kind of punishment served as a deterrent, as it kept a clear line.

I pretty much never smarted off or insulted adults I didn't know...why? Because that kind of behavior would literally get your ASS KICKED. Now, kids have almost zero fear of anything like that and would just take out their cell phone camera and start swearing and taunting the adult. Great. Let's all celebrate the lack of standards and lack of CP. What a success.