Korean Job Discussion Forums

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

Snacks and Junk Food in the Class, OKAY or NOT OKAY?

Do you let your little darlings much on gum, candy, ramyeon, etc. while teaching?

How tollerant are you.

Personally, I do not let them. It interferes with their learning, speaking, and attention.

What say you?

[kimcheeking]

It depends. I let my university kids eat in class. I'm always drinking coffee so I don't think it would be fair if they aren't allowed.

teaching kids, I think, would be another story altogether...

[itaewonguy]

uni students yeah sure, but elementary kids, NA some places I have worked the whole class with come in with CUP RAMEAN it would take 20 minutes before the class was finished eating and koreans dont eat ramean quietly, so I am just there listening to it..
we had 15 classes and all teachers said the same thing all students would eat cup ramean spill it on the floor, slurp it, blar blar, stil we decided to not teach them until then had all finished, which was close to 30 minutes one class is 40 minutes , thats how the director wanted to keep the students coming back no problem I would just read a book whilte they ate!
and so did the other 14 teachers.. sometimes I would just join it!!!

but the norm I dont allow eating in class, I will bring food for them, chips, biscuits, coke, etc.. then we will share the food together at the last 10 minutes of class, or also it depends on my classes, my privates the parents bring in food fruit, cakes, pizza, AM I GOING TO SAY NO!! HELL NO! hahahaah.. some other classes in my hakwons my fav students I will let them eat I too have my favs,, but its because they are good students!

but yeah the brats who eat and piss me off, they can starve!!

[mokpochica]

It's my middle school's policy that kids can't eat or chew gum in class, so therefore it's mine too. Anyway, they have 10 minute breaks between every class and can go to the school store and eat then so there's really no reason for them to eat in my class.

And since it's called English conversation class, letting them eat seems all wrong anyway. How can you talk/respond to questions/etc. when youa re chomping on food?

[crazylemongirl]

no food unless it's a snack party.

CLg

[FierceInvalid]

Just started a new schedule with no break longer than 5 min. between a block of five classes. So, I've eased up.

[schwa]

Hagwon I was at had a no-food rule, but I let them go at it. I had 2 rules -- nothing disruptively noisy or messy, & they had to be willing to share with others. Occasionally wanjangnim would make a lightning raid & confiscate stuff (till after class) so they had to be a bit furtive. Good cop/bad cop -- it worked out fine. The kids usually got their snack & they liked me for my leniency.

In my experience kids in the dinnerhour classes were hungry & at a low energy ebb. A quick munch at the start of class seemed useful.

[Thomas]

My rule in my classroom (9th and 11th grade US students) is "Food and drink is allowed unless it interferes with the class. If eating and drinking disrupts the class, we will have a no food and drink policy for this section."

I prefered to have a no food and drink policy, but it can be hard to enforce... and I hate cleaning up the "secret" snack wrappers and such. By having it in the open, the students take care of their own trash and police their buddies so as not to lose their priviledge. By making eating and drinking a basic non-issue in the class, I feel it has saved me time for teaching instead of classroom management. Also, it allows me to have a drink, candy, or cough drop when I need it.
Also, I am pretty hard-core about gum. Students are told that if I hear it (snap-snap-snap), it goes in the trash. If I see it, the same. If I find it on the desks, no one will have gum priviliedges...

[Son Deureo!]

I teach mostly elementary school students, and these poor kids are often starving. They rush from school to hogwon to hogwon with no time to eat. I can't in good conscience tell them they can't eat. Heck, a lot of the time I'm pretty hungry during classtime, too.

Besides, if I can speak English while I'm eating, why can't they? In fact, speaking while you're eating is a pretty common situation in any language IMHO. As long as they're not disrupting the class and clean up after themselves I see no problem with it.

My middle school students will frequently bring homemade snacks from their parents (ddeok, kimbap, fruit, etc.) and they share it with the entire class. If anything, I think the food relaxes them and helps conversation along. Plus, their parents are pretty good cooks.

[mack the knife]

let them eat and generally screw around for the first ten minutes or so. take this time to just walk around and talk to individual kids.

one exception to the rule...NO "pusha pusha" NO, NO, NO, WAY IN HELL!!! NO NO NO!!!! i couldn't count the number of times some little runt touched/grabbed/punched me with hands covered in that pepper powder sh*t. when that happened i usually held the kid out of our 7th story window by his/her ankles until they promised me their video game money for a month. that usually got their attention...

[lucretzia]

If they were eating 'proper' food then I guess it wouldn't be such an issue with me as I know they are busy running from class to class. I have in fact fed the poor, starving ones on occasion.

But sweets and gum and ice pops....I have to agree with The Great Wall...it interferes with their learning, speaking and attention. (And my lessons are only 40 mins anyway, so if we all had a big feed for 10 mins at the beginning i'd never get anything done!!)

[captain kirk]

when i arrived the hagwon captain had no eating or drinking in class in a list of no-nos posted on the walls. so that's the law. kids will fink on someone discreetly chewing gum and they'll be off to spit it out into the wastebin. if they want to eat hearty, like doc-googie on a stick, they can do it outside the school door proper, in the stairwell.
at first, it took them a long time to, by trial and error, abandon their food. the most pervasively insidious crumby morsels were those dry ramyon packs with the seasoning salt. that'd be all over the floor and either the boss or i would be supervising so and so picking up crumbs full of remorse over their blatant misdeed.
i have a hard enough time with the pencil writing on the desk, the eraser crumbs, the scraps of paper...without food crumbs and wrappers. if the room is messy, the kids complain to mom; 'the hogwon is a pigpen!'.

[Slinky]

As a veggie who is severely averse to the smell of meat or fish products, I had a really hard time coping with some of the stuff my kids would eat (and, er, throw), especially bought from food vendors outside. I asked my manager if the kids could eat outside of my classroom even in breaks, to save me from vomiting all over the poor blighters and was laughed at. Of course - the silly English girl with her silly ways. Should have been sick all over that one kid who thought it was hilarious to try and shove some meaty crap in my mouth.

[Sliver]

I guess it depends on the time of day and the situation. I work at an Elementary school and now it is time for lunch.

No need for the kids to eat here. I do agree with GWOW on the interfering though. Especially hard for them to practice phonics whilst chewing on gum. Also, the coments about the room getting messy.

Anyway have to eat.....

later

[bap]

i only let kids eat in my class if the class size is under four or five and they all share.
otherwise it gets super messy and noone can hear me above all the smacking and slurping.
i also make the kids clean up their mess if anything gets spilt. you may think i'm mean but i've cleaned up enough leftover crap from the tables, walls, and chairs. i don't want to clean anymore.