Korean Job Discussion Forums

[crazylemongirl]

Sounds pretty mild compared to what I see at my school. I teach in a boys' middle school so the punishments here are pretty savage.

Ironically I'm considered mean by my students even though I don't hit them because I happily take away their free time. Seems to me that part of the reason why teachers hit is that they don't have the time to discpline the number of students they see. I think this idea that not hitting = no dispcline seems totally stupid.

As for physical discplining being the reason for the this breakdown in the west (which I haven't actually seen) seems to me if that was the case then westersn Europe would be full of maurdauing gangs of crazed kids beating old ladies in the street on a regular basis due to the fact that no one has the right to hit kids there

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[JacktheCat]

[inthewild]

[hellofaniceguy]

[mindmetoo]

[andrew]

.....

[Merlyn]

All of these kids from primary school to high school know what will likely happen if they misbehave or whatever. They're going to get punished, more so in regular schools than in hogwans. And still they are late for class, or smoking in the washrooms, etc. I've seen some brutal punishing as well, such as students doing push-ups on their knuckles only to be kicked over by the disciplining teacher and left crying, but again, and again, the same students return back to the office for more punishment. It is harsh, but it is a quick way of punishing in a society where there is not a lot of free time around for students to stay after school in detention, when they have other schools to go to.

[W.T.Carl]

"More smarter"? Are you a recent US public school grad? Korean students score much higher than their US or Canadian counterparts in math and science. Look at any AP class in the US. You will see many more ASIAN faces than you would in any general ed class. I don't think that they are any brighter than other kids, they just have more discipline and a better work ethic.

[stat]

[Daechidong Waygookin]

[freethought]

Actually Korean students don't score WAY higher than Canadian students.

Here's the most recent study conducted by the OECD:
[url]
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/15/47/34011082.xls[/url]

It's an excel file so it takes a while to generate.

But I think some sort of comparison needs to be done before we condemn or praise on any nation's education system. I think what these test results show is that what is gained by spending 5.5 days a week, and 11 hours a day in 'school' while constantly under threat of being beaten produces only marginal better scores. This to me indicates that it's not worth it. I'm not saying Korea needs to adopt no child left behind right this instance, but the most telling thing from the OECD study was that Finland came out on top, and if you compare the Finland an Korea, you wont see too many parrallels.

[buymybook]

[coolsage]

Corporal punishment of pupils is medieval and counterproductive. Yes, Korean students score high on tests in the sciences and math, but well below the curve in creativity. If an Aristotle or a Copernicus or a Galileo or an Einstein, for that matter, had been born in this country, we would have never have heard of him. Why? Because some Confucianesque-insecure teacher would have whacked his rebellious little butt until he caved to the status quo, without any pro quo. Perhaps that is why there has never been a Nobel Prize winner, or even a candidate, other than the Peace prize, in Korea. Koreans are fine at imitating and refining the ideas of others, but with all due respect, other than that dodgy movable-type debate, they've never come up with anything on their own... and the education system ensures that will continue. 'The nail that sticks out will soon be hammered flat.'

[funplanet]

absolutely true, coolsage...

I would much prefer a system which stimulates, and celebrates, creativity and thinking out of the box (along with a decent education of course)

Koreans concentrate on memorizing and taking tests. Any nation could achieve the same high scores if they focused soley on that. Individuality and creativity are squashed from an early age on...

there are exceptions, of course...but not very often