Korean Job Discussion Forums

[khyber]

Tell me if anyone else can back this up.

Over my "yeeeeaaaaaarrrrrssss" :roll: of varied teaching experience, i've noticed something really odd.

IT seems that there can be a huge performance and behaviour pattern shift from one year to the next.
As a crass example, my gr. 6 hagwon class (actually both gr.6 classes) are fantastic smart, funny and kind students. Generally respsectful and fun to teach.
The grade fives, however, are murderous idiots (well...not quite but...). They aren't very bright and are completely disrespectful.
Now there are plenty of holes in this example.

BUT, it some far concurs with something I noticed while getting my B.Ed.

In my town, each grade had it's own personality. Pretty normal, i'd say. What was strange is that, as you went from school to school (in that, or neighbouring towns) it appeared that the grade's personalities would be mirrorred in every school.
ie. a well behaved gr.10 class was well behaved regardless of the school. A bad gr11 class was across the board and across the town. Now, my town was pretty small but the neighbouring "town" had the same issues.

Has anyone else noticed some weird things to that regard?

[Demophobe]

I am not trying to sound like anything here, but perhaps they are reflecting your perceptions of them, and thus mirroring your attitude. I mean, you did call them "murderous idiots". Maybe they know how you feel towards them.

Try taking that "it's all good" feeling from the wonder kids into the problem class for a week and you may find a difference.

Sorry. I'm sure you thought of that.

Comparing hakwon kids in Korea to kids in regular school back home is just futile. Korean kids are much more consistantly kind, nice and respectful in the regular schools here compared to hakwons.

Age is a factor as well. Grade 6 kids are 12 or 13...a strange time for any kid.

[cruisemonkey]

I believe Demophobe is correct. The kids will pick up on signals you send unconsciously.

Don't over analyse - I also believe B.Eds do just that (flame me) - and 'take' each class on it's own merits... see, through their eyes, the wonder of being young and learning. Be strict but kind. The kids will respond in kind (lame pun intended).

[OiGirl]

I've never had a problem with fifth grade or sixth grade students (whether you put them in an elementary school or a middle school,) but I have noticed that seventh graders are little monsters. I've seen it across countries and cultures, and assume it's a developmental thing related to hormones. If you can manage to not kill them for a year, they will make delightful eighth graders.

[canuckistan]

Every class can indeed be so different, which I think is part of what makes teaching a fun a challenge.
I've always attributed the variations in a class' group behaviour to the sum total of all these individual dynamic personalities flung together as a whole--sometimes the sum total = great, sometimes it = hell on Earth.

[VanIslander]

i think you're onto something

i remember when i was a junior high school student one of my teachers commented that the grade after us (one year younger) was absolutely the worst in over a decade, unruly, bad behaving. I later heard the SAME THING said about the year younger group at another school when I'd visited a friend at the other school across town.

i thought of the odd parallell and wondered if it's something cultural... an interesting coincidence I filed away.... until now!!

i know entire generations are affected differently by different events, like the Challenger explosion and Valdez oil spill,.... or the First kickbutt Gulf War and O.J. trial..... and the Twin Towers.

It'd be interesting to read if any sociologists are looking at differences on the year to year microlevel rather than merely in 3-to-4 year generational blocks.

[RACETRAITOR]

I think being in a different grade can make kids different. It makes a lot of sense.

[Old fat expat]

Does sampling error ring any bells?

Also, because two things co-vary does not mean such a correlation has one variable causing the other.

[ajuma]

It may have to do with a combination of age and grade. Grade 5s have nothing to prove. It's their last year of being "kids" in the school and they take full advantage of it. Grade 6s are the "kings and queens" of the school, so they behave accordingly. I'm curious, though. In districts that have middle schools as 6th, 7th and 8th grades (and ARE there any that do that?) are the 5th graders in the elementary school the "good" kids?

[Col.Brandon]

I've got this theory that it depends on how much pollution is in the environment in the year that a group of kids are born. For exampe, a factory has an accident and releases some kind of toxic crap into the air in 1997, and viola! - slightly retarded kids.
I know a lot of pollution controls went by the wayside after the IMF crisis in an effort to increase production.

Maybe we should cut a few of the kids open and examine their entrails for toxins. Just a few of them.

[Mills]

If "there's something in the water" its not fluoride.

[OiGirl]