Korean Job Discussion Forums

Keepongoing · Joined: 13 Feb 2003 Location: Korea

Recently, I have been hearing many stories about Middle School and High School students being hit by teachers. I just wateched a Korean movie about this as well. I also remember a few years ago about the video that was going around.

I am glad I work in a university becasue if I saw these korean teachers doing some of the things I was told about, I would probably get myself deported.

I heard reputable reports of girls being hit in the head by all sorts of instruments. Of having the bottoms of their feet hit, etc. It sounded very unprofessional and more like it was out of anger and frustration.

Students are so into protesting, why don't they protest about this?

Have any of you teaching in Mid or High School seen a teacher abuse students? Did you do anything?

Yu_Bum_suk · Joined: 25 Dec 2004

chiaa · Joined: 23 Aug 2003

I had a 50cm ruler I used on palms and the back of legs.

I got zero joy out of it, but a great deal of the time it is the only thing a orean student understands.

semphoon · Joined: 18 Nov 2005 Location: Where Nowon is

At my hagwon the kids still get hit.

One teacher use a BOARD - its about 15cms wide. The "THHHWACK" it makes on impact makes me wince.

Im a good guy - I just use a normal sized stick.

When I first came to Korea, I thought hitting sudents was terrible. I would control the class by using emotional means rather than physical; making them know I was dissapointed in them etc.

Didn't work. The stick does.

Horangi Munshin · Joined: 06 Apr 2003 Location: Busan

A good alternative to a stick is a plastic hammer.

It's quite useless by itself, BUT after you have wiped it on the bottom of your shoes a few times no student will want that rubbed in their hair!!!

Keepongoing · Joined: 13 Feb 2003 Location: Korea

I am not really talking about the movies. I am talking about stories I have been told by students. I was raised not to hit a girl. Hit a girl on the head with a blunt instrument is not ok. Slapping a girl in the face is not ok. I am talking about high school girls being hit by male teachers out of anger for reasons like talking in colass, or making a few errors on a paper. Or hitting all those studentd with a cane on the bottom of their feet because some students were talking. I am not talking about primary kids.

We all saw the video of the girl student being repeatedly punched in the face by her male high school teacher. I do not think that is an isolated incident. It is severe and I hope less isolated, but hitting a student out of anger is not professional. It is imature and wrong; n my opinion.

ulsanchris · Joined: 19 Jun 2003 Location: take a wild guess

I don't think hitting kids is the most effective form of classroom management. There are many reasons why a teacher shouldn't hit kids, but in korea it is common for teachers to hit kids so we have to accept that it is going to happen. However i don't think it is wise for the foreign teachers to engage in such activity. There is a double standard here and koreans won't like it if we hit the kids. Best not to get into any trouble. if you have a problem kid just let one of the korean teachers deal with him.
also if you don't want to go around hitting kids but can't think of a better way to manage your classroom i suggest you buy teaching english to children in asia by david paul. it is a great book with many great teaching strategies.

Keepongoing · Joined: 13 Feb 2003 Location: Korea

IO work in a University and hitting a student has never been in my thinking

Qinella · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Location: the crib

At the hagwon where I was working, we didn't really hit the kids. The only exception was one of the Korean teachers who would randomly flick the kids in the forehead or on the head. I was totally shocked when I found out she did that. She even would hit the best students in class, absolute angels, just to keep them all on their toes.

The hagwon upstairs from that one, however, did regularly hit the students. It was fairly routine there. Also, I saw my director break a stick over a girl's rear one time. That was hard for me to witness.

At the hagwon where I'm going next, there's a strict no hitting and no yelling policy. The place is all fairy dust and butterfly wings.

Q.

JongnoGuru · Joined: 25 May 2004 Location: peeing on your doorstep

Right or wrong, the use of the "love stick" is well-established practise in Korea. Jacl, do any of the Korean teachers where you've worked use the "love stick" on students? If so, what did you do about it? Here in cyberspace we can call people idiots who don't feel the same way we do, or don't feel as strongly about something as we do. The real test, I suppose is, What happens when you're confronted with it in real-life situations? If you see a Korean, or even a foreign teacher, at your school beating a student, how do you respond?

I have my own, um... "love stick" that I've used many times. But only on female adults and always with their permission and encouragement.

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

I posted the following yesterday under The Art of the Slow Dong Chim. Maybe it's a better fit here.

Two afternoon classes were cancelled today so the boys in my high school could vote for class and school 'captains'. After the campaigning was over and the actual voting, complete with poll watchers and voting booths, was taking place, most of the teachers left. Naturally, some of the boys got rambunctious.

Apparantly, Grade 2er Ki-Won got a little more out of line than the others. Young-Duck called him over to the side, made him turn around and spread his legs and then YD put his hand between Ki-Won's legs...then slowly ground his finger up...and up. Of course the boys were falling off their chairs laughing. After it was over, Ki-Won turned around and bowed to Young-Duck.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get my eyebrows untangled from my hairline.

Smee · Joined: 24 Dec 2004 Location: Jeollanam-do

At my hagwon about 3/4 of the teachers carry lovesticks. Most of them are those long bamboo things that people use on their own necks and shoulders as kind of a massage. One teacher carries an two-foot long tree branch.

The advantage of that bamboo thing is that it makes a lot of noise, so teachers can hit desks or the podium and startle students. But I've seen it used on students hands, arms, and legs. One I saw a teacher hit a student across the back with it. I've also seen teachers twist ears, grab cheeks, smack heads, and shove students in the hall.

I can go on and on about how this is suitable behavior for unqualified Korean teachers with no teaching or English skills, but as someone above said, the students really respond to it. It's disgusting to see, but teachers are a product of the same system. And since it was so successful---it produced them after all---it continues here.

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

Isn't a stick under a certain size called a twig?

ulsanchris · Joined: 19 Jun 2003 Location: take a wild guess

Koreans hit students, we don't. Whose teenagers are better behaved?

i don't think the real reason isn't so cut and dry. I imagine that there are several factors and one of them being that korean teenagers have less time to be badly behaved. Western teenagers have too much free time. get bored and misbehave.

jaderedux · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Location: Lurking outside Seoul

Well haven't hit one yet but if you sleep in my class you get pulled up by the scruff of the neck pretty hard or splat with my water gun.

I have seen teacher slap a student full on the face over and over again. It was all I could do not to do something. But what good would it do. The student would lose face and get it worse. I would lose my job and nothing would change. I see it less than when I got here 5 years ago but to be honest I have come damn close.

But I am really good at eyeballing them down...even the biggest of them. I get right into their faces and ask them in korean "if they have a problem" they usually answer no and I ask them if they want one! For some reason getting into their personal space and staring them hard eye to eye is scary to them. I don't put up with crap either you swear in my classroom, welcome to the pain. Holding a chair above your head for about 20 minutes hurts. It hurts more if you are on your knees.

I have been at the same school for 5 years now. I find that each year it gets easier since kids know of me and it is likely I have taught their brothers. I know the hitting seems awful but it used to be worse and the teachers that hit them the most make out like bandits on Teacher's Day.

I don't want to hit them but I understand why people do. If that is the only discipline you understand it takes years to recondition and most of us don't have years to devote to that. And I have had parents at school watching the teacher give a kid a beating and then slapped the kid around all the way out of the school.

So I don't do it myself but I certainly don't fault others. I am lucky most of my kids are pretty good but the know it's my classroom, my rules and I don't take $hit from anyone.

Jade the enforcer