Korean Job Discussion Forums

poet13

Hello Gentlepeople.
Got a question, or three. I have mixed university and adult class. Ten people. One person is a rabid christian. On her first day she sat beside me, and at the beginning of class, grabbed my hand and wanted to say a prayer. At every opportunity, the student asks the other students about their faith, or quotes a passage from the bible and wants to discuss it.
I have been nice about it, trying very hard not to let the student monopolize the class, and trying to redirect energies towards topics that the class as a whole are interested in. I'm pretty sure a couple of the other students are a little uncomfortable, and I know I am (I don't believe in god/gods/higher powers etc).
I dont know what to do. I dont want to offend the student, but at the same time, the class is losing its energy and happiness.
Does anyone have a suggestion on how to deal with this?

ajuma · Joined: 18 Feb 2003 Location: Anywere but Seoul!!

Have each student pick a "topic for the day". When Ms. Christian strays from the topic, gently remind her "This is Mr. Lee's day for his topic...we'll get to yours on X day." That should at least limit her somewhat!

sadsac · Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Location: Gwangwang

Advise her very politely that not everyone shares her passion and that in insisting on monopolising the class, she is in affect being very rude. I also had a student like that and I chided him often about attempting to bring his faith into the classroom. I ended up by setting the rule that politics and religion were verbotten. He eventually understood. Smile

poet13 · Posted: Mon May 22, 2006 1:02 am Post subject:

sorry about the bad grammar. It was written in haste between classes...

poet13 · Posted: Mon May 22, 2006 1:04 am Post subject:

I have been trying to avoid cutting politics and religion out of class discussion. That seems extreme, and when I did try that method with another class, I was accused of being a christian hater because I do not have a faith...

sadsac · Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Location: Gwangwang

It's a difficult thing to do, but I explained that my faith was a personal thing and that many people found it uncomfortable to be confronted with it in a classroom. It took a while, but he finally understood that the other students resented his constant reference to his christianity. I also told them that it's not that unusual in the west for these topics to be off limit due to their volatility. Smile

sheba · Joined: 16 May 2005 Location: Here there and everywhere!

Tell the student that a couple of other students have complained about it.

TheFonz · Joined: 01 Dec 2005 Location: North Georgia

ajuma wrote:

n3ptne · Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Location: Poh*A*ng City

You roll up a newspaper and smack her on the nose like shes a dog and then rub her face in a pile of human feces and shout "NO!"

woot woot

sadsac · Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Location: Gwangwang

The Fonz, yes I would. There is a time and place for all things and the classroom is not a church. I don't share my beliefs or political views with my students. I certainly encourage debate, but not espousing that you need to be a christian to be a worthwhile person. In the particular class in question I had a Buddhist monk as a student and he didn't carry on about his faith. He went about displaying it in a dignified and gentle manner. Be whatever you want to be, but don't force it on others. Smile

PRagic · Joined: 24 Feb 2006

Easy one! Just tell that zealot that in N. America, people do not discuss politics, money, or RELIGION. Simply remind them EVERY time they try to bring it up. Language is culture and culture is language. Read some Hall.

poet13 · Posted: Mon May 22, 2006 4:16 pm Post subject:

but we're not IN north america....

PRagic · Joined: 24 Feb 2006

No, but they ARE learning ENGLISH, and to speak English effectively, one has to commit to the culture. I studied Korean in the U.S. Does that mean that I should have just learned how to speak in the blunt form becuase MY culture is egalitarian? Hardly.

poet13 · Posted: Mon May 22, 2006 6:29 pm Post subject:

umm, PRagic. You say that in order to learn english, you have to commit to the culture. You also said you studied korean in the US. On one hand, you say "they" have to commit to our culture in order to learn our language, but you refuse to commit to theirs to learn their language. Theres a fallacy of logic there, but for the life of me, i cant remember the form.... (only had to suffer through logic for one semester.)
In essence, you're arguing that your standard or class or culture is higher than the korean...and however you define high or low culture, thats fine with me....but thats not really the point. The point is to debate the best way to avoid a conflict in the classroom, an exercise in diplomacy if you will...
So if culture is language, and language culture, does that mean that all english speaking nations have the same culture? I would argue that the two are intrinsically entwined, but that one does not define the other...

PRagic · Joined: 24 Feb 2006

Sorry, there, but I think you need to reread my post. No fallacy of logic. My point was quite the opposite of the one you seem to have percieved. I stressed that indeed I had to learn to commit to the Korean culture to effectively communicate given the fact that our cultures are different.