Korean Job Discussion Forums

[JeJuJitsu]

[W.T.Carl]

Why do I get the impression that the original poster is a young Canadian?
The young student may be be ethnocentric, but to label her as being "a racist in training" shows a high degree of intolerance of the opinons of others. If you don't like Korean attitudes, GO BACK TO CANADA AND STARVE.

[Qinella]

Personally, I think "shut up" would be better equated with the Korean phrase 시끄러워.

I'll state for the record again that I realize my action was inappropriate. I wasn't coming here to try to find people to tell me I did nothing wrong. There's been a good discussion of the severity of this term and its place in the classroom, which I've enjoyed reading.

Today I had that class again. My first matter of business was to apologize to the student. In order to make a sincere apology, one must state nothing else. Simply explain you are sorry, and add no buts to it. So, I did that. I believe adults should not be too proud to apologize to children.

After that, I had a talk with the girl as to why she said what she'd said. I really wanted to know why she's nervous around me just because of my appareance. Here was her response:

"I don't like waygookin."

Classic. I asked her who'd taught her to dislike foreigners, and if she'd heard it from her parents. Nope.

"I teach myself."

Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. I didn't want to press the issue too much, so I closed it by asking how she'd feel if she moved to another country and the people there told her they don't like her because she's Korean. I saw the look in her eye, and it didn't match her answer.

"That's okay."

I moved on to the next issue, which was the other two girls in class and why they were allegedly nervous around me. The newest child said she wasn't nervous at all. No problems. The previous girl nudged her, a bit incredulously. She's trying to influence her to think badly about me, but the new girl looks to be confident and strong-willed. Not easily steamrolled.

Then I asked the other girl in class, who has acted a nervous around me since she started a few weeks ago. She said she is nervous around me, and the reason why:

"You are a boy."

Man, my heart melted. That is too cute. She said she's nervous around our director, too, for the same reason. We're both "old boys", as she put it.

As for the little racist girl, I'm not sure what action to take. I try to imagine if I were a minority in the US or some similar nation, and had a student at a private institution tell me they dislike me because of my race. Would I just let it blow over like it's all good? Or would I be on the horn with the parents telling them they need to raise their child properly? I could easily muscle this girl out of the hagwon.

My other perspective is that I can just let it go, and as long as she isn't disruptive in class (which she's not), simply do my best to form a good impression of foreigners in her mind.

Parts of me lean toward both of these options, really.

Thanks for listening.
Q.

[Qinella]

[OiGirl]

I don't know, "shut up" is just not something I would EVER some out with in the classroom. I think the only case would be with a student I had a really close relationship with, if they were going on and on on a tangent and I wanted to get the class back on topic and repeated polite requests wouldn't work. It's just nothing I would ever say in anger. I guess good/Gestapo-like training in US public schools...

[OiGirl]

[OiGirl]

[OiGirl]

[JongnoGuru]

[jajdude]

[JongnoGuru]

[jajdude]

Yeah. Strange is it not? We get told off for saying shut up and Korean teachers can smack the kid?

That puts it in perspective. Sort of. What kind of perspective? I have no idea. The kind of perspective you'd get mixing caffeine and nicotine with alcohol and valium?

[Cheonmunka]

Look, this thread is getting boring. Why don't you all just shut up.

[gang ah jee]

[Cheonmunka]

Damn my eyes. Did I just swear?