Korean Job Discussion Forums

[chilgok007]

A 6 year old student had a seizure in my class today. It happened right after lunch. The kid is a pretty slow eater, so I wasn't too worried when he was escorted late back to my class by the new secretary. She opened the door, and the first thing I noticed was a huge wad of rice still in his mouth. He broke into a sudden coughing fit and then collapsed face first onto the ground. Now, a lot of students at the school think it's funny to collapse onto the floor upon entering a classroom, so I assumed he was joking aroung. I ordered him off the floor. He made no sound, so I turned him over. His eyes were closed and the area around his lips was turning slightly bluish-green. The rest of his face was pale and pasty. I had the gut-wretching feeling that something was terribly wrong. I immediately thought he was choking because of the rice in him mouth. The new secretary (stupidly) turned him over on his back and began calling his name. No response. I ran out to tell the other secretary to call 119, but rather then doing so, she got up to come gawk at the situation. Meanwhile, my co-worker, who happened to have been a medical orderly for several years before coming out here, came out to see the commotion. He knelt down and noticed the kids jaw was locked, a sign of a seziure. He limbs were also rigid. There was quite a commotion astir by now. I ordered my students to evacuate the room, all of them asking "is X dead?" My coworker and I kept begging the management to call 119 and get the kid to a hospital ASAP. They shrugged it off and kept saying he was going to be ok. They kept telling us to just go and "control our classes." After a tense 5 or so minutes the student came to, looking really dazed and not speaking. Then he started to cry. Still, instead of calling the hospital, the student's parents were called. They moved the now semi-alert student to the lobby. The mother came about half an hour later and took him, but apparently not to the hospital.

We later learned the student in question had another seizure in the morning before school, yet the parents just sent him off. The mother said he had been taking 한악 because the parents felt his size was "too small," so they got him some meds to help the 6-year old boost his size. Apparently, the medicine was "too strong for him." And apparently, an otherwise normal, perfectly healthy six-year old having two sezures in one day is not enough to warrent enough alarm to have the kid checked out by a docter. Word on the street is that the student will be returning to class tommorow.

Here are some other medical mishaps that have occured at my school during my short tenure.

-I had a class of three students, which was odd because there were several other classes with open seats that the students could have joined. I thought they were just trying to make my life miserable until I mentioned the unusual circumstances to a former teacher. What had happened was the class had originally been ten students, but one day, while horseing around, one little girl in the class "hurt" her arm. Despite the fact that she was full-on hysterical, the boss sent her back into class and yelled at her for making a scene. They didn't even bother to call the parents. Well, as it turns out, the girls "hurt" arm was actually a broken arm. 14 irate parents pulled 7 students from the school, leaving the remaing three.

-A student bit another student's nipple during a classtime fight (not my class), requiring some stiches. No disciplinary actions were taken other than a stern talking-to. Neither parent pulled their student from the school.

-A student running in the hallway during breaktime turned a sharp corner, smashing his tooth right out of it's socket on another kid's forehead. The former requiring hosptial attention. Neither parent pulled their student from the school.

-A student was beat up on the school bus for having features that another student considered "too western." The kid had two black eyes and a broken nose. A lot of student's witnessed the fight, as did the bus driver who apparently did nothing to stop it. No disciplinary actions were taken other than a stern talking-to. Neither parent pulled their student from the school.

-A student threw a toy at another kid in a fight resulting a 6-stiches-requiring gash on his forehead. No disciplinary actions were taken other than a stern talking-to. Neither parent pulled their student from the school.

Anybody got any similair stories to share?

By the way, I don't work at a hakwon. I work at a soap opera.

Edit: spelling and grammar errors.

[laogaiguk]

This sounds more like the crap going on back home than here.

[chilgok007]

[laogaiguk]

[kimchi_pizza]

uuuhhhhhh.......

[riley]

Korean elementary schools are much worse than the U.S. The school I'm at is chaotic and it's surprising how few teachers are around to watch the kids. So to say that Korean schools are more disciplined is a joke.

[chilgok007]

[Roch]

[HamuHamu]

I guess the most horrible part of your story is that I CAN believe the way the staff behaved during the seizure.

For some reason the front desk staff always seem to act that way, no matter what the situation. We had a fire at my academy, fortunately it was after classes finished and there was only one student there, but all of the Korean teachers went into the staff room to change out of their uniforms and into their "street wear" before they would exit the building. Then they stood and waited for the elevator. When I went to take the kid down the stairs, I got told "No, he is too young to walk down so many stairs, he needs to take the elevator!" I said I would carry him (he was 4) and they looked at me like I was an idiot.

When we got to the first floor (me down first, from the stairwell, them choking through a cloud of smoke when the elevator door opened), they tried to insist that I leave the student at the cafe on the first floor of the building, because it was very lightly raining outside and the mother would be mad if her son was outside in the rain. The smoke inthe hallways was filling the cafe everytime the cafe door opened (several other people also felt that it was wise to wait in the cafe, apparently). I carried him to a covered awning of the building next door and waited there for the all-clear.

At one point, while the firemen are still on ladders putting out the fire, which was on our floor, the hagwan director remembers that she forgot to activate the voice mail on the phone system, and she pushes through the fire crew and gets in their way as she takes the elevator back upstairs to check the phone. She must have stopped in the school kitchen as well, because she came out with a plate of fruit that she cut up while she was inside and passed it around to us -- and, get this, the firemen!! Like, they are putting out an fire in the building, and she interrupts them to offer them PEARS!

THe whole thing was just so bizarre and horrifying. I truly do not think that there is any sort of "accident and emergency training" given to anyone, and most Koreans really do not stop to think critically during an urgent situation.

[chilgok007]

[HamuHamu]

[Lizara]