Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yu_Bum_suk]

This was written by a grade three middle school student. It's so unlike anything I've ever seen a Korean student write that I thought I had to type it out. This is exactly as she handed it in:

Future Dreams

Actually, I don�t know what I really want to be. But by seeing many teachers and wrong education policy, a small dream becomes bigger and bigger which I want to change today�s education. So at first I want to be a teacher and then become a minister of education. I will not be a teacher who doesn�t have any teaching ability, background, and common sense. But ironically in this country, there are many teachers who don�t have any knowledge. When I become a teacher, I will not be like that teacher. And I really don�t like those teachers who punish students violently. Although students didn�t do such a bad thing, teachers hit them. But not all of the teachers behave like this. And I really don�t like teachers who are not neat and clean. To be a teacher, I think, we need more tests and certification. I will certainly change those things. I really want the policy to be conducted early which students evaluate teachers. Then the teachers who don�t have any ability will be retired. In this sense, my dream is not just a teacher, but to change Korea�s education. It really needs to be changed. I will do my best that my dream to be come true. I really want the teacher who don�t have ability to disappear in the school.

[yingwenlaoshi]

[eamo]

[normalcyispasse]

Damn, +1 for her! Go go gadget idealism!

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[Rapacious Mr. Batstove]

Sometimes at my middle school, it seems that some teachers are just well dressed bums pulled from the street, handed a belt microphone and told to read from a text boot while brandishing a bamboo cane.

YBS - I've had students express pretty similar sentiments in their writings. It would appear that Korea could clean up it's act by simply listening to the kids.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[mrsquirrel]

^ It's a good start though.

A few more of them and they could have a revolution on their hands.

Problem is if she is good at the free thinking thing she will get whisked away to another country to work there leaving the droids behind.

[BS.Dos.]

[oldfatfarang]

An excellent piece - well thought out, argued and written. You're very lucky to be teaching a kid like that.

My only doubt is, after listening to numerous K kids voicing the same opinion, will she, too, become crushed by her society and turn into a smiling, love-stick-weilding, child-beating adjuma?

Where do these child-beaters come from? Surely when they were young they also said that they would never beat kids. ?????????

[twg]

[porcupine]

There are some Korean parents who think that it is okay to give corporal punishment to their kids for the purpose of teaching them what discipline means.

In the old old days, teachers were the child-beaters. The stick that teachers used to hit their students (ususally calves) was called 사랑의 매 (sarang ul mae) Literal translation is love-stick or stick of love.

I guess with the baby boom after the Korean War, parents didn't really think much about child-rearing and relied on the teachers to do much of the rearing, even if it involved hitting the child.

It's a different story nowadays with parents eager to get their sons exempt from army service. Students are also protesting in a way...cell phones go up when a teacher is about to hit a student.[/code]

[oldfatfarang]

[BS.Dos.]

I can remember getting beaten at my primary school in the UK in the 70's. Didn't do me any harm and I always deserved it.

I've seen some of the boys at my HS getting the 'wood' across the a55 a number of times. I've never found out what warrants the beatings, but I don't personally see anything wrong with it, provided that it isn't excessive or indiscriminate.

[Dome Vans]