Korean Job Discussion Forums

[moosehead]

I'm both angry and disappointed.

I realized this evening my pride is hurt as well - for some reason, I'm taking this personally. It's not even that they were caught red-handed- the boy was asking the girl next to him for help on a school-sponsored E exam - she was telling him what to write. I saw him writing and her talking to him, it was very obvious.

It just bothers me they are only 3rd graders (elementary) but it was so blatantly obvious they knew what they were doing.

of course when confronted and brought before a K teacher they lied. Tomorrow I'll talk to their homeroom teacher about it.

I've almost always received high praise for my teaching - I try to reach every student, go the extra mile, do what I can for them. I know they are stressed and under a lot of pressure - it doesn't really surprise me they give in to it - but then again, well, it does.

I really do care about my students. It troubles me greatly they lack moral guidance, self-discipline, self control. Am I being unrealistic?

Talk to me teachers - how do you handled cheaters?? How does it effect you personally - or does it?

[CrikeyKorea]

kids that cheat disappoint me... I reckon i'm the same, like to go that bit further and help out the ones that are struggling, I had two kids yesterday that cheated, one decided to go and tell the other student their answer, they new blatantly well what they were doing, so I made them write lines. First time in 12months that it has happened, and im sure that those two 7 year olds wont do it again, at least not on my watch.

[Whistleblower]

It's not cheating, it's "cunning hacking".

[KYC]

disappointed like every other teacher. Shame the student. Tear up his/her test. Give evil eye and lecture.

[buster brown]

The only way I've been able to prevent cheating is by consistently giving out two versions of every quiz, homework and test (without announcing it, of course). I don't necessarily write different exams, but I change the order of the questions/answers so that they can't just blatantly copy. After the first quiz comes back and many students have zeroes while their neighbors have perfect scores, they understand. Yes, it's extra work for me...but it truly rewards the students who study without me stressing too much during every quiz and exam.

Another tactic is to use different colors of paper when printing exams. Even if it's the same exam, when you tell them they're different and they see the different colors, they aren't very likely to sneak a peek at their neighbor's exam.

It's really easy to take it personally, but you can't overly blame the students. They've learned that their only job in school is to get high scores on every exam, by hook or by crook. With that mentality what's really surprising is that you haven't seen any more of them trying to cheat.

[kittykoo]

It isn't just that it's wrong and they must learn that, but Korean culture views this differently, and the Korean mindset is different, so us introducing draconian punishments and chastisements just does not hit home with them. It has to add up that the risks involved in cheating just don't weigh up against the possible gains. That is a cultural and a personal thing and we as outsiders should let them go with the flow.

As I said, it's a cultural thing, and each culture has its own way of bringing these offenders back to square one. We have to resist the temptation to stick more fingers into the pie. I have worked in Hong Kong and in Korea, and the same thing happened in both places, but with different strategems, causes and effects. It does not work to try to stick your neck out for the kids. You are labeling yourself an interloper, and that could be dangerous for you. Authority has to be presented with a united front.

[moosehead]

I totally get the cultural aspect of this - however, be that as it may - times change everywhere and as K advances its E edu goals, they do have to learn that cheating in any form, whether it be copying other people's answers (willingly or unwillingly) on an exam or plagiarism is absolutely unacceptable and can have very serious consequences.

furthermore, especially at the young age of the children I teach, we as teachers do not know which students will be going abroad at some point in their life - either to college or while in primary or secondary school. I firmly believe it is our responsibility to let them know how unacceptable these kinds of actions are.

when I first arrived here and taught at a hakwon I was shocked at how blatant students would cheat at a simple board game like Scrabble - their E was excellent but they couldn't even grasp the concept of cheating and they'd do absolutely anything to win - that was all that was important to them.

just as coaches have to give their athletes a moral compass of some sorts, I think we have to do so also.

if we don't who will? and then who is to blame later on in their lives if they get caught again? of course they did the cheating but if their teachers never taught them otherwise, aren't we at least partially responsible?

more comments, please, I think this is a very important issue to be discussed among foreign teachers simply because it is partially a cultural issue.

[red_devil]

[Young FRANKenstein]

[Whistleblower]

Cunning plan frankenstein.

[Mr. BlackCat]

I find cheating rampant here, not just in the schools. This is a hyper-competitive society, some might say to the immature extreme, and often times it doesn't matter how you got what you got. The point is YOU got it and someone else didn't.

The idea of guilt in the West vs shame in the East is also part of this. Maybe it's the Judeo-Christian foundation, but in the West people usually feel guilt if they do something they know is wrong even if no one else knows. Hence, confession and 'sin'. This keeps us from doing things we know are bad, but it lets us do things that hurt others if we can somehow justify it. In the East, nothing is 'wrong' unless you get caught. Hence, 'saving face'. You can't call someone out on something because shaming them is worse than the offence they comitted in the first place. That's why it's important to let your boss and everyone else know that you know he's screwing you. Otherwise it doesn't even register to him/her.

For example (and I should know more about this, but it just happened right when I arrived here), that Korean scientist who claimed to clone a dog in 2005. It turned out that he was lying. But in Korean eyes, it wasn't that he faked the whole thing. The problem was that he got caught and shamed their country. In Korea, in many ways, people don't question others especially if they're older or in a higher position. So you get a lot of mistruths and whatnot.

Obviously, this is a big issue and I don't pretend to understand it all. My point is that cheating really is regarded differently here. As foreigners in the classroom I hope on some level we reach the young Korean enough to let him/her know that this sort of thing might get you by in Korea, but you'll be thrown out of a Western school/institution.

[Easter Clark]

The best way to take cheating out of the equation is to give exams that test their ability to think, rather than exams that test their test-taking "skills."

[spliff]

The best way to take cheating out of the equation is to give exams!

[Kiarell]

[mountainous]

Many Korean students love to cheat and fabricate grades...