Korean Job Discussion Forums

[lifeinkorea]

I have had about 4 "encounters" with students over a span of 1 year and 2 months. 2 were elementary school students, 1 was a middle school student, and 1 more elementary school student today.

When I scold a student and the other students see it, they shape up and behave better. So, the other 3 times I did this, my ego judged this as good on my part. However, today, the student didn't like fact I singled him out. He was misbehaving yesterday also, and my co-teacher dealt with him then. I guess maybe I thought I had a free ticket today to become stricter in class.

So, I basically wanted him to just have a 10 minute time out. He instead decided to leave the school and complained to his parents. They called the school angry and tomorrow he will not be coming to the last day of their winter camp.

I see two issues here. One, the student will not learn to behave appropriately if he knows he can go home to his parents and run away from good social interaction.

There isn't much I think we can do as teachers to stop this, so I was wondering what other teachers do in this situation where you have one student distrupting the "flow" of a lesson. Taking him out helped the rest of the students, but when they put him back into the class during the school year, he will just act the same way.

The other issue is on my side. I don't like to reward students because I feel it is too much conditioning. I want to get students to want to learn on their own, and not because they will get some reward at the end.

However, I was thinking about it at lunch and realized that if I am going to punish a student for bad behavior then I should also reward students when they do something good, or else they will get mixed signals.

I talked to my co-teacher and mentioned this, offering to have a pizza party, not as a "make up" for punishing the student today but to reward them for doing a good job collectively during the week. Now that I have been told he isn't coming to class tomorrow, I am wondering if we should cancel the pizza party idea or not. My ego is telling me, yea, go with it. My conscience is thinking of what the kid will think if he finds out from his friend that there was a pizza party.

[linky123]

Korea has changed quite a lot over the years. There were a time, not too long ago, when they got scolded in by a teacher, they had a bigger scolding at home. Next day the parent would come to the school to bow beyond 90 degree to apologize for not bringing his child right and asks for a thounsand forgiveness. I guess the times have changed. Now, the parents come back to school and point fingers at the teacher, cuss, and yell for mistreating their 'perfect' child.

[Juregen]

Koreans have the utmost resentment for being singled out.

Whenever I have issues, I tell them to go out of the classroom, this is more then enough to bring them in line.

Sometimes you also just have to do it, so they know it's not a farce.

They really really hate it.

[Leslie Cheswyck]

Have that pizza party. Don't worry about the little bastard; the army will sort him out. And if that don't happen, then well the world needs ditchdiggers too.


Yes, I agree, the quality of parenting in Korea has declined in the last decade or so.

[fromtheuk]

OP - Today, during the latter half of spring camp, my Grade 3 students started to misbehave quite badly.

After asking them to be quiet, telling them to be quiet, and deducting team points, I asked the naughty students to stand and face the wall.

A couple of students still continued to misbehave, so I told them to go home.

After a short while, the guy in the VP's office called to say a parent wanted to know why their child was home early and if they were the only child sent home.

I explained to him a couple of the students were sent home early, because after several warnings they continued to misbehave. I explained the full situation.

I didn't get any further calls from downstairs after that.

When I first started teaching I felt reluctant to discipline students. Nowadays, if a student is rude and doesn't respond to my warnings, I am happy to discipline them.

I ask them to be quiet, deduct team points, ask them to clean the room and as a last resort, I ask them to leave.

You have to be firm, otherwise they will continue to mess around. They may not like you for it, but they'll realize what they can and can't do.

I'm not too bothered about being liked, because some of them I really don't like anyway. Be professional.

Yesterday, after I asked the class to be silent a few times, a girl continued to talk. I asked her to stand up, put her hands on her head and move towards the wall, she refused to move.

We had 3 teams. So, I asked all of her team to move to team 2, so the naughty girl would be on her own. She started to cry, but I ignored her.

Later on, I asked her again to stand, which she did. I asked her to join team 2 and things were almost back to normal.

The point is you need to show you are the one in charge, and not them.

[linky123]

In U.S., the teachers discipline their students with color card system. In the beginning of the day, they all start with a green card. Of course there is a individual card board for the entire class can see. They get a couple warning and then the student is asked to turn the card over to yellow. If they continue to misbehave, they are asked to turn the card over to orange and gets a time out. The duration of the time out is determined by their age. If they are 7, 7minutes. 10, 10 minutes and so on. As the class goes on and the student's attitude changes and behaves well, they are asked to turn there cards back to yellow or green. If they continue to misbehave even after the orange, they get a red card and they must bring their parent for teahcer parent conference to discuss the problem. And usually, parents hate that so they usually get disciplined at home. If that doesn't work, he or she is sent to the principals office and the parent is called on that day for a conference.

That's what's happening in my son's school. I think it works quite well.

[cruisemonkey]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I don't teach elementary, but if a student ran home after sending them out of the classroom I'd be arranging a meeting with the homeroom teacher / disciplinary teacher asap. I'd also tell my coworkers please to invite the students' parents to come in to see me. What rubbish.

[lifeinkorea]

I don't know if this is the same with other people, but at our school the principal basically just makes PR appearances to the English village. She doesn't want to get involved in the actual workings of the program. That is for the head teacher to manage, and the way she is doing that is using a younger person with very little teaching experience but speaks English very well. So, I am talking through two brick walls before I can get to the principal.

My co-teacher doesn't understand what it takes to teach, and the head teacher doesn't know English well enough to communicate beyond a 3rd grade level.

I am guessing this is the same at other schools.

[D.D.]

I had a kid beating another boy up in my weekend class in China. He was really hitting the kid hard so after pulling them apart 3 times I kicked the kid out.

Next day I was fired. In China you would be in trouble if a kid went home and complained these days. Not sure about korea. I heard in Canada teachers are having trouble with this as well.

Looks like discipline is out the window. Busy parents who don't have time dont want to take the time to discipline their kids. It's easier to blame it on the teacher than sort out the kid.

[some waygug-in]

What you should have done is make the kid stay with you after class.

They hate this FAR more than being kicked out.

Make him go through all the work he wouldn't do during class and don't let him go until he does it. He will soon learn not to mess with you.

Cheers

[zipperhead2]

Don't hit them!