Korean Job Discussion Forums

[OHIO]

Is this some kind of new policy in Korea or just the idiots who run the middle school I teach at? I teach at a rural private middle school that is associated with the second best high school in the county. The principal who is in his late 60's, and his family founded the school about 40 years ago. He rarely comes down to the middle school and mostly concentrates on the HS. The HS is a good one, but the middle school is a complete joke.

2 years ago, we got a new VP who doesn't seem to be able to run an outhouse, much less a middle school. When he got here, there was no graffiti on the walls, there were working fans on all 4 walls, and the place was kept pretty clean. Now there is graffiti everywhere, the fans have been destroyed and the classes are wrecks. The bulletin boards have been shredded with knives, etc...

Before this week, the only punishment for the kids was to send them into the halls. Not too effective because that's what a lot of them want. Now we can't even do that. The teacher has to take their names and give them to him. He calls the parents, and the parents are supposed to do something. The problem is, many of the parents aren't involved at all with their kids education. As a result, nothing is getting done and the kids are getting worse. It's like teaching at an inner city school in the USA.

I just got out of a class with the curtains ripped to shreds, kids yelling and not paying attention, throwing things, etc... After yelling a few times, I basically got sick of it and quit teaching. I let them do what they wanted to do, the co-teacher just shrugged and pretty much gave up too. Is this a new development in Korea? Or is it just the insanity of the particular school I am cursed with working in? Needless to say, I pray for Christmas to get here and I can get out the F out of EPIK and this increasingly sucky and insane country!

[koreatimes]

I have taken on a high school position in China where I teach 45 students in each class. 20 of them would rather work on their math homework, while another 10-15 are daydreaming and not paying attention. From the remaining 15 students, half of them have their books open and are following me. I try to get 1 or 2 to communicate with me and then I multiply them out by having them pick one person each. Then those 4 pick someone new, I get 8, then 16, and I shoot for 32 but it's hard to keep track at that point.

If you are not willing to play the gang approach in this case, then I personally would quit and find another type of school which only has like 10-15 students per class to begin with.

There is no way they will all learn like we would like. The focus should be on getting a few to set an example and over time others will follow suit. Then you have your gang, and you can deal with class clowns one by one. I had one kid who thought he was funny by asking for a white marker. He knew there were no white markers and by being able to say what wasn't there, he didn't realize he was showing me what he did know.

Students like this are not accepted in my class and I do kick them out. On the other hand, if a student can read and write but not speak well, they might also appear to be the same. I found this out when I was about to chew out a kid, I took him out to the hall to talk to him and we talked and he learned. Then he came into class and set an example.

This is more productive than trying to force a student to perform in front of his peers where he has to figure out what to do at the same time. Remember trying to do math problems on the chalkboard? That's what it is like for kids to try to speak English.

Isolate the good ones and help them.

[OHIO]

It used to actually be a decent place to work, now it's a freaking nightmare. It actually seems to be getting worse by the week. December, please get here quickly! I'm going back to do an EdS degree in Education Technology so I don't have to teach ESL or middle school ever again!

[mmstyle]

OP, it sounds like a pretty extreme middle school. I teach in one, and we do have a lot of troublesome students, but nothing that extreme. I think a lot of teachers here in Seoul (you're more rural, right?) have had a tough time since physical punishments were banned. The thing is, when they banned it, they took away the only way that many teachers here have of giving punishments, without putting a new system into place. There were a lot of threads on Dave's when that law was passed, but the thing that gets me is that there is no real system for dealing with troublesome kids at my school.

When I was a student, detention was enough to deter me (although my brothers and sisters were braver than I was). Detention made me nuts. I'm thinking it might not do much for Korean kids who spend hours at hagwons, though. Assigning actual homework might, though! I had one kid who was aghast at the amount of sentence writing I made him do during lunch (and he never acted up afterward).

[jvalmer]

CP is still alive in my town, it keeps the students in line. Actually the CP I've seen isn't that bad, mostly arm in the air stuff. Luckily I don't work in Seoul/Gyeonggi where even arm in the air stuff has been supposedly banned.

If these stories get back to enough parents, maybe next election they'll reverse the total ban.

[Ribena]

Well work on some of your own in classroom behaviour management strategies. If your only strategy was to send kids out into the hallway then that's the start of your problems.

Also this type of behaviour isn't the fault of EPIK or Korea, this type is common in British classroom as well. Some are better than other but some are like zoos.

[Malislamusrex]

I had one day where I was left alone with the worst class in the school, they thought it was funny yo talk in the class and not behave, and go out of their way to make me angry. They did a good job, then I got mr sticky out 'went medevil on their asses'. that showed them who was boss.

[Big Mac]

You should be looking at other options than "punishment."

There are reasons why students act like this. Get to the root of the problem instead of reacting. "Punishment" is only a short term solution and doesn't necessarily work.

Here are some things to think about....

Do they respect you? Maybe you need to work on building positive relationships with the students.

Are they bored? Maybe you need to work on making your lessons based more on active learning rather than passive learning.

What are they getting out of acting like this? Observe them closely when they misbehave and figure out what it is that is reinforcing the behaviour. Either remove the reinforcement or find a way to replace it with something more positive.

[ZIFA]

[hank25000]

Try to follow big mac's advice and understand these things:

1) Behaviour takes a long time to improve!
2) You won't be successful with all of your students.
3) And PLEASE understand that this is not an exclusively Korean phenomena at all!

When they did away with corporal punishment, they allowed behaviour to become very difficult because physical punishment stops children from making the choices which lead to extreme behaviour.

What they should be doing but they are not ANYWHERE in the world where I have taught (UK, Australia, Canada, Korea) is putting more money into education so the school will have the staff and resources to deal with these kids. The know-how is there, but the people and ultimately money are not.

It's like saying to someone at work that they can't do their job one way, but then not giving them what they need to do their job any other way. And yeah by the sound of this school the job isn't getting done.

So don't blame yourself at all, ok? Don't allow yourself to feel threatened or insecure because the kids aren't listening to you. That will lead to frustration, resentment and maybe even anger - all of which you won't need. Do what you can for these children, get paid and then happily go elsewhere.

[OHIO]

[Ribena]

[Malislamusrex]

Try beat them with a stick strategy, it's amazing. Not only do you win the students respect but the teachers as well, you only have to do it once and boom you are the man. One disadvantage is you could get fired, but hey life is full of choices.

[s.tickbeat]

[Squire]

What happens when you kick kids out of a class? Where do they go? Do you (any of you) let them back in? I've been lucky not had to resort to much in terms of punishment at all, but I'd quite like to know anyway

Thank god this nonsensical physical punishment ban hasn't spread here just yet. It would be infuriating living in a part of Korea 20 years behind the big cities but without the perks associated