Korean Job Discussion Forums

[alabamaman]

Over the last week or two I've confiscated 3-4 "love sticks" from kids who were about to use them on another student, a knife with a blade (1 inch), 2 metal pipes (1 foot long), a stick with shoe laces on the end, boxcutter(s), several plastic guns that shoot those BB's, a can of blue spray paint a student used on a classroom wall, and handcuffs due to inappropriate use!

I asked myself the other night, "What happened to the supervision?" I can only do so much as a teacher, and will continue to do my best. When one class is over I immediately head to the next one, and sit down at my desk to ensure nothing happens in my classroom.

There are some Korean Teachers, from my experiences, who don't have any clue about supervision in hagwons.

If parents were to see some of the unsafe behavior as well as confiscated materials from the lack of supervision thereof, then they would remove their kids!

[CBP]

You confiscated those things from hogwan kids? Yikes! What do you do once you see your students with that stuff? What do you say to them? What does your school's director have to say about it?

Stay safe.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Public school is really not much different, except that there's an even lower student-to-teacher ratio. The other day I confiscated an exacto knife from a girl who was holding it perilously close to the ear of the girl in front of her. Last week I walked into a classroom where two (17-year-old) girls were beating each other with a textbook and a rolled up notebook, respectively. Ah what good fun!

The only key difference is that (most of the time) they know they can't pull that shit off once the teacher has started teaching.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Just to add a point - I was talking to one of my students who had to miss physical fitness day yesterday because her leg is in a cast. Apparently she fell down the stairs at school and broke her ankle. The way they sometimes charge up and down the stairs pushing and shoving each other I'm not at all surprised. But will anyone ever try to get them to move about in an orderly manner? Of course not.

[two roads]

I'm a public school teacher, so I've been told repeatedly not to worry about this kind of stuff, it's my coteachers job to deal with it. Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't. One day a kid brought some of those small firecrackers in, you know, the kind that make a really loud noise and a big cloud of smoke, but not a lot of sparks (they will burn a hole in your English book, though). He set them off periodically throughout the class, around ten or so. My coteacher would give him the "look of death" when he did it, but she didn't do anything else. I guess as long as he wasn't setting the curtains on fire... This was second year boys middle school, by the way.

There's no order in my classes.

[alabamaman]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[cubanlord]

[alabamaman]

I've taken the previously mentioned items away during breaks in other teacher's classrooms. Students would get into physical confrontations frequently when I first arrived. They were fighting long before I arrived, and that is one reason I've confiscated the knife, pipes, love sticks, and other items. The physical confrontations have decreased significantly due to my supervision.

[ChopChaeJoe]

One of my kindie students brought a knife to school this week. He was threatening another kid, just in jest tho. I don't know what the wongnam-nim said to him.

His parents are loaded though, two doctors, one (mother) is the chief of surgery. His grandfather routinely shows up and hands him wads of bills.

I'm pretty sure they went easy on him.

Despite his genetics, he's an average student.