Korean Job Discussion Forums

[shortskirt_longjacket]

I'm the art teacher at my hagwon and at the beginning of the school year (in March) I noticed that I had (among the 45 students I taught) a handful of left-handers. I made a point to buy left-handed scissors for them, as they really struggled to cut with their right hands.

Fast forward a couple months, and now almost all of them are coloring/drawing with their right hands (and doing a poor job of it, as you might imagine). Come to find out, the Korean kindergarten teacher has been forcing the students to write and color with their right hands. When I see them laboring with their right hands and it's clearly not natural for them, I ask them if they want to use the other hand and they looked so relieved to switch back to their left hands. Sometimes they say, "But Mom doesn't want me to use my left hand." To which I say, "When you're in Shortskirt Teacher's class, you can use your left hand for coloring or drawing or scissors."

I'm pretty dismayed that, in the year 2006, there are still some parents (and educators, apparently) who feel it's necessary to get kids to write with their right hands. I've asked a few people, and they say it's pretty common in Korea.

Thoughts about this? How have you, as teachers, handled students who are naturally left-handed and struggle to use their right, but feel like they have to because "Mom says"? Am I wrong to undermine the parents' wishes (however immoral I believe them to be) by telling the kids they can use their left hand in my class?

Also (the reason I'm putting this in General Discussion instead of Job-Related), would you say, in your experience, that there are fewer left-handed Koreans than the world average of 10 - 14% of the population (due to the "reeducation" of Korean children rather than a genetic anomaly)?

[endo]

I'm left handed, and i've had sever students point it out to me as unusual.


Is it a Korean thing or does this apply in other cultures? Probably India, but i'n not sure.


Why would parents/teachers care if the student was left handed?

[cypher]

I had a Korean teacher in my class take pencils, crayons etc. out of a student's left hand and put in in their right. I've also had students comment on my left-handedness. I've only had a couple of students that I know were left-handed and used their left hand, though there are probably more.

I vaguely recall hearing or reading an explanation about it being more polite to hand people things with your right hand, though I might be making that up, and I don't know why it would be.

[Ya-ta Boy]

My impression is that that had stopped. I guess not.

I have a few lefties in my classes, although fewer than back home.

I'm ambidextrous to the extent that I do some things, like write, with my right hand and other things, like eat, with my left. Koreans often note that. It doesn't seem to bother any of them, though. When asked, they've told me that traditionally it was not 'polite' to be left-handed.

I think you are right to allow the students to use whichever hand is natural and comfortable for them.

[pdxsteve]

People in countries where toilet paper is not readily available or used are taught to use their left hands to clean their rear ends. Thus, the left hand is only used for that purpose, and the right hand is used for writing, shaking hands, etc.

[flotsam]

It is true in India, but not Mumbai so much from what I saw. However, over in India, we(when in Rome) actually use water and the left hand, so it makes a bit of sense, if it is somewhat anachronistic and rigid of a tradition. Here. it's kind of pointless adherence to Confucian right-hand custom.

By the way, I give you guys three to five more posts in this thread before patchy shows up and piatches you all out.

[pet lover]

[JongnoGuru]

Patchy!! Patchy!! Come quick! The smarty-pants (and skirts) racist whitey teachers are at it again!!

This time they've taken up the old left-handedness cudgel to batter Korea, Koreans, Confucianism... what else? Well, all of Asia if you read between the lines!! They fail to provide documented proof of anything, it's all hearsay and unsupported personal opinion! Not only that, they all conveniently ignore the mountain of historical evidence showing that left-handed people have been hunted, persecuted, crucified, audited and murdered on the school playgrounds of Canada and elsewhere in the West for centuries!

It's just another insidious plot to do down the nation through their unreasonable US imperialist sophisms masquerading as concern for the individual! Oh, the racist hypocrisy here has reached fever pitch, Patch!! So get over here on the double!

Patchy??! Where are you?!!!

--------------------------------

A Korean girlfriend, who was naturally left-handed, was almost broken of the 'habit' when she was in school in the 1970s. She was a designer. I employed another girl who also did design (mostly on the computer) who was also left-handed. She said her parents were embarrassed by it and did everything they could to make her stop, same with her teachers.

[tardisrider]

I teach about 125 students this semester, and I know of three of them who are left-handed. My reaction is always the same. I say "Cool. You're just like me."

[inkoreaforgood]

[koldijk]

another thing that koreans love to observe....yes, i am left handed at the comment is always: i heard that many foreigners are left handed!

yet more evidence that foreigners are evil and koreans are pure breeds...

it's just how they think

i am proud to be left handed...

[pet lover]

[jinju]

Left handedness is just wrong. If God had intended it to be right he would have made it socially acceptable.

Remember if its not right, its wrong.

[Hater Depot]

The Latin word for left-handed is sinister.

[jinju]