Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Fishead soup]

How do you deal with students who destroy teaching materials.
Such as tear up handouts. Manhandle your personal pictures.

[mrsquirrel]

Not much you can do.

[spliff]

While everybody else is busy completing the handout (although , personally, I do very little w/ handouts) that person is busied w/ sweeping the floor.

[patongpanda]

That just happened in my class this very moment. My co-teach made them stand in a very painful squat type position. Serves the little buggers right.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Tearing up handouts is pretty straight-forward - make them stay after class and do the handout again (and perhaps a slap to the hand to boot). If it were a case doing it in defiance they'd be turfed outside the classroom on their knees for a while. Some kids pick and poke at their handouts or tear the corners off and stuff but don't destroy them. I don't consider that a very big deal.

Manhandle personal pictures - I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean damaging your own photographs or illustrations that you've brought to class or are in your classroom? Something like that's never happened to me but if it did I think I'd bring the culprit to the staff room after class for a talk and see how long it took before one of the more fearsome KTs took over disciplining them for me.

[tob55]

Never use originals of anything you want to keep that is personal, i.e. a picture or some other valuable treasure. Always make a copy if you can or have it in a tightly sealed see-through container that cannot be opened by the students...I have had way too many things destroyed by students who have no concern whether or not the things I show them matter to me...I always show them duplicate copies or things that don't matter that much to me when I am using my own things for show and tell...

Never expect that Korean children, or adults for that matter, will respect your things...That is a costly, disheartening assumption that leads many people to the brink of frustration, and anger when their personal things are destroyed...

[passport220]

I have it happen with handouts. A student will start cutting it up with their box cutters (these same students seem obsessed with cutting everything they can find with their box cutter - I don�t take it personally).

I act as if everything is completely intact and start asking them the answers to the questions on the page in a very natural and matter of fact manner � but I am insistent that they answer. I run my finger through the air as if I am reading what is on the shreds. (I prepared the material and have it memorized - I don�t need to see what is on the page) It is funny as they try and piece the page back together like a jigsaw puzzle to find the answer to satisfy the foreigner so he will go away. After a miniute I let them off the hook and give them a new page and tell them they will need it.

[mrsquirrel]

I've got a dozen box cutters now.

I don't think students should have them. Even more so when they are attacking the desks with them.