Korean Job Discussion Forums

[la belle fille]

ok, i like working at a public school much more than a hagwon but the students seem to be much MUCH worse!!!!

i work at a public elementary school. i teach grades k-6; but mostly 5th and 6th graders. the class sizes are about 35 students per class. at least half of my nine 5th and 6th grade classes are HORRIBLE!!!

they scream randomly, they yell at each other, they throw things, they hit, they sleep, they talk back to me, about 95% of the class doesn't pay attention, i'll give instructions 3 times slowly making sure they all get it, then i'll go around the room and like 8-10 students are still like "what?" and aren't doing the activity. in some classes, i have students who NEVER have their english book or a pencil, NEVER do their work and are constantly yelling or hitting or throwing things. sometimes they get really violent. if i send them in the hall they just continuously pop their heads in the windows and distract the class. my co-teacher obviously doesn't know what to do with them either. she never sends them to the principal's office or anywhere else (do they not do that here?) she has less of a class presence than i do so she's pretty much no help. i've tried talking to her about it and she's just like yeah, i dunno.

i'm at my wits end. i feel like i've tried everything- ignoring them, yelling at them, just silently going over and standing near their desk, giving warnings, sending them in the hall, making them stand up with their hands on their head, making the whole class put one hand on their mouths and one hand on their head, and sit up straight for one minute and if someone talks add another minute and so on, saying no stickers, no game, making them stand facing the wall, making them kneel at the back of class or outside while holding a chair up over their heads.

nothing works! i swear! i have junvenile delinquints for students. i seriously feel like i work in a prison sometimes cuz i'm just constantly having to watch them over their shoulder and reprimand them. it's making me really hate a job that i loved at first and should love because everything else about it is so great!

the semester is almost over but i dunno how i'm gonna get through the next 2.5 weeks! please give me some advice that i can use for now and also that i can use next semester. thank you in advance!!!!!

[thegadfly]

I'm sorry, but it sounds like you never really established the pecking order, with yourself at the top. I am not trying to flame, I am just pointing something out. The situation you describe is not starting at ground zero, it is starting in a deep hole....

If you can not live with the situation (and I know I could not), then you have to resign yourself to establishing the level of discipline that you want...and to do THAT, you will need to overshoot it quite a bit and then ease off over time to the level you prefer. Unfortunately, that means that most of your lessons for a while will be about establishing discipline.

You can not show emotion when you discipline the kids -- you have to appear calm and serene. No yelling or screaming, and I would suggest no hitting...but short of that, what is the absolute worst thing you can do to them that your school will support and you feel comfortable tossing out left and right to establish control? Personally, I like the chair over their head thing you mentioned, but I also like the nose to the wall thing and the kneeling thing. Be ready to have half the class doing that for the whole time you have them, while you teach the lesson to the others. Personally, I would probably get a big "love stick," and hold it while teaching. I would NOT brandish it, threaten anyone with it, suggest or intimate that I would use it, and I definitely would NOT use it. I might smash it against my desk for emphasis at some point, to make the class uncomfortable.

Sudden noises, the presence of implied physical danger, and a bland, calm, serene expression will un-nerve most students. If you could get them to kneel in the back of the class or hold the chairs above their heads in the back of the class so you can teach those in front. Keep the ones you punish back there for the whole class time, chairs over their heads or on their knees. The whole hour. If the chair drops, have them put it back up and toss a few books onto it. If they topple from their knees, put them back up and make them hold a few books on their heads. Don't act upset, just try to seem sad. If any of them start to cry, let them cry for a minute or two, then excuse them to the bathroom for a few minutes. When they come back, let them take their seats in class. Every kid you punish should be punished for the whole class or two-three minutes into crying. When the kid cries, be very gentle and understanding, but do not make a fuss -- let them go wash up, take a minute and come quietly into class. Any fakers go back to the punishment.

The situation you described is not going to be easily fixed. I have not had to do what I described in about 12 years -- you set the tone as soon as you get a new class and head off these problems before they ARE problems. You have the proverbial nine stitches to sew to fix this mess.

To sum up:

Draconian punishment.
Dispassionate demeanor.
No threats, no hitting, no yelling, no name-calling.
Make the punished students cry. Let them cry for a few minutes in class before letting them gather themselves in the bathroom.
Let them return to class and the lesson after they cry, but make no fuss at all.

I am not describing how to run a class, I am describing how to salvage a disaster.

Good luck!

[ddeubel]

All I can say for this moment is "O my god".

You both have to start thinking a bit outside what is the "classroom" box..... You are teachers NOT punishers, guards, enforcers... That is the first step, realizing that and then looking at your own behaviour first. If a teacher is to help students learn, then teachers can't hold "anything" over their student's heads unless they just expect regurgitation and memorization, Pavlov's response.... And if you call that teaching, well, there are a lot of machines that can do just as good a job....

That's no way even to salvage a disaster, just a way to cover a bigger one up.....

We've had other threads about this, I suggest both of you search them out.....

DD

[Wondering]

http://www.amazon.com/First-Days-School-Effective-Teacher/dp/0962936065/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-2889766-2658454?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184147172&sr=8-1

Wish I knew how to make that into a pretty link.

Great book. I highly recommend it. I've had numerous co-workers borrow my copy of it and end up either buying their own or pretty much copying the entire book.

[thegadfly]

"Both" of us?

Sorry DD, though I do indeed respect your dedication, professionalism, spirit, and sense of honor and duty, I resent the brush with which you seem to be painting me.

Teachers need to be in control of the students -- if for no other reason than for the safety of the students. Did you see the "monkey teacher" video in anther thread, where the kid leaps from tabletop to tabletop, misses, lands on his gut, sprawls on the table and starts crying? That kid could have been seriously injured, and I put the blame solely on the teacher that did not control the students.

This person does not have the respect of the students, does not have the goodwill of the students, does not have the love of the students, and so for their own safety, fear will turn the same trick, and takes less finesse. I don't use that any more, but then, I have a better idea of what I am doing....

Searching out resources is indeed valuable, and you have provided links to many good resources in the past, but you claim you can not salvage a disaster. I think it is painful but possible to salvage a disaster. I tried to give something other than "wow -- best you can do is learn from this and not do it next year. Sux to be you."

[Jizzo T. Clown]

I posted this somewhere else, but here goes again:

This is really effective for my out of control High School classes. On the board, I write this:

-5
-4
-3
-2
-1
-0-
+1
+2
+3
+4
+5


-0- is the time class finishes. I tell them that if they are good they can have five minutes of free time at the end of class (in other words, we finish class five minutes early).

Each time I have to say "Listen" more than twice, I grab the eraser and walk towards the board. I calmly say "Listen" but a little louder each time, all the while walking to the board. If they still fail to pay attention I erase a number, starting with -5. They now have four minutes of free time possible.

I've rarely gotten past -3, but with a "challenging" class I actually had to start adding minutes and they ended up staying for 10 minutes after the bell rang. Once. The next class they got out five minutes early.

This is great because they monitor each other, and I don't have to constantly be the bad guy.

[Alyallen]

Dang OP!

I don't envy you one bit. One major problem is that your co-teacher is worthless. No matter what you ultimately plan on doing, you need to get him or her on board and ready to stick to a consistent classroom management style.

I've stated a few different times what my teaching style is. To summarize, I lay the rules out so that everyone knows about. After that, there is no excuse for breaking the rules. Punishment or redirection is consistently directed and if necessary I will punish the whole class. That sets in self-policing by the students and things settle quickly. This works with my first graders who know nothing and my 6th graders who I've been teaching from last year.

Ultimately, I'd call the rest of this semester a wash. Think long and hard about what type of classroom you want, the worse behaviors you want stamped out and don't forget to praise the kiddies who do behave. Think about it, talk it over with your co-teacher. Don't think about the previous semester when you start again and treat the first day of school as just that...the first day of school.

Best of luck!

[ddeubel]

Gadfly,

I appreciated your reply and I myself was just too tired to respond in "long" and we also had a wonderful but challenging thread on this just awhile back. Divided along the same lines.

I said "both of you" because of statements I categorically and completely disagree with and actions you advocated that I don't think reach into the standard of teaching that our society has slowly reached. Ethnocentrism? Cultural imperialism? I don't think so and I also think Koreans are developing towards this notion of "hands off" and that physical punishment has no benefit to the teaching process.

I'm not suggesting that you can't teach or aren't of benefit to students. I don't know enough. But the few things you did suggest regarding punishment outweigh a lot of good. IMO. Students holding chairs over their heads, making students cry -- get my goat and anger and wrath. That's me.

As mentioned, you are commended for responding and discussion and giving la belle fille "quelque chose pour qu'elle peut cultivez sa jardin, elle meme" giving her some needed reflection. I just think that she needs to look first before all, at what the teaching dynamic is, that has begun this disaster.

1. Is there a properly introduced signalling/attention getting device?
2. Are class rules posted and have they been discussed and agreed to by all parties?
3. As another said, is there consistency with the coteacher?
4. Are punishments learning oriented, so that there is a connection between the misbehaviour and the learning process?
5. Has the classroom environment been altered with an effort towards better classroom management?
6. Do troublesome/off task students have duties and responsibilities in the class, so they feel part of the class?
7. Do students get the chance to personalize their learning and feel like a learning community? (work on the wall, study groups, extra curricular activities, portfolios)
8. Is there tracking of misbehaviour so that students can be confronted with facts, factual data and not just "I say, you say?"....
9. Have the school admin. been approached or atleast the head grade teacher? Have students been actually "talked to" and not "berated".

I could go on. I don't think you or she have addressed this. You speak of control. Control of a class comes not from power but knowledge and communicating that in a direct and organized way, pro and con for students.

Please find in my teaching folder, my own guidelines that I use when teaching and training teachers. I've posted them here before but don't have time to link.

You are right, the situation isn't easily fixed so late in the year. And you are right, some students deserve/need punishment but not in the way you are advocating. They should simply after much has been tried, not allowed to be part of that class. Period. Drop all your own primitive punishment rituals and get with the electric light bulb, I say.

No offense intended, we do differ fundamentally in our approach. I'd rather have an terribly unruly class even, then undertake what you advocate. Knowing what I know about child psychology.

DD

[icicle]

I am going to take a slightly different tack in answering this question.

Out of the 18 Middle School classes I teach there is one 2nd Class class which fits much of what the OP described ... and nothing which we tried in a discipline sense worked ... It was a class which I always seemed to end up with a headache from and did not enjoy at all ... It became almost something to endure ... rather than enjoy ... and usually not actually get any effective learning happening... My CT did many of the discipline strategies suggested with them ... and they really did not work ... If anything made it worse ...

This week the lesson was different ... and included a video clip which engaged every single student in the class for the 12 minutes it lasted ... And has admittedly had the same effect on every class I have used it in so far ... But this was easily the most difficult class ... I think I had long thought that the problem with this class was actually not them ... but that the lesson simply wasn't engaging them effectively ... I had reached the conclusion that there was not going to be any significant change in their classroom behaviour until I found the key to engaging them ... Taking a strong discipline line tends to inflame this class rather than stopping the behaviour ... Find something that engages them ... and they will ask for more ...

Some classes are simply very much less forgiving of lessons which don't engage them .. mean anything to them ... or are otherwise boring ... I think that it is worth considering when you find yourself with a class like this ... if there is anything that you can do ... in how or what you are teaching that could make a difference ...

Icicle

[Hellsmk2]

I've yet to teach but my housemate is a teacher here in the UK. He's told me to have a long plastic ruler and to carry on trying to teach, calmly walk over to the unruly pupil whilst still teaching/ talking and then slam the ruler down on the desk.

He says most of the time they sound will make em' jump and shut up.

I could be totally wrong and won't know about it until I've had similar problems later this year :)

[icnelly]

Let the students work towards a tangible goal. Give out team points for positive remarks, actions, etc, and whichever team was the best gets to leave first. I know people say competition shouldn't be part of the classroom, but I don't really think this fits that category. Half the times the students don't realize they didn't something commendable until I'm happy with them, and give them a star.

I think one thing to note is that your discipline issue isn't going to disappear overnight and it may take a long time (1 month, or months) to get to a good spot.

Some keys:

1. Consistency in your manner/actions, and with the rules.
2. Student knowledge of the rules: make your rules (keep em simple) and take a full class or two to teach them: role plays, repetition, any kind of activity that you can get them focused with.
3. Don't let the students enter your room in an unruly fashion, or leave that way (you dismiss them, and you keep them focused before class starts.)

hope it helps.

[thegadfly]

DD,

Fair enough, and I even agree with you. If a teacher has to resort to punishment, he or she has already lost -- but whether or not you agree with it, some forms of physical punishment are accepted or even expected by society here. Correction of inappropriate behavior without punishment takes some serious finesse and skill (or bribes, which are usually quickly counter-productive), and sorry, but it didn't seem like the OP would spontaneously develop either. I know I didn't have either when I was in my first or second year, so it is not intended as an insult to the OP.

Again, I agree that control of a class comes not from power but communication, but this class of the OP's sounds too far gone for that....and control is NOT optional. No control means very little or no learning for ANY student, not just the behavior problems, and as I said, it can present a physically dangerous situation (I've taught in science labs, so perhaps my views of the physical dangers are skewed, but they exist in any classroom. Students rough-house and fight. I saw a kid have three fingers broken and nearly severed when another kid slammed a door on his hand. They were 8-year olds rough-housing in another teacher's classroom during a break -- I saw it start to happen but couldn't run from my doorway to the other doorway in time to stop it. I did, however, get to wrap the kid's mangled hand while he screamed in pain and terror. Not my students, not my class or classroom, but a horrible, PREVENTABLE situation.)

Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Machiavelli's The Prince are great guides to teaching. Both of them explain that the best planned battle is the one that is never fought.

Your 9 point list is a great way to reflect and discover what could be done better in the future -- so next year, when the OP starts a new class with new students not used to the currently flawed dynamic, the OP can do what ought to be done...but how does it help the OP on Thursday and Friday of this week?

My own personal views are somewhat of a paradox. I think teachers should be allowed to hit students -- AND I firmly believe that a teacher should never do so, nor even threaten to do so. A teacher that does so makes ME angry and disgusted. But it should be allowed -- and the kids should KNOW it is allowed. That changes the feeling from "you can't hit me" to "you CAN hit me, but choose not to do so...why?"

I'd rather have three days of unhappy, embarrassed kids and then the rest of the year with little or no problem than a year of unruly kids who prevent even the most diligent from concentrating fully. I would rather have kids crying in the corner with a chair over their heads than crying in an emergency room with their fingers hanging by a flap of skin. I'm not the good shepherd -- I don't forego the 99 to go after the 1. The 1 gets eaten by a wolf, or finds its way back, and I keep the other 99 safe.

[gyopogirlfromtexas]

]]

[gyopogirlfromtexas]

[MrsSeoul]

I had a bad class last year where nothing seemed to work. In the end I got a whistle and when things got really out of control I blew it until they stopped. I'd pick up the whistle and motion to the students who were paying attention to cover their ears.