Hitting Students

Koreans have a different approach to disciplining kids at school. In the States teachers are not allowed to touch a student without getting slapped across the face with a lawsuit. Not the case here, I have personally seen my manager smack a middle school student for making a smart remark towards her. Korean discipline style varies from teacher to teacher but here are some common ways to shape up kids:

The head shot - I was wondering why my kids always say "head shot" in my class. It finally clicked when Heather (foreign teacher) asked her partner(a Korean teacher) about the crack in her red Bic pen top. Her partner said she cracked it when she pulled back her pen with her fingers and flicked a students head. Hence, the head shot! She said it was the third one she had broken that day. Heather asked "why do you do that?" Her reply was "Because they couldn't answer the question".

Standing - The Foreign teachers are trained to have their students stand up at their desks if they are misbehaving. The Koreans take this to a whole new level. Today, I saw a student in the hall holding his hands above his head. He was in front of the classroom window waiting for the teacher's permission to enter the room again.

The cheek pinch - After class, teachers grab their students cheeks and pinch them tightly as they yell at them.

Squats - the hall monitor makes the kids do squats with their hands out if they are acting up.

Re-test - This is the most feared punishment. It is a study room where students are sent if they fail a test. They must go to this room to master the lesson. They cannot leave until they have proven they have learned the material. Teachers can also send students to re-test for an hour if they speak Korean or are misbehaving.

Homework - This is the worst punishment and everyone gets it regardless whether or not they are good or bad. From now on, I will laugh at any student form North America that tells me they have too much homework. We have students at our Academy until midnight doing re-test because they failed their English tests.

The English Academy we work for gives about 4 hours of homework per week. This does not sound that bad, but you have to consider that academies are after school learning centers. The children have their normal school workload to do as well. Plus, on average, a Korean student goes to three different academies. The most popular academies are English, Math, Science, Japanese, Piano, and Chinese. Of course, English is by far the most popular. And on top of all this, they spend two Saturdays a month at school for four hours.

When we ask students what they want to do on Sunday or for their day off they all say "take a rest". Dana: "What do you mean take a rest, you don't want to play?!?!?" Students: "No, just take a rest and not study."