Well, this’ll shut the kids up. [Yonhap News, Korean]
Angry at his noisy students, a music teacher in Dongducheon last week shut off the classroom air conditioning and turned on an electric heater.
Keep in mind, it was like 30 degrees Celsius outside, and being a music room, there were curtains on all the walls to dampen the sound, meaning there was very little air circulation.
In addition to the sauna treatment, each of the male students got a wack to the palms of the hands, while the girls had to sit on their knees on top of their desks.
This continued for about 15 minutes.
After the parents complained, the school demanded a written explanation from the teacher and an apology, which they got. The school also plans to punish the teacher appropriately.
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36 Comments
The man should not be teaching music whatsoever. If the kids are not focusing on the lesson, there are far better alternatives to motivate, including inviting the completely unsuitable pupils to leave the class.
What an ass. Anyone with a modicum of teaching experience knows that his method insures fear of him, but not success in learning.
Say, if he’s stressed out from teaching music to the kids, I hear that HUFS is looking for a new teacher - perhaps he should apply there.
I hate to think what might have happened if he had found an unflushed toilet in the student restroom.
This same punishment was imposed on me, in Navy boot camp — and I hadn’t even done anything. Some other recruit had folded his underwear improperly or something. We also got to wear all the clothes in our lockers and do an hour of calisthenics holding an M1 over our heads.
My Mom did not write a letter to the Navy to complain.
Sounds like he was punishing himself too. There is no noise that students can make to compare with Korean heat. If you turned on a heater now, I am pretty sure the violins would go up in smoke.
Yeh…maybe next time he should give them some candy or just continue to allow them to act like a bunch of animals. Or possibly waste his time making another call home to request some assistance from the mothers who are the reason his students don’t have any basic respect for teachers in the first place.
God I would love to have the life of a Korean housewife. Send the husband and the kids out the door at 7 in the morning everyday so you can sit around watching TV and running the household debt up on credit cards. For the couple hours a day the kids are home you just pretend like you are too tired to teach them any manners and let them act however inappropriately they want to. Best of all, when your kid turns out to be a self centered ass you can blame the teachers.
I say give the teacher a medal.
On the other hand, hitting rarely works. But… being made physically uncomfortable does. Turning the AC is excellent leverage.
The real asses here are the lazy parents who didn’t bother to instill (and reinforce daily) respect for the teacher. And the brown-nosing administration that bowed to complaining parents, which btw, will be the downfall of Korean society.
Let’s be honest. Is this really about the violence? Korean parents allow their kids to walk all over them. Since they lack the moral fiber to stand up to their own children they get very insecure when someone else does. If they have to admit their child is wrong for treating their teacher disrespectfully, they have to concede to the fact that the way their child treats them is proof of their failure as a parent. We all know what happens next…deny, deny, deny.
I guess I’ve been in Korea too long; I see nothing wrong with this. Like foobat and Creo, I blame the parents, especially the mothers.
They stick their kids in hakwons all day from the age of two or three, while they go shopping or hiking. Kids these days are raised, in effect, by their peers and some occasional input from a teacher. And mothers are surpised when their kids grow up without manners and morality!
IT nice to see a thread evolve from idiocy to common sense.
I find it surprising that despite the terrible unruliness possessed by Korean kids as told by the commentors here, all (most? the article didn’t mention) of the middle schoolers took the punishment without too much complaint.
If some band teacher in Canada or US would try to punish his middle schoolers in that way, I’d imagine most of them walking out yelling a hearty “fuck off.”
Imagine the mess he would have created had he failed the students like they deserved.
10. Yeah, North American children are overflowing with manners and morality.
chiamatt, that’s true. but when was the last time you saw a Korean kid get booted or even suspended for piss poor behavior. at least in the States there is that recourse for demonstrating a lack of discipline and respect. here it’s all on the teacher to make it “happen” regardless of the ability or interest of the student.
Again, we go to the lets compare it to North America defense. Yes, you are exactly right. Schools in America country have horrible problems. But, foobat is right that in the USA a school will take action against the offenders. Even when I was in grade school detentions, suspensions and expulsions were common. I am sure they are even more common today. Send a kid to detention in Korea? Sorry, not going to happen. They are a customer at Hawgwans in the afternoon and we can’t keep them in detention. Suspend or expel them? Yah, right. One school district in the Eastern part of the USA now even went so far as to adopt a “no touching policy.” No handshakes, high fives, hugs…no touching.
As Foobat stated, teachers in Korea are left trying to solve the problem with no support from the parents or school. All the while the parents are jumping all over the teacher to increase the difficulty of the class because they want their kid to get into “the next best.” Problem is the class is a zoo and no one is learning anything other than bad manners.
Fifteen minutes of discomfort. “My God! Think about the children.”
That band room sounds like just about any “club” I went to whilst in school. And I paid $5. And that included the stench of overflowing toilets. I don’t recall Hüsker Dü, Black Flag or the Replacements complaining either.
Spare the rod, broil the child.
“…the male students got a wack to the palms of the hands, while the girls had to sit on their knees on top of their desks”
Why?
It’s true that these could have been unruly kids deserving of some form of punishment. In actual fact, however, none of us knows what occurred in that classroom, so it’s presumptuous to suggest that the punishment is fitting.
Sometimes, as commenters here have noted, punishment is needed in order to remind students that they need to focus on the lesson.
But teachers have a variety of controls at their disposal, of which corporal punishment is one. Furthermore, corporal punishment of an entire class is something which deserves close scrutiny, as conditions are so rare as to require it. Bear in mind, after all, that the middle school is not preparing its students for war.
The students are middle-schoolers, and it’s really hot these days, which together form a simple recipe for student inattention. In this case, the teacher’s solution for this problem was general corporal punishment: a more extreme version of the problem from which the students already suffered, coupled with standard practices of corporal disciplinary action in the ROK.
Ask teachers in Korea if group corporal punishment is necessary, and the answer you’ll get is typically ‘usually not’. I know this because every summer I work with middle- and high-school teachers, and I always ask them about classroom management practices.
The reason that they don’t feel it’s usually necessary is because individual punishment is usually all that is required. In other words, if a teacher wants to regain control of a class, then she should find the more extreme miscreant(s) and punish him (them). After that, students will generally toe the line. An added benefit is that while group punishments effectively end a lesson, individual punishments do not.
When whole classes of students no longer toe the line, teacher behavior should be scrutinized more carefully. Very often, teachers who resort to group corporal punishment have punished their students so often as to weaken its effect, and thus its value. They are forced to use increasingly more extreme measures in order to achieve the required effect.
Without knowing all the details, it sounds very much like what is going on here:
* Close the heavy drapes in a music classroom at the end of June.
* Turn on the heater in the closed classroom.
* Hit the male students (usually with a stick or ruler).
* Force the skirt-wearing adolescent girls to sit on the desktops.
This teacher actually employed four separate punishments, with either the entire class or the entire group of male and female students. At a minimum, there should be inspection as to the need for so many forms of punishment to be administered to every student in the class. For now, however, I’ll stick by my original assessment.
I don’t recall Hüsker Dü, Black Flag or the Replacements complaining either.
How could you not mention the Bad Brains or Minor Threat?
Don’t be so quick to blame the parents, folks. I taught a number of Korean kids at an international school in China for several years. One thing I and the other teachers really appreciated was parental support. If we had a concern about a child, the parents would back us up. Meetings with parents were usually very effective in helping to curb inappropriate behavior. While the occasional parent told us, “If my kid misbehaves, hit’em,” I think most preferred our non-violent discipline methods to those used in Korean schools.
Parental involvement generally works in the US, too. One of our middle school ESL teachers would keep his mobile on his desk. If a kid really acted up, he’d pick up the phone and call their parents right during class. The threat of a phone call was an effective deterrent.
I wonder if part of the problem is that the teacher’s lesson was boring. When kids are engaged in the task, they don’t chatter or act up. In every class, there are a few BIs (behaviorally impaired), but keep those kids on a short leash, and the rest of the class will stay on task.
Sonagi,
This is in no way a personal attack on you but anyone who has instructed English in Korea would just shake their head and laugh at your opinion of Korean “parental involvement.” I don’t know jack about China but I can tell you this isn’t America.
I am not surprised to hear about your experiences with Korean parents in China though. I think once Koreans get outside of Korea they generally realize how bizarre some of this societies “mob” based “me, me, me” behavior is and quickly adapt to what others are doing around them.
Good ones! And the Dead Kennedys , the Exploited, GBH…this list would have gone on too long. No whingin’.
But Sonagi’s got a point. Band class probably sucked donkey gochu.
“That band room sounds like just about any “club” I went to whilst in school. And I paid $5. And that included the stench of overflowing toilets. I don’t recall Hüsker Dü, Black Flag or the Replacements complaining either.”
LOL.
This is in no way a personal attack on you but anyone who has instructed English in Korea would just shake their head and laugh at your opinion of Korean “parental involvement.”
As a former hagwon whore, I can assure you that there is a huge difference in the minds of Koreans between regular education and after school classes. One of my colleagues in China was an Australian woman who had taught English in a Chinese hagwon for Korean kids prior to joining our staff. She had graduated from a college of education, was a licensed teacher with years of experience in Australia, yet our Korean parents were mortified to pay $10,000 a year in tuition to have their kids taught by a former hagwon whore. Foreign hagwon teachers occupy the very lowest rung on the Korean educational ladder, and that is why “anyone who has instructed English in Korea would just shake their head and laugh at your opinion of Korean ‘parental involvement.’”
“Even when I was in grade school detentions, suspensions and expulsions were common. I am sure they are even more common today.”
Were you born and raised in North America? I wonder because of sentences like this:
” Schools in America country have horrible problems. “
There are a number of singular/plural inconsistencies,too, that one would not expect from a college graduate educated exclusively in English.
seems simply like a very creative way to maintain discipline with minimal use of force as possible.
I think he showed great restraint.
He didn’t even hit the girls.
This is bordering on knighhood.
To get an idea of what punishment was like in Korean schools in the 80’s or 70’s, relax and watch some films roll.
The classroom must have been like an oven. Did they need Easy Off afterwards?
Bill
Today’s Korean kids are just SPOILED ROTTEN!!!!!
I HATE it when these mothers meet for lunch at a restaurant….and their two and three year-old kids are running around the tables, including mine….until I have to give them a dirty look. THEN the mothers do something.
Extra note: Korean-American culture in DC (specifically northern VA) is supposed to be like Korean culture….in the sixties and seventies, like some sorta time warp. Hence Korean-American parents here act like Korean parents of the sixties and seventies and thus don’t tolerate a lot of crap from their kids. It’s great!
seouldout — “beat on the brat with a baseball bat”
Used to see the DKs at Mabuhay Gardens in SF all the time — damn I’m old
Sonagi,
I will try to proof my writing with more care in the future now that I am aware of the high standard you have set for this blog. By the way, could you do the same?
“There are a number of singular/plural inconsistencies,too, that one would not expect from a college graduate educated exclusively in English.”
Yes, I was born, raised and educated in North America. I won’t offer any apologies to you for my writing or my blind faith in Microsoft’s grammar checker to catch the mistakes though. I guess I am just a product of a society which has become lazy due to technology. Obviously, neither Bill Gates nor I have reached perfection yet but we will keep trying if only for you.
Here is my question for you? Why is it that you are ashamed for having worked in Korea’s educational industry? Did you some how feel assisting children to learn English was beneath you? Everyone starts somewhere you know. Personally, I hope I never wake up to the day where I consider myself or any of my coworkers to be “hagwon whores.” Instructing English sure pays less than any job I had in America but I find it more rewarding and interesting. We are both aware that my major wasn’t English and again I don’t apologize for that. I have been able to dodge getting screwed over in Korea several times and I don’t think any M.A. in English would have prepared me for that. Corporate America may not have taught me to correct my “singular/plural inconsistencies” but they did teach me how to deal with crooks.
Finally, I realize that Koreans view foreign hagwon teachers with contempt. However, when the opinion comes from a society where the people measure their value based solely on the college they went to and the job they currently have it doesn’t effect me much. At the end of the day, I know the kids I instruct (for the most part) appreciate my effort. Whether the parent’s appreciate me or not isn’t relevant.
Creo, I think Sonagi was being facetious and/or self-effacing when she used that term.
I’ve read many of the comments that she’s written on this blog, and I feel reasonably sure in saying that she values her experiences while living and working in Korea, including the period you mention. In fact, she has several times expressed her desire to have stayed and continued working in education here.
At the risk of being wrong, I’d guess that this situation represents an inaccurate assessment of your background, coupled with a misinterpretation of her expression.
JK (or whoever), Did Korean kids used to behave much better in public? I just kind of figured that the parents were just always permissive with the little ones (which I can’t be, but I do respect.)
peninsular,
OH YES! Korean kids acted MUCH better in public in the 1970s and 1980s. Then for some reason, the parents in the 1990s, perhaps viewing their parents as too strict, were overindulgent to their children. Parents up until the 1990s did not tolerate crap from their kids. Now? It’s the complete opposite.
I had an American friend, this white lady living in Korea, who met some Korean mothers. The white mother’s 5 year-old kid asked for some extra dessert. The mother said no, that the kid had had enough. The Korean mothers there (this was the late nineties) were surprised and looked at the American mother as if she was an extreme dictator. And I STILL don’t know why Korean mothers let their toddlers run around public restaurants until I have to say something to them.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO KOREAN UPBRINGING!!!!!!
The only good news is that today’s Korean-American toddlers in the US, at least in Virginia, are brought up in the way Korean kids in the 1970s and 1980s are. That is unless the parents are FOBs (recent arrivals from Korea). But if the parents are US-born twinkies like me (term for an Asian who doesn’t know any other culture besides white America), they raise their kids the way their parents and their parents’ white friends raised them….not tolerating crap from the kids.
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Spare the rod, Broil the child…
That classroom must have become like an oven after fifteen minutes. Did school officials need to use Easy Off afterwards?…
[...] news from South Korea. Since the article is in Korean, we’ll have to rely on Robert Koehler’s translation. Angry at his noisy students, a music teacher in Dongducheon last week shut off the classroom air [...]