Jesus, when their not sexually assaulting their classmates, they’re decking female teachers.
Sheesh. I wonder what kind of online content we’ll have to ban to stop this?
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33 Comments
Hitting a teacher is unacceptable and the students involved should face some punishment, but the violent nature of school discipline here is in part to blame.
The story reveals that the teacher first attempted to strike one of them with a rod. And for what? The elementary students in question were writing obscene comments about her. As a teacher, you’d better have somewhat of a thick skin, and one would hope that a mature professional might think of other ways of dealing with such a problem.
The teacher seems to have handled things badly from the start. She would have been better off dealing with the situation later, instead of losing her cool and contributing to things going out of control. There was no immediate threat to her authority or safety of the other students. Not to defend students who use violence, but she could have dealt with it the next day and in a different manner, and in doing so could have avoided a potentially career damaging episode.
What he said.
Ordering them to lie prostrate? Why?
good lord. for a moment there before i clicked the links, i thought foreigners were up to no good again… -phew-
Sounds like a clear-cut case of self-defense to me.
“Asked why the students insulted their teacher on the survey papers, Lee said he could not ask them, as they are now too depressed to answer questions about the incident.”
Man, to get away with assault you either have to be drunk or a depressed adolescent.
Thinking of what I could get away with if I was a drunk depressed adolescent.
From the article: “They are in their adolescent period and very sensitive to stress and have difficulty controlling themselves.”
Isn’t that the teenage equivalent of “Go easy on him. He’s had a hard life”?
Which explains it, but doesn’t excuse it.
Ugh… public compassion is always good, but this is bordering “get out of jail free card”. Everything in moderation… otherwise, even the best thing in life turns to poison.
The students should be punished, but this would be a good time for the society as a whole to reflect on the validity and justification of corporeal punishment… no? Too optimistic? Damn…
Isn’t a teacher hitting a student committing a crime these days? Could be why the school seems to eager to excuse its students’ behavior re: the insulting comments, not to mention the supposed ‘assault’ by the student (who was almost certainly justified).
Depressed? DEPRESSED? Give me a f***ing break!
The teacher should have just sent the two punks to the principal’s office and let him deal with them. Either that, or contact the kids’ mothers.
I wonder how the usual suspects will tie this in with another reason to hate-on foreigners. Perhaps we teach the kids to be violent at English hagwon, while we’re drunk and stoned?
On another note, I work in a hagwon and my boss showed up completely sh*tfaced yesterday while classes were in session. His buddy had to help him walk into the building– with dozens of students witnessing this. And guess what? He’s Korean!
Every teacher I work with carries some sort of weapon-looking a stick, myself included. Mine anyway is merely for show; psychologically superior show of force, my sceptre of power…
I’m going to guess the “lie prostrate” actually means the usual “pushup position” - hands and feet on the floor, ass up ready for a whooping… a mistranslation as “prostrate” does means facedown. She “tried to hit them with a rod” may be part of the coverup, as it’s more likely she was shouting and motioning them with her stick to get down.
I’ve taught elementary students and some Korean kids just complete lack respect and will bald-face lie and claim innocence with higher-ups. Smart enough to manipulate the system… some of them are little shits who don’t want to study and will do anything to get out of it. I was even accused by one 7 year-old of biting her arm until it bled… obviously teeth-marks prove who.
Thankfully this child has been largely unaffected by US cultural influences, otherwise he’d have taken to clearing out the classroom with a firearm before shooting himself in the head, as all good Americans should.
The teacher needed stitches - this wasn’t self-defense. She was probably trying to do what should have been done a long time ago with these two. Instead of ‘transferring’ them - Koreans’ solution to any serious wrong-doing at school - these two should be turned over to the PE teacher for a good hiding and a week of cleaning the school until 5pm every day.
And trust me, if their behaviour isn’t corrected now you can just about guaruntee they’ll come home from middle school bruised or with a hand-print across their faces next year.
“Depressed? DEPRESSED? Give me a f***ing break!”
“Instead of ‘transferring’ them - Koreans’ solution to any serious wrong-doing at school - these two should be turned over to the PE teacher for a good hiding and a week of cleaning the school until 5pm every day”
Please…understand their situation. They already feel very guilty and the parents apologized.
“Please…understand their situation. They already feel very guilty and the parents apologized.”
Sure - probably like the student who says ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, teachah I’m sorry, teachah teachah teachah I pwomise, I pwomise, I’m sorry teachah’ after I’ve taken her handphone away.
They obviously didn’t feel very sorry the first time when they wrote obscene comments about their teacher, did they? Hopefully the public embarrassment of this knocks some sense into their parents.
Actually, if the parents had any sense, they’d be pressing criminal charges against the teacher.
I feel bad for the teacher. I think she didn’t handle the situation properly but it may have been an extreme situation. I dread getting students like that but it happens.
I’ve been in Korean public schools for 8 years and it’s been years since I’ve seen a teacher with a stick. I’ve never seen a teacher use one.
Some kids are difficult. Every year, I get a few, and every year, I struggle to deal with them.
One thing I do is keep the class disruption to a minumum. If a kid starts acting up (disrupting the class) and can’t be handled in 10 seconds, get them out of the classroom. For something that can wait (it doesn’t disrupt the flow of the class) say something like, “we’ll talk later”, and carry on.
Has anybody heard the rumour that Kim Jongil has been assassinated?
http://www.newshankuk.com
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap.....ong-Il.php
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap.....ong-Il.php
#17 - I sympathize for the teacher being in what may be an unenviable classroom situation; however, as you’ve experienced yourself, how and when you handle a situation is everything. It isn’t always an easy call - no two situations are exactly the same - and teachers make mistakes like everyone else, especially when they often have to react to things in real time. This kind of case shows just how important it is to try to anticipate potential problems, and to devise in advance a few strategies for dealing with them. (Ideally, violence against students shouldn’t be part of a teacher’s arsenal!)
“I sympathize for the teacher being in what may be an unenviable classroom situation; however, as you’ve experienced yourself, how and when you handle a situation is everything. It isn’t always an easy call - no two situations are exactly the same - and teachers make mistakes like everyone else, especially when they often have to react to things in real time. This kind of case shows just how important it is to try to anticipate potential problems, and to devise in advance a few strategies for dealing with them. (Ideally, violence against students shouldn’t be part of a teacher’s arsenal!)”
They were trying to do a survey about school bullying. Doesn’t that sound like they *were* trying to anticipate potential problems and devise a few strategies for dealing with them to you? And then these two decided not only to ruin it, but to demonstrate how powerless teachers were by writing obscenities about their teacher.
I’m willing to bet a lot of money that this isn’t the first time these two have acted rudely like this, that there parents have heard word about it at some point, and that if they had done a proper job of disciplining them this never would have happened.
And on the other side of the coin - again from the KT - students in Gangwon refused to go to class, standing in the rain, after one of their number attempted to kill herself after being slapped and kicked for an hour by one of her teachers in the bathroom.
What’s the common thread? School officials doing bugger all to sort out the problem.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/ww.....24901.html
“They were trying to do a survey about school bullying. Doesn’t that sound like they *were* trying to anticipate potential problems and devise a few strategies for dealing with them to you?”
The survey is a good idea, but does that excuse a teacher: A) freaking out because she took something personally, B) deciding the problem had to be dealt with immediately after class without taking the time to cool off, and C) introducing her own bit of school bullying by bringing out the stick when her initial uncontrolled outburst wasn’t having the intended effect.
“And then these two decided not only to ruin it, but to demonstrate how powerless teachers were by writing obscenities about their teacher.”
Students can ruin great activities. It happens sometimes. It’s how you deal with these things that matter. These students may well be total turds, but the teacher proved herself to be powerless only when she handled the episode poorly.
She could have handled it the next day. She could have made copies of the surveys and given them to the principal and/or parents. She shouldn’t have put herself in a situation where she was no longer in control of the situation. None of what I’ve written means the kids shouldn’t be punished. (My first post on the topic, argues that they should!)
If after school isn’t the time to deal with something like this when is? How do you know she hadn’t given herself time to ‘cool down’ and how do you know that she ‘freaked out’? I don’t know how exactly procedures work at elementary schools but at my school the thing to do would have been to bring them straight down to the staff room. Then they could take their (very well deserved) punishment from her or one of the big male teachers. Note as well that she only took the course of action she did after they refused to apologise.
Assign me to whatever past decade or century you want, but I’ve seen the difference between a school where insolence is tolerated and one where it isn’t, and not only the teachers but also most of the students feel much more at ease when they know that open displays of insolence will almost never happen.
How do you know she didn’t give herself time to cool down and how do you know she freaked out? I’m not exactly sure how procedures work at elementary schools, but her mistake was probably not taking them down to the staff room where they could either take their (very well deserved) punishment from her or a big male teacher.
Assign me to whatever decade or century you want, but I’ve seen the difference between a school where insolence is tolerated (or ignored) and one where it is not. Not only the teachers but also most of the students feel much more at ease when it’s clear that open rudeness and insolence towards teachers will almost never happen.
“Assign me to whatever decade or century you want”
20th century, pre-1980s, at least in terms of my own experiences as a student and teacher in Ontario and Quebec. I’m not against a little old fashioned discipline at home or even at school, at least in principle, but hitting is no longer really considered acceptable or an ideal means of dealing with students. Fortunately or unfortunately, a teacher is assigned to whatever era they happen to be teaching in.
“Not only the teachers but also most of the students feel much more at ease when it’s clear that open rudeness and insolence towards teachers will almost never happen.”
I agree. Hopefully, they can establish some rules and expectations from the first day of school. Though teachers are sometimes dealt a bum hand when it comes to difficult students, they still have to cope. They also have to deal with the flaws of the system they work within. So do cops, but there are lines they aren’t supposed to cross as well.
Like I said - twice already - I sympathize with the teacher. We all screw up sometimes and it is a tough job. Again - third time I think - the students aren’t without guilt and there should be consequences. However, as a certified middle and high school teacher who had done three years of substitute teaching (where I can assure you, teachers have to deal with more than rudeness and insolence) my training, experience, and common sense would have discouraged me from putting myself into a situation where I might lose it and become violent.
In Canada, if a student is unmanagable, the principal is asked to become involved, but here at my school, the administration seems to be quite uninvolved in the process and it is left up to the teacher.
I am reminded of an incident while teaching in Canada: a grade 10 student was drunk and quite obnoxious in class, so I told him to leave and got to the principals office. He refused to egt out of his chair. I phoned the office and both the principal and vice principal were out of the school at the board office. I asked the student to leave and go home and again he refused to budge.
I dared him to stay in his chair, and he said for sure there was nothing I could do. He bragged that he would stay in the chair until the end of the period and again challenged anyone to try to make him move.
The classroom across the hall was not being used that period, so the entire class and I simply got up and relocated to the empty class and left him sitting there for 50 minutes on his own feeling and looking quite silly.
In Canada, if a student is unmanagable, the principal is asked to become involved, but here at my school, the administration seems to be quite uninvolved in the process and it is left up to the teacher.
I am reminded of an incident while teaching in Canada: a grade 10 student was drunk and quite obnoxious in class, so I told him to leave and got to the principals office. He refused to egt out of his chair. I phoned the office and both the principal and vice principal were out of the school at the board office. I asked the student to leave and go home and again he refused to budge.
I dared him to stay in his chair, and he said for sure there was nothing I could do. He bragged that he would stay in the chair until the end of the period and again challenged anyone to try to make him move.
The classroom across the hall was not being used that period, so the entire class and I simply got up and relocated to the empty class and left him sitting there for 50 minutes on his own feeling and looking quite silly.
In Canada, if a student is unmanagable, the principal is asked to become involved, but here at my school, the administration seems to be quite uninvolved in the priliminary dicipline process and it is left up to the teacher.
I am reminded of an incident while teaching in Canada: a grade 10 student was drunk and quite obnoxious in class, so I told him to leave and go to the principal’s office. He refused to get out of his chair. I phoned the office and both the principal and vice principal were out of the school on business. I asked the student to leave and go home and again he refused to budge.
I dared him to stay in his chair, and he said for sure there was nothing I could do. He bragged that he would stay in the chair until the end of the period and again challenged anyone to try to make him move.
The classroom across the hall was not being used that period, so the entire class and I simply got up and relocated to the empty class and left him sitting there for 50 minutes on his own feeling and looking quite silly.
Hitest, you found yourself in a bad situation, but you handled it exceptionally well considering the circumstances.
Sorry for the multiple postings, I am not sure what happened. My bad.