Much to my surprise

When I first started thinking about coming to Korea to teach, I started paying attention to the stories I  heard a bit more closely. When it came to schools I heard a lot about orderly classrooms, how Asian students in general were much more studious as well as much more orderly and respectful in the classroom. I was left with the impression of rows of uniformed students sitting rigidly in their seats and participating appropriately.

Yeah, not quite.

Teaching elementary school here means that I teach converstational English to students in grades 3 through 6. In my first week I introduced myself to the students with the help of a powerpoint presentation and then took some time to go over the rules of MY classroom. I was surprised to have a student raise his hand at the end and ask "what will you do if we don't follow your rules?" To be honest I was a little taken aback by this question, but I understood it. He wanted to know if I would hit them. 

Yes, corporal punishment is practiced in the Korean classroom. It didn't take long to see it in action either. In my first week I seen students hit on the hands for failing to complete homework. I seen kids get a rap on the head from a stick for speaking out in class. I even seen a teacher punch a student in the gut. 

Shocking to say the least.

So here was this student asking if I would act in the same manner. 

I of course outlined some disciplinary measures that I was confortable with ending with sending the student to the Vice Principal. I'm not too sure what he thought of all this other than the realization that I would not hit them.

Having now spent four months in the Korean classroom I'm astounded at how the classroom is run. Now obviously I can only speak for those classes which I am involved directly, but overall I think that much of the time organized chaos would be considered success. 

I've been punched by kids, had kids going around saying "Heil, Hitler", kids running around giving one another the finger, kids saying "fuck" thruoghout the class. It seems that the level of expectation is either undefined for the students in their educational environment or that their knowledge of my unwillingness to do what the Korean teachers do, hit them, means that they are much more willing to push the boundaries with me and in my classroom.

Given this context imagine my surprise to learn that corporal punishment in schools was done away with a decade ago!

Here is a brief excerpt from an article which talks about one grade six teacher and her call for corporal punihsment to be reinstated in the classroom:

“Once class starts it’s a disaster. The kids giggle over their cellphones. So the teacher takes them away. One of the kids looks at her with hurt eyes and says, ‘I’m going to call the police’. The student gets angrier as the teacher goes on with the lesson. The students write the answers on the blackboard, one by one. Carrying the chalk, the student says to her ‘fuck you’ [in English]. All the students start laughing uncontrollably. The student has a wide grin at doing such a great thing. So she just had to go on. The teacher whacks the kid on the head. ‘Screw you!’ the kid says [in Korean].”

[...]

Why is this, you wonder? The first shackle placed on teachers’ ability to teach normally was the abolition of corporal punishment 10 years ago. The inability to use corporal punishment has become teachers’ weak point. Mrs. Kim stressed, “with no way to punish students who violate the rules, the school becomes a lawless place with no control over them. We have to allow teachers to use corporal punishment or expulsion when necessary.”  Beginning in elementary school you can clearly see the effects of an inability to punish violations of the rules.

I find the notion that she does not practice corporal punishment hard to believe, but perhaps she doesn't. I mean I've personally witnessed it happening, I've read about it numerous times. I've heard about it numerous times as well. Two instances stand out, neither of which I personally witnessed. The first I read about in a news article that outlined how a teacher swatted a grade 4 girl student so hard that after two weeks there were still welts on her derrier. The teacher in question was demoted from being a home room teacher. A punishment that I'm led to believe would be greeted more with relief than anything else. The second instance was relayed to me by a friend. A particular teacher was known for his unique style of corporal punishment; he would kick the students in the chest. Well on one particular instance, he did so and cracked the ribs of a student. His punishment was to pay the hospital bills of the student and was seen kicking students a week later.

In my opinion, and perhaps I'm coming off as being some Western Elitist here, but the entire Korean educational system needs to be abolished and rebuilt.

Unsupervised and unregulated corporal punishment, schooling that lasts from 9am till 12am, standardardized testing that has Korean students committing suicide as young as age 8 all speak out concerning a system that is broken and damaging to its citizens. 

Of course Korea is not the only country in the world where corporal punishment is practiced in the classroom. This comes from Egypt:

An Egyptian court has sentenced a schoolteacher to six years in jail for beating a pupil to death because he had not done his homework.

Maths teacher Haitham Nabeel Abdelhamid, 23, took Islam Amr Badr outside the classroom and hit him violently in the stomach.

The 11-year-old boy fainted and later died in hospital of heart failure in the city of Alexandria.

The court was told the boy had four broken ribs.

Abdelhamid was convicted of manslaughter.

He said he only meant to discipline the pupil and did not mean to hurt anyone.

The teacher's lawyer was quoted as saying in court: "Hitting [a child] is not banned in schools and my client did not break the law."

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, well I'm gaining a real appreciation for being Canadian.

Pissed off

Well my Principal managed to really piss me off today.

Winter vacation began today for elementary schools in Suncheon. The students arrived, did a little clean up, got a speech from the Principal and were excused at 10:30am. The teachers then gathered for a brief meeting and then were excused at 11am. Things were looking up. One last thing to do before leaving for two months, sign the log book that would detail the times I would be out of the country on my trip to China in February.

Aside: My trip to China was to be paid for by working a series of Winter English camps that would have paid me 2.75 million won, more than enough for a nice trip and a new camera. One camp was to be here in Suncheon, while the others were to be up near Seoul.

The VP takes a look at the dates that I listed and then picks up the phone, speaks for a moment with who I later found out was the Principal and then tells my co-teacher that they need to check my contract and to get the dates of the camps I wanted to attend.

While all of this is going on around me in Korean, I'm left to wonder what is the big deal as it is explicitly stipulated in the contract that I get 26 vacation days in February. This was recently reinforced from the Provincial Education Office who sent a letter to all of the schools telling them not to interfere with the February vacation dates.

Finally I get my one co-teacher to tell me what is going on. The Principal wants me to come to school from January 9th till the 20th. This would obviously interfere with my camps. So I check the calendar to find out what is going on during this time. Nothing. So I ask again, what is going on? It turns out that it wasn't January, it was February that he wants me to be back in school.

By this time my younger female co-teacher (first year teaching) confirms that I am contractually guaranteed 26 vacation days in February. So she goes to talk to the Principal again. I wait.

After about 15 minutes she comes back and its obvious that she has been crying.

Well now I'm pissed off!

This fucking maggot has the temerity to blast my young co-teacher because his pissed off at me and the contract that he signed.

You want to be a man and rip into somebody, do it to me. But of course he won't see me as he can't speak English, I can't speak Korean and it would be very wrong for him to lay into me. Of course picking on an innocent first year female teacher is all good.

So now I have to go in to school throughout January and teach for an hour a day. Apparently, I'll be helping teach music and Korean literacy. All because my Principal can't accept the fact that I don't have to attend the two weeks of school in February that everyone else has to.

I'm fine with having to work, it's in my contract, but to act in such a immature and unnecessary manner is just wrong.

I just hope that they don't ask me to do anything for them from now on, because there is no way I'm going to reward such infantile and hurtful behavior.

Historical (willful) ignorance

Okay, when I first got to Korea I playfully wondered if there was something of a Nazi fetish amongst Koreans. It began when I saw the swastika everywhere, but that was easily explained away as the swastika is an ancient religious symbol that was adopted and perverted by the Nazi's.

It was sort of like my ex-wife's Italian family. I playfully joked around about them being involved in the mob. It was a joke, nothing serious then you find out that her grandfather owns a second hand jewelry shop that does no business but supports a new Cadillac in the driveway every other year. Or the time you attend a wedding and the best way for people to describe the presence of a particular gentleman (when he walked in all of the men lined up and greeted him, while all the women lined up and greeted his wife) was as a Godfather type figure. Then came the time her grandfather attended the funeral of a high ranking NY mobster in the '80s, or her cousin that was killed in a hunting accident (he was double tapped at close range with a .22 to the back of the head). Where there is smoke there is fire?

Back to Korea, there was the SS hotel that I saw, which raised an eyebrow. Then came the time in one of my grade five classes when a student walked around giving everyone a Nazi salute saying 'heil Hitler'. I was flabbergasted by this but was at a loss to try and explain why he should not be doing it.

Now we have this from Japan, a video about Uncle Hitler:



What is a person to think?

Religion vs culture(?)

In most if not all of Western society the belief is that the government has no right to force religious instruction on the members of society. When I went to elementary school we read the Bible at the beginning of each school assembly and recited the Lord's Prayer each morning along with the singing of the national anthem. Today that is no more.

So my question is, should the government have any business forcing cultural belief or values on the members of society, specifically in relation to language?

In Ontario, each student is forced to receive French language instruction from grade 4 through grade 9. At that point students have the right to choose for themselves if they wish to pursue further language instruction. Where I grew up, students could choose to take French, German or Spanish beginning in grade 10. The fact of primary importance in this is personal choice, or the lack there of.

One might think, what's the big deal? Does language instruction, chosen or enforced, really matter?

Well, when it is not a choice, of course it matters. But one might counter that we are not given a choice when it comes to math. True, one can make the case though that math serves a fundamental purpose in the maintenance of life, does the study of additional languages? I think that in many cases the study of multiple languages serves to enrich one's life but I find it hard to equate additional language instruction with mathematics for the maintenance of life.

Of course, there are those that believe that language is of vital importance; Quebec for instance. Quebec promotes three fundamental values of Quebec society, one of which is the French language. Quebec, unlike Canada which has two official languages (English and French), only has one official language; French. This was brought about in 1977 with the support of the Minister of Cultural Development. Like in Ontario, students in Quebec learn English in school beginning in elementary school.

So what's the big deal right?

Well, while students are forced to take additional language instruction to meet the requirements of Canada's language policy, people are given the choice to enhance that aspect of education if they choose by enrolling their children in French or English Immersion schools. However this has become increasingly hard for people in Quebec who wish to have their children attend English immersion schools. So much so that a class action law suit has been brought before the Supreme Court of Canada.

Quebec had passed a law the forced immigrant children into French language instruction despite the express wishes of their parents. The law has been so effective that in approximately twenty years the English language school enrolement has been cut by more than half.

Why?

To protect Fracophone culture.

The Quebec government maintains there's no violation of rights if the Supreme Court takes into account the broader social goal of Bill 104 — to facilitate the assimilation of immigrants into the province's French-speaking society, and protect Quebec's francophone culture.

So should the government be in the business of enforcing cultural homogeneity through proscribe language instruction?

When has enforced societal homogeneity ever been a good thing?

Jubilation

Recently I traveled to Seoul where I was able to attend a performance of the Cirque du Soleil's performance of Alegria. Unfortunately they would not allow for any pictures to be taken before, during or after the performance so I had little to share with those who have not had this amazing opportunity.

In lieu of pictures I have found this short video of Alegria and I wanted to share it so thay you might gain a small glimpse of the performance.

A pleasant surprise

Here is a picture of a grade three classroom at Hyanglim Elementary school in Suncheon South Korea.

What in this picture are you unlikely to see in a Canadian classroom?

The Korean imagination

I try not to complain about this matter to strenuously or publicly but, in my honest opinion, the English language curriculum currently in place is rather ineffective. This past week schools across Jeollanamdo completed their annual student assessments with a series of day long tests. Not something that I would look forward to as a student, but it is expected and I never heard any complaints from students.

English is a mandated course for students in grade three and above. Students in grades three and four receive forty minutes of English language instruction from a Native English speaker each week. Students in grades five and six receive eighty minutes of English language instruction, however I only see my grade five and six classes for forty minutes a week as I work in two seperate schools. The odd thing is that I have no place in student assessment.

Now, previously I did write about giving five of my eight grade six classes a two minute oral examination, however those results go nobody and do not make it to their report cards. The grade that they receive in English comes solely from their home room teacher, who may or may not be comfortable with English.

So it was somewhat surprising when on Wednesday a young girl in one of my grade five classes came to me and excitedly and proudly informed me that she had received a mark of 100% on her English test. I of course congratulated her and was genuinely happy for her. The problem though is that she can't speak much English. But that is the way of English education at this point, and there is little that I can do to change that fact.

***

One thing that is fun about English education is hearing student responses to different situations presented in their lessons.

Each student is given a text book at the beginning of the year. Students in grades three and four will study eight units of four forty minute lessons over the course of the year. Students in grades five and six will study sixteen units of four forty minute lessons during the year. Each unit follows the exact same formula as does each lesson.

Lesson one is always a 'look and listen' exercise followed by a 'listen and repeat' exercise followed by a rather unfun game. The 'look and listen' exercise is simply a cartoon where the students are to be introduced to that unit's core concept. This is done with varying degrees of effectiveness.

The past couple of weeks, for my grade five and grade six classes I used the 'look and listen' portion of the exercise and printed out the dialogue for the students, then made up a dialogue of my own and then had the students write one for themselves so that they could explore the language and concept.

One of my classes took to this concept with gusto and while working in small groups, the class wrote ten seperate dialogues which they presented the class the followign week. It was a lot of fun.

I thought I'd share with you one particular piece that some grade six students wrote. This was based on a dialogue about it being time to go home.

Enjoy.

Boog Boog E: Let's die together.

Snoopy: Wow, great!

Crazy Rabbit: I can't die well.

Boog Boog E: Come on. I'll help you.

Crazy Rabbit: Where is Snoopy?

Boog Boog E: She's over there. She is a good killer.

Crazy Rabbit: Snoopy, don't go that way. Watch out! Snoopy come here. It's time to go to the roof.

Snoopy: What time is it?

Crazy Rabbit: It's 4:40 already. Let's go to the roof.

Snoopy: Not now. I want to live more.

Crazy Rabbit: Come back snoopy!

Boog Boog E: Oh no!