"special" students at SLP
what the korea?!?.....thats right,you're reading the first of two posts, back to back. its like Christmas all over again. its like a two-for-one special. amazing...
this post will be the first of (hopefully) many that will be dedicated to some of the more special students at SLP. now that i've been here for over a month, i've gotten to know a lot of the kids names (outside of my classes), and some of these stories will be shared here. but be warned, school over here is a lot different than in North America.
in Korea, as strange as this sounds, physical punishment is still used in the schools as a tool to get the kids to do their homework. if you are a male, and you consistently don't do complete your homework, the teacher has it in their full-right to slap them across the back of the head; unfortunately, it works for them, so the kids nearly always complete their work. for the girls, their punishment is to stand outside the classroom, with their hands above their head, for a long time....neither one sounds appealing tome. its clearly not how i'd choose to do it, but at SLP, with foreigners, we're not as finely tuned in the art of punishment for the children. so the students know that unless you're really firm, they can get away with slacking off on the homework....and so we revert to the less-lethal/physical forms of punishment to get them to complete their homework.
One such student is in one of my classes. of all of the english names you could possibly choose from, HE chose to be called Cow. as in the animal that goes mooooo - shockingly, they have about 10 cows in Korea - the most popular form of milk they drink here is actually imported from Denmark (1.5 litres of korean milk is about 3.00CAD). not surprising, Cow is quite the class comedian. or at least thinks he is. anytime that i need a good ice-breaker, somewhere in the range of "the class is bored of english, and they're falling asleep", i'll use Cow as a class demonstration, and his squeals will wake any class within two walls of mine up very quickly. to no one's surprise, Cow happens to be one of those students who consistently slacks off on his homework. so everytime Cow doesn't have his homework done, sometime during the class (and its a surprise), i'll give Cow a purple nurple. and i'm not talking one of the small variety; i'm talking the full-blown nurple. he hates it, and its funny to hear him squeal. and the shocking part? the parents have no problem with it happening; (thanks in part) to the whole mantra of class punishment. the parents don't even flinch when they see it. he's never hurt, and he hates it, and the best part? for the next three classes (we meet three times a week), he'll have all his homework done. its like living my own childhood all over again - playfighting at home, school, etc. his other option (not really an option- i just call it that) is one of two; he can spend ten minutes of the class on his knee's, without being able to use his chair, or he can get a half-nelson (a wrestling manouver), where his arm is gently bent behind his back; its rather uncomfortable. now some of you are probably thinking that i'm just as bad as the korean teachers; you have to understand how much is expected of foreign teachers in Korea. because we speak the language, the parents expect that we'll be able to just transfer our language to their children via transfusion. so they pretty much give us somewhat free-reign on making sure that their children learn; the parents themselves are never around, due to work, to ensure that their child is learning - so whatever it takes is within our bounds.
depending on how you look at it, i've (un)fortunately only given two purple nurples. the kids laugh, and most of the students know that we can come up with really creative psuedo-punishments outside of slapping the students. but as is the case in Korea, the children respond to physical touch so rapidly here - if you congratulate a student by putting your hand on their shoulder after saying a good sentence in english, their face brightens up twice as much as not touching them at all. in North America, i once tried that (more out of instinct), and the student threatned to sue (sure, it was Chicago, but trust me, i'd be lying if i said that i slept more than an hour the same night that it happened). and understand that it goes both ways; they punch and kick us all the time; its rather playful in most classrooms.
its just another way that Korea is different - and Cow makes my life much more interesting than if i didn't have him. I love this country.......
this post will be the first of (hopefully) many that will be dedicated to some of the more special students at SLP. now that i've been here for over a month, i've gotten to know a lot of the kids names (outside of my classes), and some of these stories will be shared here. but be warned, school over here is a lot different than in North America.
in Korea, as strange as this sounds, physical punishment is still used in the schools as a tool to get the kids to do their homework. if you are a male, and you consistently don't do complete your homework, the teacher has it in their full-right to slap them across the back of the head; unfortunately, it works for them, so the kids nearly always complete their work. for the girls, their punishment is to stand outside the classroom, with their hands above their head, for a long time....neither one sounds appealing tome. its clearly not how i'd choose to do it, but at SLP, with foreigners, we're not as finely tuned in the art of punishment for the children. so the students know that unless you're really firm, they can get away with slacking off on the homework....and so we revert to the less-lethal/physical forms of punishment to get them to complete their homework.
One such student is in one of my classes. of all of the english names you could possibly choose from, HE chose to be called Cow. as in the animal that goes mooooo - shockingly, they have about 10 cows in Korea - the most popular form of milk they drink here is actually imported from Denmark (1.5 litres of korean milk is about 3.00CAD). not surprising, Cow is quite the class comedian. or at least thinks he is. anytime that i need a good ice-breaker, somewhere in the range of "the class is bored of english, and they're falling asleep", i'll use Cow as a class demonstration, and his squeals will wake any class within two walls of mine up very quickly. to no one's surprise, Cow happens to be one of those students who consistently slacks off on his homework. so everytime Cow doesn't have his homework done, sometime during the class (and its a surprise), i'll give Cow a purple nurple. and i'm not talking one of the small variety; i'm talking the full-blown nurple. he hates it, and its funny to hear him squeal. and the shocking part? the parents have no problem with it happening; (thanks in part) to the whole mantra of class punishment. the parents don't even flinch when they see it. he's never hurt, and he hates it, and the best part? for the next three classes (we meet three times a week), he'll have all his homework done. its like living my own childhood all over again - playfighting at home, school, etc. his other option (not really an option- i just call it that) is one of two; he can spend ten minutes of the class on his knee's, without being able to use his chair, or he can get a half-nelson (a wrestling manouver), where his arm is gently bent behind his back; its rather uncomfortable. now some of you are probably thinking that i'm just as bad as the korean teachers; you have to understand how much is expected of foreign teachers in Korea. because we speak the language, the parents expect that we'll be able to just transfer our language to their children via transfusion. so they pretty much give us somewhat free-reign on making sure that their children learn; the parents themselves are never around, due to work, to ensure that their child is learning - so whatever it takes is within our bounds.
depending on how you look at it, i've (un)fortunately only given two purple nurples. the kids laugh, and most of the students know that we can come up with really creative psuedo-punishments outside of slapping the students. but as is the case in Korea, the children respond to physical touch so rapidly here - if you congratulate a student by putting your hand on their shoulder after saying a good sentence in english, their face brightens up twice as much as not touching them at all. in North America, i once tried that (more out of instinct), and the student threatned to sue (sure, it was Chicago, but trust me, i'd be lying if i said that i slept more than an hour the same night that it happened). and understand that it goes both ways; they punch and kick us all the time; its rather playful in most classrooms.
its just another way that Korea is different - and Cow makes my life much more interesting than if i didn't have him. I love this country.......