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omonatheydidWith the new school year starting in March, high school teacher Jennifer Chung is worried about coping without her longtime classroom companion --- a hickory stick for smacking misbehaving students.
"I don't know if I can survive the jungle of 40 restless boys in each class, let alone keeping them quiet with no means to punish them," said the 36-year-old maths teacher in Gyeonggi province surrounding Seoul.
Education authorities in Seoul, the country's largest school district with 1.36 million pre-college students, last November banned corporal punishment.
Gyeonggi and one other province followed suit, with the new rule to take effect there in March.
The move has sparked intense debate in South Korea, where education is highly valued and physical punishment has long been tolerated -- if not encouraged -- to discipline students and push them to excel.
Entry to a prestigious college or university largely determines a career path and even marriage prospects. So parents and teachers often drive children to work harder through physical pain.
Slapping or spanking is a common punishment for missing homework, performing poorly in exams or chatting too loudly during class.
Children breaking school rules may be ordered to do push-ups, hold their arms straight above their heads or walk the playground in a squatting position known as a "duck-walk".
One survey showed about 70 percent of high school students experience corporal punishment. But injuries from severe beatings have sometimes led to bitter lawsuits filed by parents and jail terms for teachers.
Kim Dong-Seok, a spokesman for the Korean Federation of Teachers Unions, said overcrowded classrooms and pressure to get students into good colleges prompt educators to rely on tough and quick discipline.
"With about 40 students in each class and all parents demanding that their children go to good colleges, you just can't do the job without physical punishment," he said.
Each class in South Korean schools has 35.3 students on average, one of the highest among OECD member countries whose average is 23.9.
"It's the parents who still want teachers to use physical methods to make their children fare better in exams," Kim said.
But a four-minute video clip of a Seoul elementary school classroom made public in July ignited a debate that for long was the preserve of minority groups of liberal teachers and parents.
A cellphone video taken by a pupil showed a cursing and yelling middle-aged teacher smack the face of a sixth grader, hurl him to the floor and kick him repeatedly.
Seoul's education office, headed by a newly-elected former liberal education activist, seized on the public fury to ban all corporal punishment in schools later that year.
"Corporal punishment is barbaric, inhumane and often used by teachers simply to release their own anger. What's worse, it makes youngsters take violence in everyday life for granted," said Cho Shin, a spokesman for the office.
"No one had mustered the courage to put an end to this vicious, longstanding cycle. But now is the time to end it, no matter how tough it is doing so," he told AFP.
Teachers, however, say the sudden policy switch leaves them with few disciplinary alternatives.
"Some really rebellious kids already taunt me when I try to scold them for chatting too loudly during a class, saying 'Should I take out my cell phone?' or 'Now you're not supposed to hit me, are you?'" said one Seoul high school teacher who declined to be named.
Kim of the teacher's union said complaints had poured in from teachers since last year -- especially from women teachers who said they were harassed or beaten by students in response to scolding.
"We know times have changed and we shouldn't be hitting the students. But we really need other ways to punish those flouting rules and disrupting classes," he said.
Options suggested by the education office -- summoning parents or sending students to special self-reflection classes -- are little real use, he said, given the lack of special instructors and no clear guidance for parents.
Students are equally divided. A private survey last month of 23,000 middle and high school students showed about 50 percent support corporal punishment in classrooms while 40 percent are opposed and 10 percent undecided.
"When I get hit by teachers, I think that's usually for a good reason and I deserve it, though I feel a bit humiliated," said Jeon Jun-Su, a high school senior in the south-central city of Gimcheon.
"If I do something wrong, I'd rather get hit a few times than have my parents summoned. It's far easier and more convenient," he said.
The national education ministry last month tried to ease the controversy by allowing punishment that involves no beating such as push-ups. But Seoul's education office pledged to stick with the all-out ban, further confusing teachers.
"We are in the middle of a messy, chaotic transition," said Kim Chang-Hwan, a researcher at the Korean Educational Development Institute.
The researcher said the pervasive military culture under army-backed rule through the 1960s-1980s played a role in highlighting physical discipline in education, which should vanish eventually.
"This may be the price South Korean schools must pay for relying too much on physical punishment instead of using it as the last resort," he said.
Source: AFP
If you can only handle kids with a stick then I wonder why you even became a teacher
"I don't know if I can survive the jungle of 40 restless boys in each class, let alone keeping them quiet with no means to punish them," said the 36-year-old maths teacher in Gyeonggi province surrounding Seoul.
Education authorities in Seoul, the country's largest school district with 1.36 million pre-college students, last November banned corporal punishment.
Gyeonggi and one other province followed suit, with the new rule to take effect there in March.
The move has sparked intense debate in South Korea, where education is highly valued and physical punishment has long been tolerated -- if not encouraged -- to discipline students and push them to excel.
Entry to a prestigious college or university largely determines a career path and even marriage prospects. So parents and teachers often drive children to work harder through physical pain.
Slapping or spanking is a common punishment for missing homework, performing poorly in exams or chatting too loudly during class.
Children breaking school rules may be ordered to do push-ups, hold their arms straight above their heads or walk the playground in a squatting position known as a "duck-walk".
One survey showed about 70 percent of high school students experience corporal punishment. But injuries from severe beatings have sometimes led to bitter lawsuits filed by parents and jail terms for teachers.
Kim Dong-Seok, a spokesman for the Korean Federation of Teachers Unions, said overcrowded classrooms and pressure to get students into good colleges prompt educators to rely on tough and quick discipline.
"With about 40 students in each class and all parents demanding that their children go to good colleges, you just can't do the job without physical punishment," he said.
Each class in South Korean schools has 35.3 students on average, one of the highest among OECD member countries whose average is 23.9.
"It's the parents who still want teachers to use physical methods to make their children fare better in exams," Kim said.
But a four-minute video clip of a Seoul elementary school classroom made public in July ignited a debate that for long was the preserve of minority groups of liberal teachers and parents.
A cellphone video taken by a pupil showed a cursing and yelling middle-aged teacher smack the face of a sixth grader, hurl him to the floor and kick him repeatedly.
Seoul's education office, headed by a newly-elected former liberal education activist, seized on the public fury to ban all corporal punishment in schools later that year.
"Corporal punishment is barbaric, inhumane and often used by teachers simply to release their own anger. What's worse, it makes youngsters take violence in everyday life for granted," said Cho Shin, a spokesman for the office.
"No one had mustered the courage to put an end to this vicious, longstanding cycle. But now is the time to end it, no matter how tough it is doing so," he told AFP.
Teachers, however, say the sudden policy switch leaves them with few disciplinary alternatives.
"Some really rebellious kids already taunt me when I try to scold them for chatting too loudly during a class, saying 'Should I take out my cell phone?' or 'Now you're not supposed to hit me, are you?'" said one Seoul high school teacher who declined to be named.
Kim of the teacher's union said complaints had poured in from teachers since last year -- especially from women teachers who said they were harassed or beaten by students in response to scolding.
"We know times have changed and we shouldn't be hitting the students. But we really need other ways to punish those flouting rules and disrupting classes," he said.
Options suggested by the education office -- summoning parents or sending students to special self-reflection classes -- are little real use, he said, given the lack of special instructors and no clear guidance for parents.
Students are equally divided. A private survey last month of 23,000 middle and high school students showed about 50 percent support corporal punishment in classrooms while 40 percent are opposed and 10 percent undecided.
"When I get hit by teachers, I think that's usually for a good reason and I deserve it, though I feel a bit humiliated," said Jeon Jun-Su, a high school senior in the south-central city of Gimcheon.
"If I do something wrong, I'd rather get hit a few times than have my parents summoned. It's far easier and more convenient," he said.
The national education ministry last month tried to ease the controversy by allowing punishment that involves no beating such as push-ups. But Seoul's education office pledged to stick with the all-out ban, further confusing teachers.
"We are in the middle of a messy, chaotic transition," said Kim Chang-Hwan, a researcher at the Korean Educational Development Institute.
The researcher said the pervasive military culture under army-backed rule through the 1960s-1980s played a role in highlighting physical discipline in education, which should vanish eventually.
"This may be the price South Korean schools must pay for relying too much on physical punishment instead of using it as the last resort," he said.
Source: AFP
If you can only handle kids with a stick then I wonder why you even became a teacher
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 07:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 04:26 pm (UTC)...Although tbh yes physical punishment is a quick and fast way, although quite...yeah. But my teachers have thrown tables out of the class before, and that's pretty much enough to keep the class silent. Seems that Korean boys are not disciplined then.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 04:26 pm (UTC)"I don't know if I can survive the jungle of 40 restless boys in each class, let alone keeping them quiet with no means to punish them,"
Now you've actually got to be a good teacher, asshole. Works fine most other places, time to shape up. It's called pedagogy. Oh and I would think reduced grades and threat of being expelled would be sufficient punishment.
Thank god they managed to introduce this law.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 04:33 pm (UTC)Since they depend on their marks, this could be an idea.
(no subject)
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Date: 2011-02-12 04:27 pm (UTC)With a total ban on corporal punishment, it would be difficult for teachers to cope with the students. This of course does not mean that corporal punishment should be encouraged, but rather the country needs a well-thought out plan/process which minimises the use of corporal punishment.
Furthermore, a single ban would not be enough to make improvments in the schools. Firstly, teachers need to learn how to deal with their students without using corporal punishment. Secondly, the schools need to have certified counsellors in schools to help out the problematic students. Corporal punishment would do no good at all.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 04:30 pm (UTC)Completely.
I wonder if they've been student or not. And if they received corporal punishments. A teacher who use corporal punishments, not being able by the dialogue to solve a problem, who's submissive should quit the school. I don't blame them but if you can't handle it, don't be teacher.
One year i was in a damn messy class, and we had a math teacher who was awesome. He was so respected. Because, though he was strict, he was nice and understanding. To the point we all bought him a present when he left. Even the rude students... AUTHORITY doesn't mean BEATING duh.
It's 'funny' because here we have cases of students BEATING teachers (but hey, western is the ghetto)...
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 04:38 pm (UTC)IA
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 04:35 pm (UTC)I'm even angry on teachers who get angry to their students. I mean, teachers should be very patient, and I think you can't be a good one without carrying a whole load of it.
The teachers are there to educate, not to send things flying towards students just to keep them quiet. The students' behavior reflects what they have learned..
once I become a professor, I'll never hit my students, even with just a pen or a piece of chalk.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 04:38 pm (UTC)I wonder if the teachers look at (most of) the rest of the world and see that it's not common for teachers to hit their students and wonder why they can't go without.
Thumbs up for the ban.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 05:03 pm (UTC)TBH most of them don't know that's the case. All of the Korean co-teachers I've worked with have been shocked to find out that Canadian teachers don't use corporal punishment.
(no subject)
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Date: 2011-02-12 04:40 pm (UTC)Wise words, OP.
I'm also curious as to why the teachers don't threaten them with reduced grades. Grades in Asia, at least in Japan, China and Korea, equals everything.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 05:12 pm (UTC)Can't believe there are still countries that allow teachers to beat their students though. Reminds me of the stories my grandma told me where her teacher would beat her hands with a ruler to get her to write with her right hand instead of her left.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 05:15 pm (UTC)They made a girl with a weak heart do push ups and she died because of it.
(no subject)
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Date: 2011-02-12 05:43 pm (UTC)But if the teachers have not been taught how to control a class without corporal punishment it's obvious why they're against the ban. There are probably a lot who wouldn't have even thought of becoming one if they had known they could be asked to discipline them without violence.
I could never imagine myself hitting a student. Or any person, for that matter.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 05:56 pm (UTC)Exactly. And although some students apparently think they improved from having corporal punishment imposed, not every student is the same. The threat of corporal punishment would just make me afraid to go to school.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 06:09 pm (UTC)Not saying the ban shouldn't have been taken away, but I think just randomly yanking away everything the teachers knew to discipline them is kind of a slap in the face to the teachers.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 10:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 06:44 pm (UTC)If you can only handle kids with a stick then I wonder why you even became a teacher
Personally, I think that's a shitty comment OP. If all teachers were only sunshine and rainbows and had perfect, awesome relationships with kids, and ran amazing classrooms, then there'd be more of a shortage than there already is.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 06:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 07:07 pm (UTC)But I don't think depending on too much corporal punishment helps anything so I think this is better.
Not saying that slapping is totally bad, I feel that's more of a parent's job to do a little bit of that,
not the teacher's responsibility.
And hurting them just gets the fear of being hurt,
but does not mean they'll excel completely in every single aspects of their academics.
So I do feel threatening with lower grades is really the best method in this case.
But I still think it's really the parent's job to discipline their own kids.
They need to stop thinking that the teachers are the one who are supposed to teach their kids everything.
It isn't possible.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 07:07 pm (UTC)When I was 10, I had a teacher who smacked a bunch of rubber bands against my palm when I didn't bring my textbook. Always had my textbook with me since then.
Hmm, in my secondary (or middle) school, students get caned on their buttocks (clothed, of course) only when they commit huge offences. If they commit them too many times, they get caned in front of the whole school.
If they worry about not being able to give "proper" punishment, why not just make the students stand up with their arms raised for the whole lesson or something? That's what some teachers of mine did.
This comment is all over the place, I should go to bed.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 08:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 08:48 pm (UTC)Of course, most teachers these days say that the generation after me (2000+) is more rambunctious and fuck-off than us, but then again no one's talking about physical punishment since the government split from the Church in the SEVENTIES. And thank God for that.
Change. It is good.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 10:35 pm (UTC)Besides, if we're talking about regular schools parental intervention/grades/other forms of non-violent punishment are obviously more than enough. But I've visited a couple of difficult schools where I live that sound exactly like what some of the teachers in the article describe - vastly outnumbered teachers getting threatened, harassed, and just physically intimidated on a regular basis. And it's not because they're crap teachers - sure, they're young and undertrained, but when the kids are disenfranchised/from difficult backgrounds anyway, our traditional "I'll call you parents/the principal/fail you" threats have absolutely no effect. Not saying violence is the solution - just that our form of discipline isn't the be-all and end-all either. /rant.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 01:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 11:21 pm (UTC)40 is a normal class size in Japan too. It's my impression that corporal punishment is a lot more uncommon but I'm not sure how teachers handle unruly classes because in the worst ones I saw, the usual way to handle it was to just ignore the kids who were texting/sleeping in class/actually walking out of class. I did see one older male teacher whack kids over the head to discipline them when they were talking (fairly lightly but it still shocked me - the kids all really loved this teacher though, because he was actually one of the best ones I worked with at the public schools)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 06:50 am (UTC)i'm not all LET'S HIT ALL THE IDIOTS WHO SCREAM IN MY CLASS because i am against corporal punishment but that's how they've dealt with some of the crazy shit that happens in classrooms. for there to suddenly be a ban leaves teachers in the cold, because they're not used to dealing with kids in any other way. you've got to slowly lead into these things.
some teachers for sure abused this power. i've heard a lot of horror stories. but if you leave the prestigious schools of seoul, it gets really rough. i'm sure it's the same for a million other places in the world, but my cousin was a jjang at his middle school, and it involved knives, baseball bats, and twenty people holding down one guy and beating the crap out of him. he lived at my place for three months, and i am not kidding, it was the scariest time of my life. he broke my nose, actually. in the end, i think, love does overpower all - it did for him, kind of, in the way that at the end he could actually look at me and make a joke - but you can't suddenly just take away a defence for the teachers and judge them for it.
you put guys like this - there's a couple in every class - in a classroom and they have everybody in their grip. the teachers don't. the jjang respects the teacher? any kid who mouths off at him/her will get 'spoken to' later. but the jjang doesn't respect the teacher? some crap goes down. physical abuse, sexual harrassment, blackmail, the list goes on.
i know people who teach in korea - and most of them are great, the students are great, whatevs. but that's only one side of the story.
please. please try to understand both sides of the story before making a rash judgement. if there's anything i've learnt from kpop, it's that. i read quite a lot of korean expat blogs, and this issue has come up a lot.