CAN'T TOUCH THIS

In other news, it was relayed to me that corporal punishment has officially been banned in Songtan Middle School. Let all the kiddies rejoice! My friend in Bucheon recently told me that at his school his co-teachers rip paper out of notebooks and make their kids eat it if they misbehave. Yick! Eden, one of my coteachers informed me of the policy change over lunch yesterday and I immediately thought "Oh! Thank God!" But after talking with her I realized there are still a few major kinks to be worked out.

First of all, they have no alternative punishment system in place. By this I mean no detention, no Saturday detention, not even sending kids to the principal's office exists. The few teachers I have discussed this with are visibly concerned. Not because they are going to miss whacking the kids, but with no alternative teachers don't know how they are going to manage their classrooms. My English co-teachers are particularly worried about this. At Songtan every classroom has windows along the hallway that look into it and when I pass a classroom while on breaks I see a calm group of students who look attentive, interested and quiet. If you saw these students and then saw the students in my English class you would think monkeys had invaded their bodies.

English class is a free-for-all. And I totally understand why. I have pretty close to zero authority in the classroom other than the fact that I am older than my students which means they must show me some semblance of deference. But I don't give out homework or grades; I can't even give pop quizzes. Students know that my class has no impact on their overall English grade and they oftentimes treat English class with me as if it they are doing me the favor by showing up. Students feel free to talk, sleep, listen to music and hit each other until my co-teacher gets fed up enough to disrupt all the nonsense.

I have my own English classroom where I teach and the room is laid out differently from the other classrooms at school because students sit at tables, not desks. In English class students don't have assigned seats so they end up sitting with their friends at a table which only compounds the attention and listening problems they are having.

In my case, my English co-teacher shares the classroom with me for the sole purpose of classroom management. While I am talking she can walk around and give kids who aren't listening a poke or make them stand at the back of classroom. Now that physical punishments are no longer an option it should be interesting to see how my classroom dynamic changes. And come to think of it I am just as worried as my co-teachers!