taking a beating

Its no secret that Korean teachers in public schools beat their students, but what I found out about the process was actually really shocking! My middle school class gave me the low down on beatings in the classroom. First, the punishment for girls are smacks on the hand or on the legs with a 18in long piece of bamboo. For boys, they get it on the ass or back.

Now, what do the students get beaten for? No, its not disrupting the class, or stealing from the teacher, actually its not for doing anything serious at all. Actually, they get beaten for not doing their homework. They also get beaten for getting low test scores. Shocking! Such a negative way to motivate, the motivation of fear. Its strong, but god how unfair is that...worrying about suffering physical pain if you get a low score on a test. No wonder all Koreans fear authority later in life, its beaten into them from a young age. Even the Japanese, strict though they are, abolished that kind punishment long ago. Korean parents also beat their kids. It could be that Korean adults think that physical punishment is the only way to get through to their kids, and maybe thats true for the most evil and difficult ones, but I had one extremely sweet shy and quiet korean middle school student come into the class with red hands because she forgot to bring her homework to school. I guarantee that beating the poor girl isnt going to help her shy demeanor, nope, its only going to turn her into a more fearful and shy introvert.

Would I even beat my students? Ahh, well with some of them I want to but I never would. Never.