Do unto others....

I'm going to punch him in the face. Then follow it with another to the off-switch in the back of the head. Then I will stand triumphantly over his prostrate body. THE END.

I just can't believe that despite all the progress we'd made last week, Mr. Lee continues to fashion himself an ass-hat to wear in the classroom. I invited the guy to play badminton! I mean, I didn't mean to; I invited my nicer coworker, Mr. Jo, who said he couldn't play but Mr. Lee could. STILL, instead of avoiding him, I did decide to own up to my mistake and invited him to play sometime.

But this Monday he's back to ignoring me all over again. And it's incredible how his English has gone from inching up the ladder to rocketing back down to Earth. Last week, he actually let me lead the lessons for 10 minutes each class. And he referred to me often enough for pronunciation. I was able to correct the students' weird English and we were productive.

Today, all that came undone. He is more disorganized, inconsistent, and unhelpful than ever! It's not just that he can't really make sentences in English or understand what I am saying 90% of the time. The students are confused with his "instructive" games. He uses a different lesson for every class despite them all being 5th graders today. He didn't even let me speak in class today, just hurriedly interrupts me when I open my mouth to correct his sloppy pronunciation, which sounds like incoherent garbling. Korean language DOES differentiate between L's and N's, so why the hell does he pronounce nose as "loz"? Mouth has gone right back to being "mouse". He stopped class outright for 20 minutes just to lecture them about how disappointed he was bc two boys got into a fistfight. It's incredibly hypocritical and ironic; he never stopped them before when they hit each other. EVER. In fact, they were blatantly punching each other's faces in front of him and he didn't give a shit until I pointed at them and said, "They are fighting." Then, afterward, he had to be pedantic and say, "English is not important. Goo man-nurs is. I was very des-appointee in dem." Excuse me? He was the one stressing every day for the last 2 weeks about completing the state English tests. We have a school-wide test for all grades this Friday, and he failed to review for 5/6 of the 5th grade classes.

But the fistfight incident did bring up another important issue. Of course, I have learned before about the school's appalling policy: they do not intervene when children hit each other. At first, I was slightly alarmed, but then amused, since it seemed that it was mostly just girls hitting the boys when the boys were out of line. But after the displays I saw in some of Mr. Lee's and Ms. Lee's classes, I am very concerned and rather perturbed by the unmediated violence that the teachers allow. And of course it's not just a balled fist to the face that they should be concerned about; kids can get pretty creative about violence. For example, the other day a 3rd grade boy tried to papercut another kid's eyes and succeeded in shoving the book in, but because the offender did not spread the pages thinly enough, he was not completely successful in slicing the victim's corneas. My coteacher Ms. Lee didn't say anything to them. >.<

I understand that it's exhausting being a teacher; I've been there. Yelling at kids all day makes you hoarse by lunchtime. You feel guilty for making them sadly sit in the corner, and frustrated that your punishment may not have the effect you intended or any effect at all, sometimes. More importantly, you care about them and it's hard maintaining that cycle of love and punishment. You like the little munchkins. Here, the emotional drain that normally occurs is mitigated for me by the sanctuary and sometimes curse of not being able to understand what crap the kids are spewing. Maybe that's why I still have the energy and desire to smack these kids up.
I wonder if the strategy of shaming children for their actions works better than yelling and stringent punishments for physical contact. It's true that shaming works much better here than back at home, because the culture upholds it. In Western cultures, even if schools emphasize discipline, it is undermined by admiration for rebels. Nevertheless, I feel that children shouldn't have to come to school and fend for themselves. It turns us all a little bit into assholes.