My sister, a second-grade teacher, has always said her biggest role in the classroom is as a surrogate parent and disciplinarian. Now I've found this out by first-hand experience. The past few weeks I've been substitute teaching in the public schools, starting with my sister's class. Even at the so-called "good" schools, many of the children I've encountered are incredibly disrespectful. Students have called me names, taunted me and threatened me. One even threw a sharp pencil at my shoulder. More than once I've had to hit the panic button in the classroom, thus alerting the main office to send a security guard to my class.
But then I think about all the issues some of these kids have to deal with. A little girl started crying in class today. I asked her what was wrong. "I miss my Daddy," she said. "He's going to be in jail for 20 years." A nine-year old confided to me yesterday that someone at home might be touching her inappropriately at night. "I don't want to go home," she said. "I can't concentrate at school even though I wanna do my work 'cause I got all these thoughts running through my head like what's gonna happen when I take a bath tonight? I'm afraid to tell my mama 'cause my mama don't believe me."
Of course, there are kids who make me smile and laugh, like the girl who didn't groan with the rest of the class yesterday when I told them they had to do the work written on the front board. "Come on, y'all!" she said as if rallying the troops. "We are here to learn and I'm going to get me some learning!" Then she hunkered down and started the assignment.
Sometimes I think the kids misbehave around me because I'm a new and temporary person in their lives. However, conversations with teachers, janitors, volunteers and other substitutes have made me think otherwise. As my sister says, respect is no longer the norm in American society. I compare this with South Korea (the only other society I can claim to understand even a little bit), where respect abounds and test scores are high. Could there be a correlation between test scores and a culture's respect for authority? I think so.
I taught in the states for four years. I actually taught in the same school that Laura was subbing at. You hear this kind of thing all the time if you watch the news/60 Minutes/whatever. Respect is gone in American culture, students are out of control, youth culture killed my dog, etc. However, one thing I've learned teaching (for almost 7 months now--holy cow!) in Korea, is that things aren't much different here from a teacher's point of view. Here's the response I posted to her blog entry:
Interesting post. Let me weigh in on some things about the public school system in South Korea you might not be aware of.
Test scores may be high in Korea, but data retention is among the lowest in the developed world. Kids are taught tests here--everything in their lives is test driven. Students are rarely if ever taught critical thinking skills. Second chances are rare in public schools in Korea, so if a student does not perform well on a major test, he or she will likely be denied the chance of success at a later date.
As far as classroom discipline goes, I find that student behavior here left unchecked is not much worse than the most outlandish behavior I've encountered teaching for 4 years in the public school systems in the US, and since the majority of that time was teaching in the worst schools in my district, that's saying something. Why don't students run amok in Korean schools? Is it out of a Confucian respect for elders? Filial piety? No way. Students respect their teachers in Korea because if they don't, their teacher can wail on them with a stick. If corporal punishment was reintroduced into the US public schools, you can bet students would shape up.
Of course, kids in Korea don't ever talk about being abused at home. Likewise, Korean kids (especially girls) are reluctant to admit that they've had any contact whatsoever with the opposite sex. There are some things that are still taboo in Westernized Korea. But if you think that kind of thing doesn't go on, you're only fooling yourself.
I don't mean to be down on Korea. I love it here. My students are great. But to somehow think that the problems experienced by teachers in the US are not on the radar of Korean teachers is a mistake. They've just got more weapons at their disposal. Literally.
Anyway, that response was longer than anything I've written for this blog in quite some time, so I figured I'd paste it here for your consideration.
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