"Starving Artists"

Some relatives recently sent me an e-mail with a YouTube link of North Korean children playing instruments. One video showed guitars as big as the 5 year-olds playing them. I've seen similar videos in the past, still, the talent of these kids always astounds me.

I suppose Korean culture combined with Communist instilled discipline (either out of fear or nationalism) brings out talent.

Take a look at these:

Their expressions and choreographed head-bobbles are a little creepy

Those little fingers sure fly...

This little boy is amazingly good. I couldn't play the clarinet that well when I was his age. But I was sure happy not to have to practice 8 hours a day like he probably does.

How about these pint-sized percussionists/singers?

Political issues aside, one thing I have found simply fascinating is the North Korea Mass Games, where according to wikipedia:

(The) Mass games or mass gymnastics are a form of performing arts or gymnastics in which large numbers of performers take part in a highly regimented performance that emphasizes group dynamics rather than individual prowess. The effect of displaying huge images is achieved by a having large number of individuals each being dressed in a particular color or holding a colored hard paper above their heads. Because of the vast scale of the performance, with often tens of thousands of performers, mass games are performed in stadiums, often accompanied by a background of card-turners occupying the seats on the opposite side from the viewers. The rapid change of images was achieved by changing a card with another in swift and synchronized movement. The synchronization is achieved after several hours-long rehearsals and employs much choreography.

I would love to see this first hand someday...

"Punish Me"

Seoul's public schools have banned corporal punishment! Oh the horrors! How will we ever control the students!? They'll just behave badly all the time knowing the teachers won't hit them!

From the Joongang Daily:

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Corporal punishment ban goes into effect in Seoul

 

Teachers complain they aren’t ready for the changes
November 01, 2010

Corporal punishment is now banned in all schools in Seoul under revised regulation devised by liberal Seoul education chief Kwak No-hyun.

But teachers complained that they are not ready for the changes and many are still confused by the new system.

“Regardless of whether the schools are private or public schools, more than 99 percent of schools set up their own regulations banning teachers from using corporal punishment for educational purposes,” said an official at the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education yesterday.

The revised regulation takes effect today and all forms of corporal punishment will be banned. While students and civic organizations that advocate for students’ human rights welcome the changes, some teachers are worried.

Citing a lack of alternative means to control student misbehavior, many teachers argued they can’t handle situations without corporal punishment, given that corporal punishment has been widely considered an effective method of supervising and teaching students in Korean schools until recently.

If teachers are caught bypassing the regulations, the education office will issue a warning or take disciplinary measures.

Because many teachers complained that they had no positive alternative measures to replace corporal punishment, the Seoul education office unveiled alternative punishment guidelines on Sept. 9.

According to the guidelines, teachers can isolate students for misbehavior in an “introspection room” and set up a meeting with students’ parents to discuss their children’s behaviors.

Teachers affiliated with the Korean Federation of Teachers’ Association released a statement immediately after the Seoul education office’s Sept. 9 guideline announcement and said the education office’s guidelines are too idealistic.

“The schools lack the number of teachers who can manage ‘introspection rooms’ and offer counseling to misbehaving students,” said Kim Dong-seok, the union’s spokesman. “It’s also unclear whether teachers’ meetings with parents will work because there are no measures that can force parents to come to school if they reject the teacher’s request for a meeting.”

Members of the teachers’ union urged Ministry of Education officials last Thursday to come up with national guidelines on corporal punishment.

The Seoul education office said it will recruit additional teachers for introspection rooms by March of next year.

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This article is interesting because teachers are respected and are almost seen as a second parent to a child. Hitting them is/was a daily occurrence, and the students never complained about it. In fact, they once told me "it's a good thing we get hit, if we didn't we would be very bad."

The day the ban came into effect, my students were behaving badly and some of the teachers were obviously frustrated with the new rule. I don't think they've had classroom management courses to take, as the majority of them go straight to "the stick" for punishments. Some make them sit or stand in painful positions for a long time.

I never hit my students, but I do make them stand in the back of the classroom or in the hallways removed from class if they are misbehaving. Sending them to the principal is never done - as the principals are more administrators than they are disciplinarians. Modern detention (i.e., sitting in a room after school) is not common. More common is forced labor cleaning classrooms, hallways, school grounds, or for more serious situations; writing apology letters and confessions to their parents and teachers.

I think it would be fun to end this post with a quote from my co-teacher. I asked her what she thought of the new regulation, and she said: "I don't care about the new law, I will still hit them."

Rocketman - Part 3

As I've posted before (here and here), there is a excellent website called ROKetship, where a cartoonist named Luke Martin draws up a single pane comic about living and teaching in South Korea. He does some great work, and I figure I'll post some with some explanations of these hilarious observations:

It is not uncommon to see the elderly (the poor elderly) gathering up cardboard or wood from dumpsters or picking through the trash. I see this every morning on my way to work. The materials are recycled and traded in for cash - similar to how some states have bottle and can redemption programs back in the States. It's sad that a lot of the elderly have no pensions or retirement accounts, as they grew up in a time where the country was destroyed and have little more than an elementary school education. They work very hard and scrimp and save - I give these men and women a lot of respect.

Korean are relatively conservative in nature coming from a Confucian background, and more recently embracing a very strong Christian background. It is considered uncouth for a woman to show cleavage. There is even a term that means a woman looks like a "milking cow" if she shows too much chest. Western women, tend to show more however, and Koreans may view it as being inappropriate. Korean women do show a lot of leg though, and it is considered very sexy to show off their long legs - however, in my opinion some show off too much, that in the US it would be considered looking "slutty" or inappropriate. I love this panel for pointing it out! (note: The Korean girl is saying "ya-ha-da" which means "too sexy" or "loud!"

Many students learn English simply by memorizing phrases. Many of my students ramble off simply what they know even if it makes no sense. I've had some adults do it to me as well, and I try not to laugh as they say "Hi-where-are-you-from-nice-to-meet-you-I-am-happy-to-meet-you-are-you-from-America-I-am-from-Korea-have-a-nice-day." 

One of the things that annoys me the most is the rules of walking on the streets. It seems there is no respect for the standard system of walking the same directions as in which you drive. Old ladies (adjumma's) are particularly bad when it comes to this because they are usually "pushy" by Western standards, and get to where they want to go by any means necessary! I can't explain how many times I've been cut off by some old woman strolling along, only to stop right in front of me as I almost slam into her because she's not paying any attention to others around her. 

Customer service is a high priority for Korean businesses. In this highly competitive country with franchises on every corner, building customer relations is key if you want to keep your customers happy and returning. One bad experience will trickle down the grapevine and make your company look bad. I love the customer service to a certain degree. On one hand, the salespeople can be very pushy to make the sale - and even lie to you or exaggerate their products. Other times, it is great to get a nicely packaged or gift wrapped item with extra small bonus gifts thrown in - usually free of charge. When it gets ridiculous is when you go to the big department stores and you have 3 people welcoming you to the store, 2 people directing traffic in dancing style, and one lady taking a parking ticket out of the automatic ticket machine for you. That's too much. In the cartoon, the Westerner is only buying something small but getting a huge gift basket from Skin Food as a thank you for shopping there)

 

My co-teachers usually do not say or do much in my classes anymore, as I've gotten my classroom rules pretty much down with my students and they understand my consequences. Yet, there are times when I am having a rough class and all my tiny co-teachers need to do is yell a few words and maybe threaten to hit someone and the students go silent and apologize to me. 

Now that is power!