Who?

Neil Gaiman, that's who. AND Doctor Who too to be precise! I am so freakin' excited to see this episode ("The Doctor's Wife) I really do feel like a geek :p What makes it even better is that I heard about this ages ago and completely forgot, and then remembered over a conversation with a friend, and then read a new post from Neil Gaiman's blog and looked it up to find out that it's premiering in America on April 23rd. I haven't managed to find it anywhere else online (YET!) so I'm assuming that's also the world premiere. And you know what? I think one of the reasons that this is so exciting, despite being American, is that they've actually taken the show and shot it in America rather than an American TV network taking it and "Americanising" it (i.e. changing it completely and turning it into rubbish) like they did with Coupling and Red Dwarf (neither of which made it past three of four episodes) and which I believe is currently happening to Skins. Anyway, exciting stuff!

Also, the new thing I learned this week was about the game called "hamburger" in which students (ok, boys) see how many people can dogpile on top of each other. Last time I saw my 2nd year students doing it they only got to about 6 people before we walked in and my co-teacher at the time Ms Shin (who is normally pretty calm and mild with the kids) went ballistic, making them do that downwards facing dog punishment in the corridor where they have to balance on their knuckles (luckily we have lino here, not just concrete) for 15 minutes and gave them a good scolding that actually left some of them in tears. This time, it got to about 14 people before I arrived but they very quickly all got up and went back to their seats when I walked in and yelled at them. Unfortunately, I didn't realise that the person on the bottom had been one of the tiniest boys until I saw him sitting with his head down on his desk, red as a beetroot, doubled up in pain and sobbing in that awful way you do when you can't breathe. Eventually the others explained and I sent him off to the nurse's office, and gave the others a good telling off for being little ratbags (in English unfortunately but I think they got the point). Then my co-teacher Ms Yun turned up and having passed the poor kid on her way up and gotten the story from his friend, launched straight into "angry Korean teacher" mode. Ms Yun gives the best tellings off - she works her way up from them being immature, then goes to disappointment and finishes with a good ole "what would your parents think of you behaving like this?" before demanding an explanation from the usually now sniffling student. If they've been really bad this is usually where she gets out her ruler and whacks them across the palm of the hand, but she usually doesn't even need it. Anyway, I think the bottom bun hamburger boy was eventually ok. Hopefully it won't happen again, or at least they'll do it to someone a bit less fragile.

Anyway, uh, what's a positive note to end on? ... well, it's Friday! That always makes me happy. In fact, that's my example sentence for 1st grade at the moment to talk about feelings and giving reasons in Ch 3 - I feel ____ because .... (I feel happy because today is Friday!) It's also been a pretty nice day (I power-walked home in 2nd period to get my camera for Paige for our students in the speaking contest and quite enjoyed it) with plenty of sunshine. I'm going to go to Homeplus and stock up on tonic and fresh lemons (no limes here ㅠ_ㅠ) so I can have a gin and tonic to help me through my Korean homework (thanks Costco for the gin!) of which I have an absurd amount. Lovely (the G&T not the homework) ^_^

Have a good weekend all!

geez...

Just had to listen to one of my students get caned for 5 minutes by a teacher for some transgression in his class. I think it was something to do with not bringing his book and talking in class too much. He's a bit awkward and gangly, but usually a pretty good kid in my classes, in that he's usually quiet (compared to the others) and not very high level, but he looks like he's paying attention most of the time and really wants to understand, and can usually hammer out a more or less accurate sentence given 5 minutes and some help. But I have no idea how he behaves in other classes which might be why he's just been beaten around the shoulders with a love-stick (read: a wooden stick or bamboo cane that most Korean teachers have) and shouted at.that he's a worthless S.O.aB. (rough translation, but kind of just a generic insultory term in Korean) and a waste of time and how his parents must be disappointed in him (the most crushing thing you can say to a student).

So even though I could never do it, I can see that maybe a whack across the palms is ok if things get bad - it stings and it gets the point across that you've pissed the teacher off - but I hate how far corporal punishment can go here, and I always feel so bad for the kids. Sometimes it's just making them do a kind of downward facing dog position balancing on their knuckles in the corridor, othertimes it's a full-on slap to the face. It's not supposed to happen, but it does - I've seen the student manager here do a three-in-one across the faces of three boys who had been seen smoking behind the school. However, I've been told not to get involved and anyway, I mostly would have no idea how to and definitely no inclination to annoy any of the people I work with by interfering.

Just for the record, the most I do is minus class points - if they get a certain number they have to do lunchroom duty etc to make up for it - or make them stand in the corner or outside in the corridor. Or I take away the fun activities and make them study the textbook and let the rest of the class scream at them for me. The only time I've ever hit a student was accidentally when I was waving my pointer around too much and the tip flew off and bounced off her head.

So this boy got the beat down and verbal abuse and is now kneeling on the floor waiting for the teacher who was disciplining him to finish his class and come back for round 2, and is sniffling and trying to stop crying. But it's not all bad - I liked my VP before, but I like him a bit more now because he just came over and tried to calm the boy down a bit. Admittedly, he also tsked at him for sniffling too loudly and told him off a bit for disrupting the other teacher's class, but he was also pretty kindly about it - more like, 'you know that you were rude and that's bad' than yelling at him - and gave him some tissues. And he does have the position and seniority to do that kind of thing so it's good that he does.

Ok so the other teacher just came back and luckily the beating appears to be over - it's all a verbal scathing from here. Wish he was in my after-school class so I could give him some hot chocolate and check that he's ok. Not that he'd understand me anyway.