RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

I have a 2nd grade boy who gets bullied a lot by everyone, including the girls.

To be honest, he can be childish and annoying. Not in that loud sort of way, but he likes to keep playing playground types of jokes on others and doesn't know when to stop until people get angry with him. So I get having a short amount of patience with him.

But the kind of hostility and animosity that comes from some of the students towards him is above and beyond. He's not a bad kid, just a little socially awkward. He doesn't pick on anyone, never tries to hurt anyone, he doesn't dig through people's shit like some of these kids do. He really doesn't deserve how a lot of the other students treat him.

But he's an easy target. He's a small, little guy, smaller than the average, and doesn't really know how to make friends outside of being what he thinks is playful. I feel so bad for him.

Sounds like he falls on the Autism scale?

Sounds like he falls on the Autism scale?

Possibly, but I don't personally think so? He doesn't exhibit any real symptoms outside of not knowing when to stop with his annoying but truly harmless pranks. He just hasn't grown up out of his primary school phase, yet, and doesn't have any real friends to help him learn the ropes because everyone's just kind of written him off already. So no matter what he does, he's already starting off on a bad foot. He's basically just a fish out of water who needs a little guidance, but no one is willing to give that to him, so he's falling back on antics because it's the only way he knows how to get attention from the other students.

A true omega as I've ever seen one. Most of the students are indifferent towards him, but how they respond to him is overly unkind, and he's targeted a lot by the less benevolent ones. And the KTs just ignore him.

Times like this I wish I knew enough Korean to have a more meaningful conversation with him.

I've found it's impossible to control what the students do outside class, obviously, but in the class I can.  I watch my students a lot during class and also during breaktime and how they interact with each other.  Generally, if I have those kind of socially awkward students, I would try and find a kindred soul for them to sit with, all the while keeping the other less nice kids away from them. 

Years ago, I had three bully boys in a group of fifteen, with two of the other fifteen being slow learners.  These three boys always wound up one of the slow learners, who himself was not always innocent of starting things.  But I made in no uncertain terms that IF in my class he gets upset or is made to cry by you then YOU will be in trouble.  Not him.  When I made the seat plan the three bullies were always separate and never near him.

It's really difficult and something you'll wrack your brains trying to solve, but in the end it's kind of out of your hands.  In your personal space, you can do something to make them comfortable, but outside of that you just have to let them grow up.

Yeah, there's not a whole lot I can do except control how the students behave in my class, but I can still see a lot of passive aggressive behavior meant to hide what they're doing. They think it gives them plausible deniability, and the boy, obviously, also denies anything's going on because he doesn't want it to come down on him later.

It's frustrating, especially when the KTs don't seem all that concerned about it (most likely because they don't know what to do about it, either, so it's just easier to ignore it... and also possibly because they might believe that bullying is the best method for learning social etiquette and your place -- it's how a lot of things are done in Korea).

The problem, though, is that pigeonholing is common here and hard to get out of once you're in, and the students have already made up their minds about him. He's fighting an uphill battle, no matter what he or anyone else does at this point. Younger students are more flexible with their attitudes, but once they hit middle school their attitudes become more rigid. I feel like a lot of his antics is more how he tries to cope with all of that, and to force the students not to ignore him.

I mean I'm thankful he's at least not a wang-ta, but he's at a stage in his life that he needs someone to talk to, and he doesn't have anyone.  All I can do is hope that he figures things out until he can move on to a better time in his life.

Whenever you see advertisements for adult English hagwons, the commercials are often along the lines of, 'Isn't English terrifying? Doesn't it make you SO NERVOUS AND SWEATY?! Come to us and we'll make it SO EASY!"

누구 영어를 말했어요?

The ginger tea mix I bought tastes like it was brewed in nail polish remover. Wasted 5k won.

50 minutes into a mandatory CPR training session being conducted in fluent Korean. My poker face has gone; I'm sure I look visibly pissed off, and now it looks like I'll have to demonstrate "what I've learnt".

50 minutes into a mandatory CPR training session being conducted in fluent Korean. My poker face has gone; I'm sure I look visibly pissed off, and now if looks like I'll have to demonstrate "what I've learnt".

    Insist on a human volunteer to be your test dummy, and then "accidentally" make 5 inch chest compressions rather than the standard 2. Proceed to blame the pulmonary herniation, hypoxia, and various other manifestations of thoracic trauma on the language barrier. Guaranteed you won't have to attend CPR class next year!

Update: It's break-time. I informed my colleagues that I didn't think I should be there because I didn't understand and I'd be a danger to someone in real trouble if I was expected to perform CPR on them. They didn't fight it too hard, thankfully. They kept saying it's okay and I could just practice on the dummy... I'm really taken-aback. Why do I keep having to explain why training someone in life-saving techniques in a foreign language is a bad idea?

In summary, don't go into cardiac arrest around me because I'll probably just crush your rib cage while counting to 11 in Korean. Or electrocute you with a fancy machine that I don't understand.

50 minutes into a mandatory CPR training session being conducted in fluent Korean. My poker face has gone; I'm sure I look visibly pissed off, and now if looks like I'll have to demonstrate "what I've learnt".

    Insist on a human volunteer to be your test dummy, and then "accidentally" make 5 inch chest compressions rather than the standard 2. Proceed to blame the pulmonary herniation, hypoxia, and various other manifestations of thoracic trauma on the language barrier. Guaranteed you won't have to attend CPR class next year!

Hey! This is incredibly relevant because based on what I thought they said I thought that I was supposed to do 4 inch compressions. I stand reassured that I definitely shouldn't be recorded as being CPR-trained. I hope not going-with-the-flow doesn't come back to bite me in the ass too hard.

Update: It's break-time. I informed my colleagues that I didn't think I should be there because I didn't understand and I'd be a danger to someone in real trouble if I was expected to perform CPR on them. They didn't fight it too hard, thankfully. They kept saying it's okay and I could just practice on the dummy... I'm really taken-aback. Why do I keep having to explain why training someone in life-saving techniques in a foreign language is a bad idea?

In summary, don't go into cardiac arrest around me because I'll probably just crush your rib cage while counting to 11 in Korean. Or electrocute you with a fancy machine that I don't understand.

50 minutes into a mandatory CPR training session being conducted in fluent Korean. My poker face has gone; I'm sure I look visibly pissed off, and now if looks like I'll have to demonstrate "what I've learnt".

    Insist on a human volunteer to be your test dummy, and then "accidentally" make 5 inch chest compressions rather than the standard 2. Proceed to blame the pulmonary herniation, hypoxia, and various other manifestations of thoracic trauma on the language barrier. Guaranteed you won't have to attend CPR class next year!

Hey! This is incredibly relevant because based on what I thought they said I thought that I was supposed to do 4 inch compressions. I stand reassured that I definitely shouldn't be recorded as being CPR-trained. I hope not going-with-the-flow doesn't come back to bite me in the ass too hard.

Our office had training yesterday and today.

It was in Konglish.

I made sure had meetings today.

"But you won't get the certificate!"

"I'm OK with that."

50 minutes into a mandatory CPR training session being conducted in fluent Korean. My poker face has gone; I'm sure I look visibly pissed off, and now if looks like I'll have to demonstrate "what I've learnt".

You're making the mistake in believing this actually about saving lives, it's purely about going through the motions of simply attending.

50 minutes into a mandatory CPR training session being conducted in fluent Korean. My poker face has gone; I'm sure I look visibly pissed off, and now if looks like I'll have to demonstrate "what I've learnt".

You're making the mistake in believing this actually about saving lives, it's purely about going through the motions of simply attending.

Exactly. I was unable to kneel and do the compressions as I had a cast on my foot at the time.  Still received my certification card. 

Having a really hard time staying awake at my desk because I've been sleeping poorly all week. Didn't get anything done today, just barely made it through my classes. I kept losing my clicker thingy because my brain is basically fumes right now. Kids had a lot of fun finding it for me and keeping track of how many times they had to go on the hunt, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAYDRIbXFAc

Also, that new Predator movie is terrible. Don't watch it unless you don't care about how a kid and a guy wearing a suit without any speaking roles were the best actors in the whole film. Olivia Munn is just horrible, why do they keep giving her parts in big films?

Having a really hard time staying awake at my desk because I've been sleeping poorly all week. Didn't get anything done today, just barely made it through my classes. I kept losing my clicker thingy because my brain is basically fumes right now. Kids had a lot of fun finding it for me and keeping track of how many times they had to go on the hunt, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAYDRIbXFAc

Also, that new Predator movie is terrible. Don't watch it unless you don't care about how a kid and a guy wearing a suit without any speaking roles were the best actors in the whole film. Olivia Munn is just horrible, why do they keep giving her parts in big films?

Sound like me, had a terrible thing happen on Monday, and haven't been sleeping much since.
Today, my co-T needed my class, so my 1 class got cancelled, and - because of the forementioned terrible thing, she thought I wasn't going to be at work today (when it is next week I won't be there), so she had the teacher's workshop cancelled today too.
I've literally had nothing to do all day, and so I've been sleepy and close to falling asleep all day.

Also, that new Predator movie is terrible. Don't watch it unless you don't care about how a kid and a guy wearing a suit without any speaking roles were the best actors in the whole film. Olivia Munn is just horrible, why do they keep giving her parts in big films?

I had this when I was watching a couple of films on the flight back from Europe in the summer.  'Aliens' has to be one of my all time favourite films.  I still watch it and I'll be on the edge of my seat.  Then the others came, and I was kind, 'meh'.  I wasn't a big fan of 'Prometheus', mainly because of the stupidity of the 'scientists' taking off their helmets and breathing etc.  But on the plane I watched 'Alien: Covenant', and it was the same stupid thing.  Further the story with 'scientists' being stupid and doing very unscientific things.  You know, you can further the story of Alien and Aliens without adding in stupid things and ruining the legacy.  I saw another film that people thought was ok, but i can't remember the name, but it was sooo shit.  Going backwards and forwards with Star Wars has been watchable.  To go back, I loved the first Predator and maybe the second and then it just got silly.

Alien vs Predator was honestly one of the worst things I've ever watched.

But it did give rise to one of the great quiz questions of all time?

Only 2 actors have played characters that were killed by the predator, terminator and the xenomorph. Name them...

Lance Henricksen and Bill Paxton?

Lance Henricksen and Bill Paxton?

Indeed!

Who is the only serving world leader to have scored against Gillingham in 3 different football matches?

George Weah, think I saw the same MOTD tweet as you.

Politics really has turned him into a fat cat!

Who is the only serving world leader to have scored against Gillingham in 3 different football matches?

Imran Khan

A new elementary school is being constructed directly next to my middle school. Now, you would think that construction should take place in the afternoon, where school is no longer in session and people are actually awake. But no, it has to be early in the morning, making such a ruckus that my 1st period classes are disturbed even with the windows closed. 

A new elementary school is being constructed directly next to my middle school. Now, you would think that construction should take place in the afternoon, where school is no longer in session and people are actually awake. But no, it has to be early in the morning, making such a ruckus that my 1st period classes are disturbed even with the windows closed. 

Not if they want it finished on time and within their budget. Just sayin...