RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

I have now learned that they do the same thing in Canada now that Korea does (Ontario at least). Not fail a kid for any reason ( At elementary I know. Not sure about mid/high ). Instead of keeping them behind to get the building blocks they need at their own pace. Why not to send them up to the next level and it will all just fix itself.

The only reason I could come to terms with it here is the hierarchy of age and parents "saving face".

Guess this is something relatively new but I have no idea why it would be implemented and who it is supposed to help.

It's called "social promotion" and the idea is peer relations and social functioning are very important, particularly during childhood and adolescence.  There's some truth to the idea that it damages the psyche to be a 13 year old around a bunch of 11 year olds when all your friends have gone off to middle school.

This was a popular idea in the US/West particularly in the 60s and 70s, though it has fallen out of favor in most places.   Now we have streaming, where you can function at the fifth grade level academically while in the seventh grade, and presumably have able teachers to catch you up without slowing down the other kids.

In Korea, as you probably know, the idea of your age cohort is almost the primary element of social life.  You have to immediately find out someone's age so you know whether to talk up or down to them.  It would be absolutely crushing to be held back.

Teaching here in elementary, I haven't seen much need for streaming: mostly, my classes might have one student who really, really struggles in English and could benefit from a different school placement.  A few struggle because of laziness or attention issues (and in English at least, they could pick up just fine with effort) but mostly students do pretty well to very well.

When I taught in high school, the English dept always talked about streaming but never did.  It would have looked like this: 15 classes total in a grade, 4 high ability, 8-9 average level, 2 or 3 low level. 

I have now learned that they do the same thing in Canada now that Korea does (Ontario at least). Not fail a kid for any reason ( At elementary I know. Not sure about mid/high ). Instead of keeping them behind to get the building blocks they need at their own pace. Why not to send them up to the next level and it will all just fix itself.

The only reason I could come to terms with it here is the hierarchy of age and parents "saving face".

Guess this is something relatively new but I have no idea why it would be implemented and who it is supposed to help.

Interesting! I didn't know that about Canada. You can fail every year in USA including kindergarten (unless that's changed since I was a kid).

It also used to be like that till recently from what I have heard. When I was young I knew a bunch of kids who had failed grades and then did really well after they had repeated. I just don't see the benefit for the child. But what do I know... Just in a system that does that and see how unmotivated some students can be with no consequences for their actions.

In elementary school, they called it "social promotion".
Every few years it goes in or out of vouge depending on the latest (irreproducable) research.
One of daughters repeated a year. It was good for her.

A recent variation on repeating is a new "grade" called Primary.  It goes between kindergarten and first grade.  They swore by it in the elementary of my old school back home.

A recent variation on repeating is a new "grade" called Primary.  It goes between kindergarten and first grade.  They swore by it in the elementary of my old school back home.

My youngest sister went through a similar thing, but it was called "Pre-First" at her school. It was honestly the best thing that could've happened for her at the time. She wasn't developmentally disabled or anything, she was just slow enough that she was struggling more than a student should at that age. The extra year of preparation for grade school did wonders for her. This was back in... Christ, it was in 1992. HOW DID I GET SO OLD.

'The Coddling of the American Mind' by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff

The original article- https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

Interview by Nick Gillespie of 'Reason'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=686&v=Z7venlDja6s

Bubblewrapping at the schools means kids can't be held back because it will traumatize them or something. The schools in America at least (and it seems to be spreading to the rest of the Anglosphere) are a total shambles. They are utterly failing at preparing kids for work in the global marketplace. Either send them to some religious school or send them to go learn in like, Singapore or heck, I'd say Korea might be better at this point. At least kids in Korea are still allowed to walk around unsupervised, left to themselves to sort out social disputes, and aren't spending 40% of their time talking about 'diversity'. Although at the rate helicopter parenting and kid spoiling is going, I wouldn't be surprised if things fall apart here too. There's already signs of it which we all know. 

someone change the bladdy format back to what it was like before on the front page please

I liked it better when I didn't see a million threads about American politics on the front page 

I liked it better when I didn't see a million threads about American politics on the front page 

migook.org  but in all fairness, I guess we could flood the front page with [insert political drama] from our own countries if we wanted to.

The best way to deal with this is to tell the posters they are being annoying.

"Excuse me, eggieguffer/hangook77/foreverparadise, but could you cut back on the political threads irrelevant to posters' lives in Korea?"

Something like that.

I liked it better when I didn't see a million threads about American politics on the front page 

No joke...

No joke...

I read the top 3. I have never been in the Trump impeachment one, I could really not give a shit.

1) If you have a Skype number, and it forwards to your cellphone, the call and the forward count as 2 calls in a row for the purposes of bypassing "do not disturb" on an iPhone.

2) if you have a Skype number from the USA, and live in Seoul, this is not a good thing.

1) If you have a Skype number, and it forwards to your cellphone, the call and the forward count as 2 calls in a row for the purposes of bypassing "do not disturb" on an iPhone.

2) if you have a Skype number from the USA, and live in Seoul, this is not a good thing.

3) If you regularly use Skype in 2018, this is also not a good thing.

1) If you have a Skype number, and it forwards to your cellphone, the call and the forward count as 2 calls in a row for the purposes of bypassing "do not disturb" on an iPhone.

2) if you have a Skype number from the USA, and live in Seoul, this is not a good thing.

3) If you regularly use Skype in 2018, this is also not a good thing.

I have US and UK phone numbers through them for business.

People are more likely to pick up or call back a local number.

First two classes of the day went very smoothly. Students all participated, no one was being a dick, got to play fun games to completion. Perfect.

But I kept getting funny looks from all of my students and coteachers. I checked all the usual things, couldn't figure out what the problem was.

Then went into the bathroom and saw this.

WHy DiD noONE TELL MEE!!!

Not really ranting but...

I've been working with a substitute English teacher for the past few weeks and she's so awesome.  Organised, tells me things I need to know in good time, gives me feedback on my work, enthusiastic as hell in our classes, easy to communicate with, motivates the students etc...

I've been in Korea for nearly five years and this is the first time I've worked with a coteacher like that. 

She's leaving soon 

First two classes of the day went very smoothly. Students all participated, no one was being a dick, got to play fun games to completion. Perfect.

But I kept getting funny looks from all of my students and coteachers. I checked all the usual things, couldn't figure out what the problem was.

Then went into the bathroom and saw this.

WHy DiD noONE TELL MEE!!!

You look much younger than I imagined!

I liked it better when I didn't see a million threads about American politics on the front page 

I'd like to note that while I have started two of those American politics threads, they are perhaps two of the most neutrally-titled ones and dealt with BIG stories (Ford-Kavanaugh Hearings and 2018 Midterms). Also, I made sure to specifically structure the 2018 Midterms ones say as to encourage participation by our non-American colleagues here at waygook.org.

The recent politics voting thread shows 31 for Democrats vs 4 Republicans ... yet most politics threads are started by Trump fans.

They are disproportionately making new politics threads.

First two classes of the day went very smoothly. Students all participated, no one was being a dick, got to play fun games to completion. Perfect.

But I kept getting funny looks from all of my students and coteachers. I checked all the usual things, couldn't figure out what the problem was.

Then went into the bathroom and saw this.

WHy DiD noONE TELL MEE!!!

a little kid with his shirt un-tucked?   

Get to school, CT informs me that the schedule has changed. It's going to be:

1st - Free
2nd - 5th g.
3rd - 6th g.
4th - 5th g.
5th - 6th g.

Fine, I sit back for a bit and chill. 9:15, the HR teacher calls and says she made a mistake, the students are one their way.
I scramble to get things ready, it also screws up my schedule as had a listening test planned for the end of the chapter and 20min is not enough time to briefly review and do the test. The IT guy also formatted the computer's HD yesterday and re-installed Windows. What Bill Gates also did was change the f*cking password and not tell anyone what it was. We phoned him and he only got back to us with the password during 2nd period.

Just before the 3rd period, I'm told there's no class and of course, 15min into the period, the other HR teacher calls and sends her students to class, she too made a mistake and forgot the schedule. The schedule has changed again, which basically translates to nobody knows what the hell is going on.