RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

Yeah, the "It's culture" thing only goes so far.

Scenario 1:
VP: Kevin teacher, you've gained some weight over the last 4 months. Is everything okay? I hope you can lose some of it.

The Canadian in me sees this as bizarre but there's genuine concern here and there's no malice. I deem this okay.

Scenario 2
*walk into VP office*

  Kevin, you don't look so well today. You've gained some weight, too.

   INTERNALLY ugghhhhhh, really? In front of the teachers I've known for a while?

  Yeah, I feel okay, thanks.

This is not horrible. I don't like it, but I think the "It's culture" argument isn't bad here.

Scenario 3
 *Staff Meeting - ENTER Kevin Teacher*

  Wow, Kevin, you have gained a lot of weight and your clothes are not good. You need to change everything. I am helping.

  ------> 

Sorry, no. You are a fukking douche. I give cultural stuff a fair bit of leeway but this is just an asshole.

well, yes, it's different if you're friends. of course.

but saying, "you've got fat. you should lose weight" to somebody you've never spoken to, isn't acceptable

a principal commenting negatively on a young female co-worker's clothes, and embarrassing them in front of the office, isn't acceptable

By what standard?

As a kid, I was incredibly thin and many relatives, in particular, commented on and poked fun at my appearance. I developed a bit of a complex (all buff and ripped now). At that young age, I couldn't really relate with how fat people took such massive offense when they were  ridiculed and people couldn't understand why I got upset when I was made fun of for being thin.

Expand this to a national level and you'll understand what I'm saying.

During the 1950s, Americans were drinking, eating and smoking in an orgy of decadence. It was during this time that it was pretty common for women to be criticized for being too fat. Eating disorders ensued and since then, awareness has been raised on the seriousness of eating disorders, self-esteem etc.
In the 1950's Koreans were scouring the hills for anything edible and  truly celebrating an infant living past 100 days. Meat, honey and sugar were unfathomable luxuries, which is why I still get plenty of quizzical looks when I refuse food, particularly meat offerings.

Essentially, Korea is in 1960s America. It's starting to click that going out of your way to embarrass a person about their weight or appearance isn't acceptable. Old people like that principal are stuck in their ways, eating disorders just aren't part of his history.
He's a proper asshole, yes, but he's also a product of his own culture, not ours.       

well, yes, it's different if you're friends. of course.

but saying, "you've got fat. you should lose weight" to somebody you've never spoken to, isn't acceptable

a principal commenting negatively on a young female co-worker's clothes, and embarrassing them in front of the office, isn't acceptable

By what standard?

As a kid, I was incredibly thin and many relatives, in particular, commented on and poked fun at my appearance. I developed a bit of a complex (all buff and ripped now). At that young age, I couldn't really relate with how fat people took such massive offense when they were  ridiculed and people couldn't understand why I got upset when I was made fun of for being thin.

Expand this to a national level and you'll understand what I'm saying.

During the 1950s, Americans were drinking, eating and smoking in an orgy of decadence. It was during this time that it was pretty common for women to be criticized for being too fat. Eating disorders ensued and since then, awareness has been raised on the seriousness of eating disorders, self-esteem etc.
In the 1950's Koreans were scouring the hills for anything edible and  truly celebrating an infant living past 100 days. Meat, honey and sugar were unfathomable luxuries, which is why I still get plenty of quizzical looks when I refuse food, particularly meat offerings.

Essentially, Korea is in 1960s America. It's starting to click that going out of your way to embarrass a person about their weight or appearance isn't acceptable. Old people like that principal are stuck in their ways, eating disorders just aren't part of his history.
He's a proper asshole, yes, but he's also a product of his own culture, not ours.       

I do agree with you here; fair view of it. 

But, and I hate to bring it up, didn't you go out of your way recently to embarrass your coteacher after she asked quite an innocent question?

well, yes, it's different if you're friends. of course.

but saying, "you've got fat. you should lose weight" to somebody you've never spoken to, isn't acceptable

a principal commenting negatively on a young female co-worker's clothes, and embarrassing them in front of the office, isn't acceptable

By what standard?

As a kid, I was incredibly thin and many relatives, in particular, commented on and poked fun at my appearance. I developed a bit of a complex (all buff and ripped now). At that young age, I couldn't really relate with how fat people took such massive offense when they were  ridiculed and people couldn't understand why I got upset when I was made fun of for being thin.

Expand this to a national level and you'll understand what I'm saying.

During the 1950s, Americans were drinking, eating and smoking in an orgy of decadence. It was during this time that it was pretty common for women to be criticized for being too fat. Eating disorders ensued and since then, awareness has been raised on the seriousness of eating disorders, self-esteem etc.
In the 1950's Koreans were scouring the hills for anything edible and  truly celebrating an infant living past 100 days. Meat, honey and sugar were unfathomable luxuries, which is why I still get plenty of quizzical looks when I refuse food, particularly meat offerings.

Essentially, Korea is in 1960s America. It's starting to click that going out of your way to embarrass a person about their weight or appearance isn't acceptable. Old people like that principal are stuck in their ways, eating disorders just aren't part of his history.
He's a proper asshole, yes, but he's also a product of his own culture, not ours.       

I do agree with you here; fair view of it. 

But, and I hate to bring it up, didn't you go out of your way recently to embarrass your coteacher after she asked quite an innocent question?

Which question was that?

well, yes, it's different if you're friends. of course.

but saying, "you've got fat. you should lose weight" to somebody you've never spoken to, isn't acceptable

a principal commenting negatively on a young female co-worker's clothes, and embarrassing them in front of the office, isn't acceptable

By what standard?...

I do agree with you here; fair view of it. 

But, and I hate to bring it up, didn't you go out of your way recently to embarrass your coteacher after she asked quite an innocent question?

Which question was that?

Here it is.  Fair enough if she was being condescending but you put the boot in quite hard to embarrass (humiliate?) her...

This happened ages ago.
An Ex-CT asked me if South Africans can speak English... This was the 3rd time I'd been asked this question and she was being rather condescending.

I replied by asking her what she majored in at University, she replied English.
I asked her at what age she began studying English. "Around the 4th grade." she replied.
I asked her if she attended English hagwons, she did, for a number of years.

I then asked her what type of English education she received if, after 8yrs of English education at schools and hagwons, as well as 4yrs studying for a university degree to teach English, she wasn't aware that South Africa is home to a few million native English speakers.

Here it is.  Fair enough if she was being condescending but you put the boot in quite hard to embarrass (humiliate?) her...

This happened ages ago.
An Ex-CT asked me if South Africans can speak English... This was the 3rd time I'd been asked this question and she was being rather condescending.

I replied by asking her what she majored in at University, she replied English.
I asked her at what age she began studying English. "Around the 4th grade." she replied.
I asked her if she attended English hagwons, she did, for a number of years.

I then asked her what type of English education she received if, after 8yrs of English education at schools and hagwons, as well as 4yrs studying for a university degree to teach English, she wasn't aware that South Africa is home to a few million native English speakers.

holy shit aristocrat you a savvvvage my dude

Here it is.  Fair enough if she was being condescending but you put the boot in quite hard to embarrass (humiliate?) her...

This happened ages ago.
An Ex-CT asked me if South Africans can speak English... This was the 3rd time I'd been asked this question and she was being rather condescending.

I replied by asking her what she majored in at University, she replied English.
I asked her at what age she began studying English. "Around the 4th grade." she replied.
I asked her if she attended English hagwons, she did, for a number of years.

I then asked her what type of English education she received if, after 8yrs of English education at schools and hagwons, as well as 4yrs studying for a university degree to teach English, she wasn't aware that South Africa is home to a few million native English speakers.

holy shit aristocrat you a savvvvage my dude

well, yes, it's different if you're friends. of course.

but saying, "you've got fat. you should lose weight" to somebody you've never spoken to, isn't acceptable

a principal commenting negatively on a young female co-worker's clothes, and embarrassing them in front of the office, isn't acceptable

By what standard?...

I do agree with you here; fair view of it. 

But, and I hate to bring it up, didn't you go out of your way recently to embarrass your coteacher after she asked quite an innocent question?

Which question was that?

Here it is.  Fair enough if she was being condescending but you put the boot in quite hard to embarrass (humiliate?) her...

This happened ages ago.
An Ex-CT asked me if South Africans can speak English... This was the 3rd time I'd been asked this question and she was being rather condescending.

I replied by asking her what she majored in at University, she replied English.
I asked her at what age she began studying English. "Around the 4th grade." she replied.
I asked her if she attended English hagwons, she did, for a number of years.

I then asked her what type of English education she received if, after 8yrs of English education at schools and hagwons, as well as 4yrs studying for a university degree to teach English, she wasn't aware that South Africa is home to a few million native English speakers.

I'm usually pretty mellow and simply ignore or dismiss insults, however, when my buttons are repeatedly pushed it can bring out the worst in me. This is a personal issue that'll likely land me in a lot of trouble someday.

If this question came from anyone else, I'd be happy to enlighten with a smile. The fact remains, it came from a professional who, by definition, makes a living out of teaching English and, as far as I'm concerned, should be thoroughly knowledgeable on multiple aspects of her subject matter and should be embarrassed if she didn't know such things.  Not only did she ask the question, I answered her, but she asked it a 3rd time and had been rather condescending to me for being a South African and had insulted me home. She deserved it, f*ck her.

Damn I didn't realise you're South African (for some reason I thought you were a fellow Brit haha).  In that case your response to her makes a lot more sense then.  Carry on!

Why are some links automatically expanded to play within waygook and some just show the address?

Damn, Aristocrat!   

today, the pollution (by Aqicn) in my city is about 160 which is unhealthy, and not the good red.  i teach one of my first grade classes in the fourth period.  so they come in coughing and spluttering.  i ask why?  'ah, in the third class, we have the PE evaluation, running around the double-sized football pitch six times.'    i've given up trying to understand what is the mental block a lot of Koreans have with pollution and going outside without a mask, especially children.  this evaluation is being used for all my students (520 in total).  obviously, the quicker you run, the better your score.    my school has a fairly progressive environment, and then some things like me remind me that it is still laced with stubborn stupidity throughout.   

today, the pollution (by Aqicn) in my city is about 160 which is unhealthy, and not the good red.  i teach one of my first grade classes in the fourth period.  so they come in coughing and spluttering.  i ask why?  'ah, in the third class, we have the PE evaluation, running around the double-sized football pitch six times.'    i've given up trying to understand what is the mental block a lot of Koreans have with pollution and going outside without a mask, especially children.  this evaluation is being used for all my students (520 in total).  obviously, the quicker you run, the better your score.    my school has a fairly progressive environment, and then some things like me remind me that it is still laced with stubborn stupidity throughout.   

I find this very strange since at my school, when there was like a week of really bad air pollution, all the students were holding PE in some of the spare classrooms that had no desks inside (not using the gym for whatever reason).

My school is a live construction site with an entire new floor being added over a period of about six months.  The school yard has been turned into a parking lot and the kids are inside the entire day.  It's mental.  Lunch used to be a peaceful time to just hang out in the office or English class.  Now the entire school is used to do certain activities indoors and the noise is constant. 

wife is watching interviews from the avengers actors, when they came to korea recently. most questions they were asked was stuff like:

do you like korea?
what food is the best in korea?
what did you do in korea?
where did you go in korea?
what do you think about korean marvel fans?
did you enjoy filming infinity stone in korea?
do you want to come to korea again?

jesus christ

It's hwangsa.

I also had to work today on Good Friday...

wife is watching interviews from the avengers actors, when they came to korea recently. most questions they were asked was stuff like:

do you like korea?
what food is the best in korea?
what did you do in korea?
where did you go in korea?
what do you think about korean marvel fans?
did you enjoy filming infinity stone in korea?
do you want to come to korea again?

jesus christ (here)

I love this country but Jesus Christ (like you said)

I think Korea has the same problem that Canada has. "US Lite."

Koreans, proud as they are, know that Japan and China get MUCH more attention on the world stage. This isn't bad or good, it's not a slight, it just is.

This means that they must define themselves in relation to their surroundings; the much larger, much more well known neighbours.

  So, tell me about Canada.

  Well, our gun control is much stricter than the US. And they are a melting pot, we are a mosaic.

  I didn't ask about the US................. ................... ..............

Right, time for a proper rant against my CT and the Korean education system, what happened today is keeping me awake.

I need to start by saying that I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet. What I did was something any reasonable adult would've done.

The last class of the day are the 5th graders. In the class is one boy who has Impulse Control Disorder. At the beginning of the year I tried to find out what he was diagnosed with from my CT. She just said "mental disorder". I asked about the type of mental disorder as mental disorder can pretty much mean anything. She said she'd find out and get back to me. Since the kid was pretty quite and content with sitting at the back of the class drawing pictures, I kind of forgot to follow up when I came back to school the following weeks.

Today, I did an activity with the students which included splitting into groups, drawing a random item out of the mystery back and making a very short story about the item. I just filled the bag with random items we had in the classroom: plastic fruit, plushies, a ball, playing card and a tiny little water pistol (fits in the palm).

The classroom is fairly small and desks are crammed in with very little space between them.

As usual the kid in question was just sitting at the back, drawing. The group at the back left corner of the class drew the water pistol out of the bag and proceeded to examine it and play with it. I'd made my way to the front right corner of the class to get a boardmarker and heard a loud scream. I turned to find the special needs kid had seen them playing with the water pistol and had ran to the kid holding the pistol and was trying to force it out his hands, while screaming at the top of his lungs.

My CT was standing about 2m away from the fiasco, deer in headlights, doing absolutely nothing. I made my way past her, trying to move through the narrow aisles as fast as I could. I got between the kids and separated them, and the struggle the pistol had landed on the floor and my CT picked it up to take it to put it in her desk (obviously looking for an excuse to get out of the situation and save her hide). The SN kid goes ballistic, throws himself on the floor, gets up and starts throwing chairs towards the students!

By some miracle, he misses hitting any of us and I stop him from throwing another chair. He then proceeds to start throwing over desks and kicking them. I shout to the other students to move to the front of the class, but one girl is sitting nearby, with her leg in a cast. I get to him and resist the urge to restrain him to the ground and decide to try to stay near him, but talk softly and calm him down. He's still screaming a balling, but he's on the ground and I'm between him and the students. I tell my CT that we need to get him out of the class in into the nurses office to be alone and calm down, he could hurt someone or himself here. I tried getting him up to follow me out, but he doesn't want to budge and I'm not going to risk dragging him out. She's just standing there, doing absolutely nothing.

In the name of all that is incompetent, irresponsible and stupid, my CT finally responds and suggests we just leave him there to scream to himself, while we carry on with the lesson... <this little f*ck nearly cracked someon's skull with a chair, he's still trembling and there are at least 8 more chairs around him, you moron!>
I give her a firm "No!" and tell her I'm taking him to the nurse's office. She starts messaging the nurse... with the belief that we have all the time in the world, hoping she sees the message and replies. While this is happening, one of the students is telling the SN kid to shut up and this is refuelling the kid with rage. I manage to semi-pull him out the class before more chairs start flying.

In the hallway, I tell my CT to get him to the nurses office right now and I'll take care of the other students.

Now, this kind of thing has happened before (not the same kid and not too often, but it happens) and the reaction of whichever CT I've had has always been for self-preservation, never the safety of the students. They've always been slow to respond to an emergency and ALWAYS unsure of what to do. Exactly what type of training do they go through?

Furthermore, my best guess is that his specific type of ICD is Intermittent Explosive Disorder as he had an aggressive episode triggered by a specific stressor... Just best guess. Imagine I wasn't there? I know for sure that next week, the kid will be back in class as if nothing ever happened.

The following is not 100% serious

I think the standard reaction of many teachers to such an episode would be "Don't lose my pension, because anything I do will get me sued" This certainly can be a problem in the US where teachers don't know what to do so they just call in the School Resource Officer aka the cops. Then we get the joys of watching 15 year olds getting body slammed or 8 year olds arrested for cutting a piece of carboard into the shape of a sword and playing Lord of the Rings. 

Given these realities, kids with mental problems really should be sent to the funny farm. If you are going to have kids that can flip out and throw chairs and you aren't allowed to immediately wade in and deck them to get them to shut up and calm down, and virtually anything will bring about calls of abuse or discrimination, then this is just a no-win situation.

The following is not 100% serious

I think the standard reaction of many teachers to such an episode would be "Don't lose my pension, because anything I do will get me sued" This certainly can be a problem in the US where teachers don't know what to do so they just call in the School Resource Officer aka the cops. Then we get the joys of watching 15 year olds getting body slammed or 8 year olds arrested for cutting a piece of carboard into the shape of a sword and playing Lord of the Rings. 

Given these realities, kids with mental problems really should be sent to the funny farm. If you are going to have kids that can flip out and throw chairs and you aren't allowed to immediately wade in and deck them to get them to shut up and calm down, and virtually anything will bring about calls of abuse or discrimination, then this is just a no-win situation.

Teachers need the skills and authority to handle these situations under protocols.
Schools need to provide the skills and authority, and also indemnify the teachers who take action under these protocols.

i've never worked in the uk school system, so i don't know if it's the same, but i've worked with many incompetent korean teachers during my time here (i've also worked with many good ones, too). i'm not saying i'm the best or most qualified teacher, but some korean teachers here just can't control the kids, or produce lessons that are wildly ineffective

considering the supposed competition for public school positions, i wonder how this happens*

*probably because they're graded through written tests rather than examined on practical teaching skills?