4.12.2011

Where's my fucking Oscar?

Just had the most successful student shaming of my life. There's one A ban class that has this little gang of assholes. I've already had it out with Joonghyeon (the ring leader) enough times last year that he and I don't have an issue anymore. He kicks off with Head Teacher (which, fair enough -- I had to earn my stripes with him, as well), but shuts up and cuts the crap when I jump in and ask him what's wrong. Which kind of really annoys Head Teacher, a lot. Like I said, I've already been through the fire with Joonghyeon. We've got out relationship established.

Anyway, there are a couple of jerkoffs who sit with him who I just can't be bothered with, to be honest. Today, just as I looked to their group to get their answer to a question, one of them came out with "fuck" for no apparent reason. They're too old and too advanced to be pulling that shit. It's not like when they're first graders and don't really understand the impact of speaking a foreign langauge. They know better. The thing about it is, you can scream at them until you're red in the face for using bad words, but it's not going to do anything curtail it for one fucking second. They say the words because they are bad words and because they upset people like teachers. So there's no point in getting "angry" about it.

What does usually work is calmly explaining, so that the entire class can hear, that that word is a bad word in your language, and that it gives you a really bad feeling to hear it out of the students like that, because it feels like it's especially for you -- because you are the native English teacher. They may not have said the word to you (not one of my students would ever), but that's how it feels.

It makes them uncomfortable as shit, especially as all their peers are watching and feeling guilty by association to the point where boys who are on the complete other side of the room and had nothing to do with it will start apologizing. This is too strong for the babies -- they really don't even realize the impact those words can have, but for third graders, I think it's fair enough. They need to start to learn that even if they don't mean to do something, that doesn't remove their responsibility for having done it.

Anyway. I went to kind of give the speech today, and the kid in front of the kid who said the word was looking back and giggling while I was lecturing the offender. Which was making the offender giggle. And I just stopped. They were pretty much prepared for me to completely blow up. But I didn't. I just said, you know what? Let me finish and we'll see how you feel. If you feel like laughing. When you say that word in front of me, in my native language, it gives me a horrible feeling. You make me feel bad when you say that word. If you think that's funny, that's okay. There's nothing I can do about that. But I just want you to know that you made me feel bad.

I'll put it this way -- I'm not sure my relationship with this student will ever recover from how embarrassed he was at that moment. And I don't really care. He's clearly made a choice in life to act like an asshole, and that's fine. But I don't have to tolerate being mocked and bested in front of my other students. You want to try to embarrass me? You better be absolutely sure you actually have the high ground first.

Anyway, now he and Joonghyeon are downstairs at the haksaengbu getting their uh.... very reasonable verbal scolding, I'm sure. Because they didn't start shit with me for the rest of class, but took it out on Head Teacher as soon as the bell rang instead. The best part? All of this happens every week in front of one half of Head Teacher's homeroom class. It's bad luck. And I want to tell her that that's just the way that Joonghyeon is until he feels like you've somehow earned his respect -- that I had nearly a year of going round and round with him. But I don't know if she'll ever get there, honestly. She's too busy locking horns with him directly. Which is just going to make him dig his heels in more.

Anyway. Dramatic times. I wasn't actually upset that the kid said fuck. Obviously. And it didn't really 'give me a bad feeling'. I could care less. But I feel responsible for teaching them that their language in English does have an impact, and that's part of it. Plus, I don't like fuckers thinking they can just get away with shit. Pisses me off.

3 comments:

Mr. Spock said...

I teach elementary and I feel like the only thing that gets through to them is my "losing my temper" performance, which is about as real as it was when I played Stanley in a scene study from A Streetcar Named Desire. Manufactured but convincing.

I think that because I can't speak fluently in their language and they don't understand mine, that I am less of a person and that my feelings don't matter. I was out in the schoolyard yesterday and one of the girls was talking to me and I dropped a phrase in Korean to clarify something, and she and her friends laughed. I asked "Why is it funny?" with my most innocent face, and she responded "Because you are not Korean person." I responded "Do I laugh at you when you speak English?" She had absolutely no response. She is one of my smartest, kindest, most sensitive students and it had NEVER occurred to her that it might hurt my feelings to be laughed at.

Due to my youth and inexperience, I cannot tell whether this is due to immaturity (not really being aware of the feelings of others in general), subtle racism (not one of us, so not worth considering) or some kind of disconnect that happens with another language, i.e. they would understand it w/r/t feelings in THEIR language, but in English it just doesn't seem REAL. I sometimes get the sense that English isn't REAL to them, that it's just another school subject. So "Go to the back of the class." is a joke, but "뒤로 가!" means business. Really long response, but I have been thinking about this a lot, and your post was really interesting because it's a technique I have never tried (because I don't think it would work).

I'm no Picasso said...

There are a few different things going on, I think. I go through kind of the same thing with "sexshi gull!" every year with the incoming first graders.

1. They don't realize the foreigner is a real person and not some television image manifesting on the sidewalk in front of them.

2. They *definitely* don't realize that the foreigner is a teacher.

3. They don't realize that the foreigner, unlike them, actually speaks and understands English, so when you say "sexshi gull", that actually means something to the foreigner.

It only takes turning around once, telling them that I am a teacher, and asking them if they want to go to the student discipline office to explain to the PE teachers what they just said to a teacher, for them to never make that mistake ever again. The pure horror and panic on their little faces in that moment proves that they had no idea what they were doing. When it clicks, it clicks.

Mostly, I try not to get upset if the students laugh when I speak Korean. Or when other adults laugh for that matter. I'm sure it does sound funny. And I feel kind of bad when they don't realize how offensive and kind of backwards that behavior is. But if there is kind of a mean edge to it, I will point it out -- do you know how funny you sound in English? Or when Koreans tell you that they don't want you to call them by their Korean name because "foreigners can't prounounce it right". Well. Guess what. My name isn't 리즈 either. We're just going to have to get over some things here, now aren't we?

Mr. Spock said...

Yeah the notion that foreigners just can't speak their language, that I am moving the cosmos whenever I say the simplest thing is REALLY condescending, but there is literally only one Korean person I know who doesn't do it, so I don't take it seriously or personally. My former Head Teacher, Mr. Kim (so original ^^) has never laughed at me unless what I said is actually funny (because of a misplaced syllable, misconstrued meaning, etc.) and has never laughed at me just for speaking Korean, even if my accent is absurd, or my intonation is super "cute". It's really strange, because he speaks almost no English, and yet has no problem speaking the little he does know, complete with a load of gestures and repetitions. It's very interesting to me that his is the reverse of the pattern that I have seen very often with my co-workers, where they are often too shy to speak English to me, and yet they laugh when I try to communicate in Korean to them.

So much I want to write on this subject...maybe I should put it in my own blog :P

Keep up the great posts, INP.