Korea: Hardcore

I guess one of the things that I've forgotten to mention in the past two years is that punishment in Korean schools is fairly different from America. I try not to put a value judgement on it, but the one word that comes to mind is 'oldschool.'

For slight offences, the standard punishment is to make a kid raise their arms in the air (or stretched out in front of them) for 5-10 minutes. Tougher penalties usually get the treatment pictured above, where kids have to stetch out their arms and legs and stay in that position like the boy in the back is doing. I've seen some ridiculous examples of this, where the student is expected to do this for 40 minutes.

Korean movies that are set in high schools tend to show some straight up brutality. I've seen scenes of teachers just straight up hitting kids repeatedly with a wooden stick, usually across the bottoms of their feet. I asked some Koreans about it and they said that it actually happens.

I never get into any of that stuff though. The worst that ever happens is I have to hold a 1st grader by the arm or pick them up to take them to another teacher so that teacher can put the fear of God in them. Sometimes if a group of older boys is being constantly annoying I'll walk by and flick them in the head. They've all got too much hair for it to hurt (Korean guys almost always have hair that's at least two inches long).

Basically though, I would never send my kids to school in Korea. Beating students is a bad idea, and even though Korean students score consistently high in standardized tests, the fact of the matter is that they put in easily twice the hours that American students do, so it's not like the quality of education is really any reason for their high scores. If anything, from what I've seen, the American education system is definitely a step or two ahead, as far as progressive ideas and forms of education go.

I guess I'll stop there before I get any more boring.