Classroom Stuff

On Friday two vaguely interesting things happened.

The first was that a student went into an almost catatonic sleep in my class. I got a new class earlier this month with four very young students in it. At least one of them is in kindergarten, which is the one who fell asleep. Lots of students fall asleep in class here and there. Actually, I'm surprised I don't get one or more in every class daily, considering how overworked they constantly are. Somehow they manage to stay awake most of the time.

I saw that Wendy was not really that energetic in class, and had her head down on the desk for most of the first half of class, so I figured she was tired. Then I noticed she had totally fallen asleep, so I went over to wake her up. She didn't wake up right away, so I let it go. Most of what we do in that class is talk, anyway, so she wasn't missing much. She's so young that I figured if her body needed to sleep, she should just do it.

Then class ended and I wrote down her homework for her and let the other kids get ready to go while I tried to wake her up. I've never had so much trouble waking a person up in my life. I was calling her name, rubbing her back, shaking her, trying to tickle her, patting her on the cheek. One of the other kids even ran over and screamed her name at the top of his lungs, but there was nothing in all that except one of those false wake ups that kids do, then go immediately back into their kids comas. In retrospect, I should have asked them what her Korean name is, as she might have responded better to that. I ended up letting the other kids go and then the Korean teacher that they had next came in (I guess they told her) and woke her up in Korean. She asked Wendy if she was sick, but I didn't find out for sure, and I saw her still in the school a little while later, so maybe not. Honestly, though, it's not much proof she wasn't sick--kids and adults alike in Korea have to practically on their deathbeds before they can miss school or work. Anyway, crazy wake up adventure.

The second was something I heard on the recorded dictations they play in the Korean teachers' classes. Next door the teacher was playing an informative lecture that stated that even occasional smacking can be permanently damaging to kids, both physically and emotionally, and the speaker stated all this evidence to that effect. I found it ironic that this material would be part of the curriculum, considering that most Korean kids get smacked around 24-7-365 by parents and teachers. I also was kind of surprised it was allowed, since it might give the kids ideas about fighting back against abuse. But then I realized it's Korea, and ideas are discouraged from a young age, so there probably wouldn't be any trouble.