Fuck You?
Yesterday a 12 year-old student said fuck you to me.
He's one of my better kids. He pays attention some times, seems to enjoy learning if not studying, is able to communicate and tries to communicate ideas more complicated than "teacher, me homework no." He comes in to the teacher's prep room to ask me questions or sometimes simply to hound. Lately he's been taking things such as my bag and running away in a joking manner and only returning it after I give fake chase. Or pretending to punch me and giggling. Yesterday he went one step further.
He said it in a joking manner, not meaning any harm. And had it been just the two of us, I wouldn't have really cared. Possibly I would have told him that that expletive--my very favorite--in that form wasn't a really good joke. Maybe I would have illustrated far more colorful ways to use it, ways in which it beautifully and emphatically modifies objects not directly second person. But not likely. I can't bring myself to teach the kids that type of English until they have fully mastered the basic, intermediate, and some of the advanced stuff. But he did it in front of a class that I'm finding increasingly difficult to keep hold of. So I brought him outside to the counter teacher, told her what he said and calmly walked back into the room.
The other students were in an uproar. They all knew what it meant, generally, and were curious what was happening to him outside. I tried to convey that in certain situations, saying "fuck you" to a person can be a serious action--that it isn't a joke they should be comfortable with. I tried telling them it was akin to picking a fight. They just laughed, and acted out fights between each other. I tried telling them that in some places of the US, picking a fight with the wrong person could mean getting shot immediately--angry guy with gun--or getting shot later in some terrible massacre--Dylan Kliebold. They thought this equally funny and unlikely, joking with guns fashioned from pens and pencils.
The student, having received some weak punishment--he was still smiling--came back into the classroom and apoligized at the same time I was realising my stupid mistake of trying to reason with these children. The class was a wash; I entertained fanciful questions about what would happen if the student killed some important person then killed themselves.
Duh. You're dead.
But tell me, my myriad readers, was I wrong in theory or practice? I think it was only in practice, and here's why:
One--I was speaking in English, a language they don't speak competently. Possibly to a competent speaker of English I would have been more persuasive.
Two--They are children, though more importantly children from a very safe, and from what I've seen, non-violent country. They have lived short, sheltered lives, shielded from most mention of harm by their parents. Though generally relegated to an inferior social position, woman here can walk just about any street without fear of rape or assault. There has to exist in some larger seedier city an area that the general public avoids, but I haven't heard about it. The one area of Busan that I was told to avoid after dark I found tame. I think in most places in the US, due to the media and recent spur of violent school crimes, kids of the same age would think death, getting shot or knifed, and saying "fuck you" with a loose tongue would be a more serious act.
Three--I simply went about it in the wrong way. My students think everything I say as a joke is serious, and what I try to explain honestly is dreadfully funny. Hence, I'm 62 and killing people is fun.
The incident got me thinking about how different a place can be. What is considered dangerous here--swimming in a river--is something many others do without thinking. What is considered desperate and despicable is just unthinkable in some circumstances, the stuff of only movies. In a way it's commendable for parents here to keep their children from such information, as it prepares them to enter the sheltered society at large. But should they be so sheltered from such news that such news 10-15 years later becomes unbelievable, something they would only find in a video game or movie? Granted that 10-20% of Koreans travel abroad and such gruesome news from Africa, South America or the US is irrelevant to most Koreans, what part would they play in the world community if all things gruesome outside their borders were dismissed as fiction or exagerated?
He's one of my better kids. He pays attention some times, seems to enjoy learning if not studying, is able to communicate and tries to communicate ideas more complicated than "teacher, me homework no." He comes in to the teacher's prep room to ask me questions or sometimes simply to hound. Lately he's been taking things such as my bag and running away in a joking manner and only returning it after I give fake chase. Or pretending to punch me and giggling. Yesterday he went one step further.
He said it in a joking manner, not meaning any harm. And had it been just the two of us, I wouldn't have really cared. Possibly I would have told him that that expletive--my very favorite--in that form wasn't a really good joke. Maybe I would have illustrated far more colorful ways to use it, ways in which it beautifully and emphatically modifies objects not directly second person. But not likely. I can't bring myself to teach the kids that type of English until they have fully mastered the basic, intermediate, and some of the advanced stuff. But he did it in front of a class that I'm finding increasingly difficult to keep hold of. So I brought him outside to the counter teacher, told her what he said and calmly walked back into the room.
The other students were in an uproar. They all knew what it meant, generally, and were curious what was happening to him outside. I tried to convey that in certain situations, saying "fuck you" to a person can be a serious action--that it isn't a joke they should be comfortable with. I tried telling them it was akin to picking a fight. They just laughed, and acted out fights between each other. I tried telling them that in some places of the US, picking a fight with the wrong person could mean getting shot immediately--angry guy with gun--or getting shot later in some terrible massacre--Dylan Kliebold. They thought this equally funny and unlikely, joking with guns fashioned from pens and pencils.
The student, having received some weak punishment--he was still smiling--came back into the classroom and apoligized at the same time I was realising my stupid mistake of trying to reason with these children. The class was a wash; I entertained fanciful questions about what would happen if the student killed some important person then killed themselves.
Duh. You're dead.
But tell me, my myriad readers, was I wrong in theory or practice? I think it was only in practice, and here's why:
One--I was speaking in English, a language they don't speak competently. Possibly to a competent speaker of English I would have been more persuasive.
Two--They are children, though more importantly children from a very safe, and from what I've seen, non-violent country. They have lived short, sheltered lives, shielded from most mention of harm by their parents. Though generally relegated to an inferior social position, woman here can walk just about any street without fear of rape or assault. There has to exist in some larger seedier city an area that the general public avoids, but I haven't heard about it. The one area of Busan that I was told to avoid after dark I found tame. I think in most places in the US, due to the media and recent spur of violent school crimes, kids of the same age would think death, getting shot or knifed, and saying "fuck you" with a loose tongue would be a more serious act.
Three--I simply went about it in the wrong way. My students think everything I say as a joke is serious, and what I try to explain honestly is dreadfully funny. Hence, I'm 62 and killing people is fun.
The incident got me thinking about how different a place can be. What is considered dangerous here--swimming in a river--is something many others do without thinking. What is considered desperate and despicable is just unthinkable in some circumstances, the stuff of only movies. In a way it's commendable for parents here to keep their children from such information, as it prepares them to enter the sheltered society at large. But should they be so sheltered from such news that such news 10-15 years later becomes unbelievable, something they would only find in a video game or movie? Granted that 10-20% of Koreans travel abroad and such gruesome news from Africa, South America or the US is irrelevant to most Koreans, what part would they play in the world community if all things gruesome outside their borders were dismissed as fiction or exagerated?
posted by The Principal at 12:13 AM
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