Christ and Punishment (Get it?)

Merry Christmas to you, as I'm typing this the holiday is just puttering out for you. I had a rather nice holiday. Danny, Rie, and I went to the batting cages and hit some baseballs for a while. Next, we went to the arcade, but left when we saw that Peter was there. (Peter is a Korean who tried to be our friend. He is emotionless and annoying. So, we passively avoid him.) We then went shopping at Home Plus, bought some ingredients and made one helluva vegetarian chili. It was quite delicious. All we were missing was cumin, garbanzo beans, and jalapeno peppers. Tane arrived when we started making it. He told us about the Church service we went to, he let us in on the secret, and then we ate Chili. Forgoing the normal holiday classics, we enjoyed our chili with Scrooged, and Champagne courtesy of Tane's parents. Thanks for the stockings you two! And now for something completely different.

Punishment
Korea is a rather odd country in terms of how students are disciplined. Many practices that are common here would lead to rampant firing and high class lawsuits in America. Corporal punishment was officially banned by legal decree several years ago, but its use is still widespread. I felt uneasy during orientation when I was told that it still occurs. I felt that I could not take the sight of adults hitting children with switches.

Upon arriving at school, I soon realized how prevalent and integral it was to the education system here. Every teacher has a small arsenal of different implements to use when doling out punishment. Some sticks are meant to look intimidating, some are meant to make scary *Thwaking* sounds, and others try to increase the damage area. Not every teacher practices these methods, but I'd only need one hand to count them.

All of the punishments are not carried out with weapons. Many of them involve putting students in stress positions or making them do calisthenics. Students that are late each morning are corralled and forced to stand at the entrance gate of the school and do squats as their peers trickle in to join them. The stress positions involve students sitting on their knees for long periods of time writing the same lines over and over and over for as long as an hour. Other punishments involve relocating your desk to the hallway outside of the teachers office. This cold drafty hallway is spent in near isolation except for the transition time and those using it for access.

At first, all these practices shocked me, seeing them over and over again. Occasionally hearing yells and screams from the hallway was very unnerving. But now, I don't seem to notice or even mind. Seeing a student get his ear tweaked or receive a short noogie seems in order in some cases. What do you do with a student who yells during class, punches to person sitting next to him, or tells the teacher, "Fuck you." Here, you'll get a slap on the wrist or you'll spend a lot of time in the hall to think about what you've done.

The main idea in all of these cases is applying negative reinforcement. It's simple psychology. You reward good behavior with praise and bad behavior with punishment. Both need to be an appropriate level of stimulus as you wouldn't buy a student a new car getting an A or burn down the house of a student who burped in front of you. So what is appropriate here? I started thinking about this today because of this news article that I read. It also brought to light two older articles.

http://koreabeat.com/?p=3286
"Sixth-grade Seoul English teacher Kim Yeong-hwa has written a book about the trials Korean teachers are now facing because of the impossibility of imposing corporal punishment. Apparently she doesn’t read the newspaper; corporal punishment keeps getting banned because teachers keep using it in ever-more creative ways."

The other articles that are referenced are stories on punishment. One of them is about a day-care center that punished children by stripping them naked and locking them out on the fire escape for 10-15 minutes. This is abhorrent and may seem barbaric of Koreans, but it's not anything different than from what can be found in the US. In fact, I'd wager that the US has far more cases such as this that are even more extreme.

For example, a current practice in place in US prisons and schools is the isolation room. These have been around for a while and don't seem to be going away. Isolation is an interrogation method used that's designed to break down the mind. It's designed to disassociate you from the outside world and break down your thought patterns. They are especially cruel to those with mental handicaps as even shown in Iowa. Many of these "tombs" have been green lighted as okay, but child psychologists have given strict recommendations and requirements that make the use of these okay, such as constant supervision, wall padding, and discretion that the punishment is used appropriately. Many times these guidelines are not followed.

How are guidelines like these made and how should they be enforced? Voluntary enforcement only works if people have a good sense of of morality or are trapped in the panopticon. As reported here, educators are still grappling with this issue even though it has finalized as law over a decade ago.

"In the future, principals at schools involved in corporal punishment-related incidents must make immediate reports to the appropriate board of education.The Seoul Office of Education announced on the 5th that it plans to implement a system to punish teachers, principals, and other educators who have been concealing such cases rather than quickly reporting them as required.

The Office also plans to conduct inspections through the end of the year on the regulations at individual schools regarding corporal punishment and hairstyles.

The inspections are intended to discover and ameliorate cases of violations of students’ rights. The inspection committee will be made up of educators experienced in guidance counseling as well as human rights experts.

Corporal punishment regulations will be inspected to see whether the rules are being observed, what the reaction would be of school committee members to creating or revising the rules, whether there have been cases of corporal punishment, and how such cases ought to be handled. Hair regulations will be investigated to see whether they are used in the most limited degree necessary for educational purposes, whether students’ opinions have been taken into account, whether the regulations are appropriate and can be applied at the actual time, and whether there are forcible haircuts."

I wouldn't hold my breath over this issue. It doesn't seem like it will be resolved anytime soon. I do wonder though how this is affecting people though. I've read that Child psychologists demarcate the line between punishment and abuse with the use of an object. If a parent strikes a child with an object, it's considered abuse. If they're spanked with the hand or scolded in some manner short of punching, then it's not. I wonder what sort of long term affects all of this punishment has on the students if any. When I see them get punished, they bounce back really quickly and just take the punishment as any old thing. I wouldn't guess that they're developing a psychological victim complex that will affect their upbringing into adult hood, but I don't know. I've prattled on for too long now, tell me what you think.

Adventure

On Tuesday, I was asked if I wanted to go to a cooking class with some of the students. Occasionally when I arrive at school in the morning, I will find a baked good or some other manner food on my desk. I would now be accompanying them on their trip. It should be noted that my school has no cooking facilities. All the food preparation is done by an outside contractor. Also, this was the special education class.

I met them in a van outside the school and they were very excited to see me. I knew some of them already. They have a habit of talking to me at my desk, pointing at different objects and asking me to identify the English. It wouldn't be a bother if I didn't have to do it over and over again ever single day. But they're fun for the most part. So, we rode in the van for 15 minutes while they learned one English phrase, "My name is ____" and proceeded to call each other "My name is" for the remainder of the trip. We arrive at a Social Education center. I'm not sure the main responsibilities of the center, but it seemed to be like a social worker place where needy people are helped. We went upstairs and everyone changed into their aprons. I noticed that they all had tupperware containers with them.

We then went into the kitchen where we received lecture and instruction from a professional chef. I have no clue as to the conditions of the other students. I was surprised that many of them have a minor grasp of English and we could talk with each other rather than me just reciting lists of objects.

We were to make Jajammyun.

It's a Chinese recipe that translates literally to, "Fried sauce with noodles." It's standard garbage food. Lots of different vegetables, some sauce, and rice noodles. It's delicious, but still garbage food.

The lady demonstrated how to make this. She handed out a recipe that I couldn't read, but I watched and followed along with everyone else. She was skilled as she knew how to cut properly and she had a flair for presentation. We were divided up into two groups: boys and girls. The girls only numbered two, so I joined them.

We made our food and then for some reason ate it. This was only 2 hours after lunch and I was feeling quite stuffed. Everyone dove into their their noodly goo and wolfed it down. They then filled their tupperware containers with the leavings. Most of the time was uneventful. We cooked, sang songs, and made a mess. It was a lot of fun.

Also, today it snowed twice for about five minutes each time. Apparently, it's a big deal because it usually snows once every 6 years. Most of the snow melted before it hit the ground though. Everything stopped when it first happened though. All the teachers got up from their chairs to look out the windows. The students from all over the building started yelling and going nuts. It may be the last snow of the year. I certainly hope not.

The Funny Pages

Currently, I'm on vacation. Today is Foundation day for my school. It's the date when my school was founded and we get a free day because of it. Tomorrow, I've got another freebie because it's Constitution day. Yesterday, I had to work how ever. For my early morning Conversation Club, I made comics with them for the activity. For the first 20 minutes we talked about the comics I had printed off and how to write. I talked them about creating characters, giving them a voice, and making progress in a story; all in much simpler terminology of course. I had actually read about this a few years ago from someone who had done it with Japanese students. So in that same tradition, I present to you the comics that were completed. I consider most of them hilarious, not because of the grammatical mistakes, but because of the stories they tell using my cherished comics. For something like this, the ingredients require only the best comics and so I used the top shelf: Calvin and Hobbes and Penny Arcade.

So, I present to the master works of Wednesday's English Conversation Club. Click on the picture to read the text.
























Bonus Pizza Shot! The pizza here is to weird to eat. What do I mean by weird? Well, imagine eating sweet potatoes (Quayle style), corn, or mustard with no discernible marinara sauce. That is, unless you want to pay $30 for a Pizza Hut or Dominoes pizza (Which I will admit look like works of art here, every pizza is a multi-tiered canvas of tastes.) So, I bought my own crust mix and had my teachers translate the cooking instructions. Then I bought some spaghetti sauce, some horse glue, peppers, onions, garlic, and some dashes of basil and Italian seasoning. Then I cooked it in a frying pan. It was decent, except for the cheese. I think I'll let the dough rise a little longer next time and get a different brand of shredded cheese.

Dragon Fruit

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a dragon fruit. I was introduced to them while I was in Cambodia and Vietnam. I've tried to find them in America and I only found them once in two years. They were $16 a pound. Thus, I didn't buy them. Since I'm on the other side of the world, they're much cheaper. This bad boy went for 5,000 won. They don't carry them in super markets and had to buy him on the street. I found him in a giant international district where I'm going to back for salmon cuts later. I personally think it look like a dragon egg, if those in fact existed.

This is a knife. The bride and groom have smooched, let's cut this cake.

This is what the inside looks like. it's sort of like a kiwi, but with different flavoring. It's wonderfully delicious because it's soft and cold. So good.

Sliced and diced into more manageable bites.

Another angle...wait, what's that there?

Oh my goodness. I found some international delegates while wandering the market as well. These were priced better than in America and thus it was a wonderful find. I still don't have any quality tonic water. Or limes. We're going to try and make our own, but we require Cinchona. Amazon trail anyone?

Simply lovely.

Time for a test drive.

No crashes or fatalities.


Also, I met Tane for sushi near his house. Afterwards, I boarded the subway and was stopped by a man named So Cho. After talking for a while, several handsome compliments, and confessing that I wasn't married he invited me for draft beers at a place called Starfish on Saturday. I'm not sure what to make of it. He told me that i reminded him of his grandson who was going to college in Switzerland. He told me to call him and gave me his business card. Apparently he works as an advisor for the "Busan International Environmental Design & Cultural Forum." Their website is here http://www.biedfo.org/forum/symbol.html . I'm not sure what I'm going to do. That organization seems like a major advertising firm that deals a lot in public art. He might be a fascinating contact and good person to know. On the other hand, he's someone I talked to in broken English for three stops on the subway. By the way, this is normal behavior to foreigners in Korea. When Danny, Tane, and I go out, we always get approached by old men who want to talk to us and tell us about the time they lived in America and were stationed at a Virginia army base. Most of the time teachers get propositioned to teach peoples children under the table. So, tell me what you think.