Brian has a worthwhile comment on the “cover it up” post, mentioning that as far as western teachers actually seeing teachers beat kids at school, you really only ought to get involved if it’s worth losing your job to you.
From his comment:
I think unless you’re willing to get fired for your beliefs, you’d better not get involved when a teacher is hitting a student. Seeing teachers hitting students is such a regular occurrence at my schools that it barely even registers. . . . If I got in between it’d cause all kinds of problems. First of all it’d make the teacher lose face. Face isn’t important compared to a child’s safety, but most teachers don’t see it that way. I don’t know if I’d necessarily get *fired* for getting involved, but it would be an ugly situation, and I would be ostracized even more than a foreign teacher already is.
Brian also brought this article to my attention: corporal violence in Korean schools is turning out to have an ugly legacy as well. CNN reports on a Korean man who stalked, and then killed, and ex-teacher for beating him, after accusing him of cheating on a test.
In other news of Kids Not Getting the Protection They Needed From The People They Trusted, even the parents of these kids sold their kids up the river when the Daegu Sex Abuse case was bringing too much attention and embarrassment to their community, and the parents and school board stopped cooperating with the police. A several month (several years, according to Marmot and this link) period of increasing systematized sexual abuse, involving over a hundred kids ended with NO CHARGES LAID because the PARENTS OF THE VICTIMS (and also the enabling teachers, who knew about it, but did nothing) covered it up and denied it had happened. How many times do we have to hear that story?
I want to gather all these kinds of incidents in one place, so that if, say, some journalist wants to get cracking on a look at the shocking lack of protection there is for kids, and the way the adults who should feel most responsible for protecting these vulnerable ones would rather save face than do their job and protect the kids, they can come here and find it all collected for their convenience.
So if you have a link to a story about police, parents, or teachers failing in their responsibility to protect kids from perverts, bullies, criminals, or abusive parents and/or teachers, send it to hubofsparkle[at]gmail[dot]com and I’ll gather the links all at the “Cover it Up! It’s Just a Kid” page. Send in your stories and things, or leave them as comments on THAT post (not this one: all in one place, remember?) but especially, send me original news stories, or news stories in translation that link the original Korean article. If you’re a journalist looking for a story, or know one, send them over here. Seriously. This culture of saving face at the cost of throwing kids under the bus, possibly messing them up so badly they end up stalking their ex-teachers and murdering them twenty-one years later. . . that deserves to be exposed, and Korea deserves to feel shame for allowing that kind of culture to matter more than their children.
Help me out here, folks. If this upsets you at all, give me a hand with this. I usually don’t get into this kind of stuff, for the sake of not starting to hate my life by worrying about things I can’t change. . . but . . . help me out here, OK?
-Roboseyo
(the police dragged their feet on investigating this one so badly the PRESIDENT came out to light a fire under them. The parents had to go to the media instead of the police, because the police said, “Meh. He was probably drunk. Catch him? Sounds too much like work.” And got back to their very important game of Gostop.)
If you have a kid in Korea, homeschool her.
11/11/2008 at 2:14 pm Permalink
I would, dude, I would.
I was in the public schools from 1994-96, right before they opened them up to open hiring, or the explosion of the English hagwon industry. Back then, it was hardcore, there was no YouTube, and no hope of reporting anything successfully. Even a couple of teachers who had raped their own school’s middle school girls in a noraebang were just reassigned. I saw a teacher slap a student silly in front of his mother, and she bowed profusely and apologized for her son’s behavior. I also saw a teacher beat a student to the ground, and was kicking him as haard as he could, soccer penalty kick-style, in the teachers’ room. The other teachers only stopped him when the kid went limp, and it looked like there was going to be permanent injury. I was told that teachers NEVER interfere with other teachers. I’d never seen such violence in my life, and I teared up from shock and anger. For all people sometimes defend cultural relativism to extremes, or accuse me on my own blog of being arrogant and culturally closed-minded, try being forced to sit through that. That kind of shit changes you.
Later in my time there, another Fulbright ETA had a student die because of a teacher’s abuse. She couldn’t do anything, and every single person in the school knew what happened. He was brought out of class and beaten in front of the school. Beaten HARD. Then he was forced to run laps around the school until he collapsed from exhaustion. Then he was beaten hard again. After he had time to “rest” — they made him run laps around the school. This continued all afternoon. Begged them to stop, begged them for water. He was denied all this. When he was allowed to go home, he collapsed. The official report? Heart failure.
A perfectly healthy, 17-year-old boy died of heart failure. I wonder why? Dehydration and extreme physical and mental abuse? Naw. No charges were filed, and the family tried to fight it, until they were intimidated into not doing so. This isn’t an urban legend or hearsay — it was in a boy’s high school in Masan toward the end of 1995 or the beginning of 1996. My friend, who’ll remain nameless, was one of only a handful of foreign teachers like me working in Korean schools at the time. She was distraught over it, since she knew the kid personally. The teacher was never punished. He is a murderer. Morally, that is. Legally, I guess he’s only guilty of manslaughter. In the end, a kid died.
That was my introduction to Korean school. My Korean co-teacher, with whom I became close, confessed that she was regularly sexually abused by a male teacher. But that’s the boring news — back when she must have been a high school girl, in the 80’s, that teacher would call up the girls he liked (this was during the evening self-study period) and feel them up head to toe, under the skirts and bras, taking whatever pleasure he liked. When he was done, he’d call up the next one. And the next. Because he knew nothing would ever happen. And it didn’t. I can imagine that that co-teacher would have liked to have taken revenge 20 years later — it’s pretty easy to imagine.
Or in another friend’s experience, only a few years ago in a private Korean high school run by a certain company that is the Korean translation of the name of an American movie company that used to have a winged unicorn as its mascot, while on a school field trip, several male teachers were calling in female students into their hotel rooms to drink alcohol with them. When she confronted the vice principal about this, she was scolded and told that she “doesn’t understand Korean culture.”
So — I guess male teachers drinking in their hotel rooms with their female high school students is “Korean culture?” Hmm. Actually, they’re right. It is. And that’s the sad part.
But don’t think it’s just a part of the school system, a social problem to be excised with a few new rules. The rules are already there — hitting allowed only on the back of the thighs or palms of the hands. They’re just ignored.
What the real problem is that few look at in the big picture is the culture of ritualized violence that permeates ALL parts of everyday life here, and a lot of it is passed down — from teachers, compulsory military service, and the culture of violence itself that defined life through the Pak Chung Hee era. A militarized culture, where work is enforced and dissent punished through harsh and unrelenting violence. In the schools, in the military, on the streets.
Is this really a mystery?
And then there’s the mental violence. The yelling, the denigration, the insults that are hurled to anyone who steps out of line. That’s the cultural logic of “wang-tta.” It’s the same kind of abuse, except without the hitting. Sure, there are “mean girls” or whatnot in America or other places, but I’ve never heard of so many kids killed by other kids or teachers than in Korea. Or known them personally.
And then? The cases of girls luring in other GIRLS to be gangraped? Or elementary school kids — ELEMENTARY SCHOOL KIDS — raping each other? Or then there’s the rape-on-tape blackmail rings that forced 2 girls into prostitution…
Jeez.
I’d love to do something, but without a video camera, witnesses willing to sacrifice their social identities, and a legal system that will do anything but reassign the teacher or put them in jail for like a month (instead of the decades that rape or abuse of a minor would land them in the horrible prison system in the US, which I actually do wish upon people such as this, but not people guilty of crimes like drug possession or other victimless crimes) — without this, nothing will change.
Korea’s instinct is to cover up, change the subject, point to “national shame” as a reason to silence everyone. Remember — in Korea, it’s not about guilt, it’s about shame — and how bad you look in public. That is more important than what was actually done. The parents dropping the charges is a case in point. Too much shame brought to the community, which overrides anything else.
As an American, with a different cultural logic, if someone raped my kid, and the law wasn’t doing anything about it, I’d take some knives and pipes and perform some home surgery on the offending teacher. Make sure he didn’t repeat offend. But that’s my American instinct. Fire and brimstone, an eye for an eye, get Tarantino on somebody who deserves it. Sure, people say “you can’t take the law into your own hands.” Yet, at the same time, if the legal system isn’t doing squat, it is tantamount to life in the Wild West. And perhaps some more people would think twice about the consequences of tormenting others if the people they abused in the past would get medieval on their former tormentors years later.
If it’s something that has wracked your psyche for two decades, surely the crime was commensurate with the mode of revenge. Given that the rule of law doesn’t seem to work here, more medieval sounds mighty good to me. Let the dogs out, get the pipes, sharpen the knives.
‘Cause nothing’s going to change unless the Korean legal system grows itself a sack real soon, and I just don’t think that’s gonna happen, except for a few show cases to appease an angry public.
11/11/2008 at 3:33 pm Permalink
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/11/117_34163.html
There’s gettin medieval for ya.
11/11/2008 at 5:52 pm Permalink
http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=sKKr5gV-9h8
3gyupsal: I found this one while looking for the clip of the old guy attacking the girl in the elevator: it was satisfying to watch the would-be victim beating the hell out of her would-be attacker.
11/11/2008 at 6:23 pm Permalink
My first question is what are the laws? Are people actually breaking laws or are there aren’t any laws?
I think this strong kind of discipline in the classroom can be a starter for reasons why Korean children are less inclined to act or do things creatively.
Even if the classroom doesn’t have this kind of severe discipline, children still learn the shame part of doing something wrong, and I think this affects a Korean person throughout their whole life.
Maybe when my boyfriend was in America he was amazed to see how relaxed his teenage Korean American cousin was about school.
Even today my boyfriend mentions that if he were to have children he would send them to America to garauntee a better school life.
For me, I kind of feel it is imperialistic of me to come into my school and criticize their way of disciplining. Were I too witness something horrific I think the only plan of action I would take would be get myself out of that environment.
This kind of topic would make a great documentary film. Foreigners and Koreans could go around from grade to grade documenting abuse in the classroom or discipline, and also get bios of certain kids.
In retrospect this kind of behavior within Korean society does not help the country look like a “friendly” place to visit.
11/11/2008 at 8:35 pm Permalink
Yeah that was pretty sweet. She seemed to be wearing some kind of martial arts uniform. I happen to be a 4th degree black belt in Taekwondo. I know that Taekwondo is not very good for fighting people, the sport style doesn’t really emphasize blocking your face or grappling with people, but damn if you are a would be rapist you should at least use some discretion in who you attack. I may have mentioned before that one of my first experiences in Korea was training in a high-school that had a live in Taekwondo team. The first day I went there the coaches made me watch them slap and paddle three girls that did something wrong, I still don’t know what it was. Any way the coach of the team slapped each girl so hard that their waists bent at what seemed to be a 90% angle. Then each girl got paddled with what looked like a cricket bat 5 times. After three blows to the butt the girls had a hard time standing. They each had trouble walking out. To those girls’ credit though, they were back in the gym the next day for 2 and half hour training periods running around and kicking. I don’t mean glorify the situation but I was both horrified and impressed at how tough these girls were.
But yeah sweet video man, I liked how the door opened and she kept on slamming that guys head on the floor, then the door opened again and he ran away and she chased him.
11/11/2008 at 9:36 pm Permalink
Check out this part from the Metropolitician’s original comment:
11/11/2008 at 10:31 pm Permalink
I just thought I should let you know that I have linked to this site on my blog.
12/11/2008 at 8:45 am Permalink
I taught at a “university” out in the country side for four years, before moving to Seoul and teaching at the college where I am now. This university in the stix was connected to a SKY school, most of the students and teachers came in from Seoul. Every six months or so in a conversation class I would have to have a conversation about sexual harassment/assault, either because of a rumour, a news story, or a student bringing up the topic. Every six months I would discuss this with a new batch of students, and every time the answers were the same.
Due to the power and status granted, it is nigh on impossible to bring charges or actions against a tenured professor in this country. In addition to the “culture” of taking students to a motel for a “private mt”, an “A” for a “lay”, or the last minute “grade appeal”, there is also a high degree of degree blackmailing, where a senior, or grad student, will be coerced into paying MORE for a degree that has been already been earned, either in money or sex.
At my old school, there was one professor infamous for misconduct. He had been employed in Seoul at this same SKY school in the English department, until the complaints against him by students, (and apparently staff as well), got him transferred out to the country side campus. He entered the English department there, but after a few years was bounced out of the department to the ESL language center directorship. This is where I met him, during the last year of his 2 year directorship. He was universally despised by staff and students alike. However, when his time came up and he was to be moved, nothing happened. No one wanted him. Not the main campus at Seoul, not the English Department at the college campus, not even one of the other country campuses. Still, he could not be fired, because he had tenure, which is granted from on High, for life. The school broke its own rules and put him in as director for two more years. No students ever came out to denounce him. If you asked any class who had him as an instructor, however, they universally described him as a bad man, a dirty man, greasy, slimy, and corrupt. In four years, I never met one student who said anything nice about him. On the occasions I had to ask senior students about his conduct, their answer was only silence. When I asked about the silence, I was always told that in Korean society, if you have no power, you cannot fight those who do, and when you lose you lose everything. Then there’s the shame brought on to the family, since your reputation is gone because no one wants to believe that this could happen.
Eventually, the slimeball was given his own university sanctioned hogwon to run in the small town near the college campus. It was here that he finally went over the line. As the gossip goes, he was coercing MA students to his private office at the children’s hogwon for, whatever, when one of them pressed charges against him. Apparently she got him on tape, and her parents had money enough to hire a lawyer and bring this to the powers that be in the university. He was quietly retired, the family quietly disappeared, the stories quietly stopped.
All nice and quiet, neat and tidy, no one knows a thing. Which only helps perpetuate the abuse.
Last week I had a student in a small reading class at my college ask about this subject, completely out of the blue. (we were discussing cooking verbs) A friend of his had just text messaged him about an assault by a professor at another university. After getting the details, helping them with the vocabulary to discuss the topic properly, and thoroughly discussing the subject from multiple viewpoints, the outcome was the same as it’s always been.
Without power, there is no chance of victory.
The system denies the powerless the chance to acquire power to fight.
The system protects those with power and status, disregarding those without.
To fight is to lose everything you wish to gain from your school, regardless if you win or lose.
The best I could do in the end was give them a brief description of the feminist movement in North America, how it took decades to get where it is today, and how it still has far to go.
Small comfort that.
It is enraging that this situation exists as it does. When compared to the student resources, groups, rights, cripes, even access to an ombudsman, at my university back home, Korean universities are, in many ways, mired in the late 19th Century. In almost ten years, however, beyond encouraging students to spark their own rights movement, to organize, to protect themselves with evidence and to fight back when they can, I still have no solutions to this very disturbing, and dangerous problem.
btw, @ 3gyupsal, I think that was some hapkido she used on that pervert in the elevator….
12/11/2008 at 12:56 pm Permalink
This is interesting and incredibly disturbing at the same time. I guess the Korean adoration of children is outweighed by the Confucian imperative that the teacher is always right, even when they’re wrong.
And as we discussed over in the other thread, what’s crazy is that corporal punishment is quite useless as a disciplinary technique, at least in the long run.
As I’ve mentioned before, I really like Korea as a whole. But when a Korean wonders why, even with a modern economy and hand-phones and the internet everywhere, their country isn’t thought of as a “first-world” kind of place by some people, you could just play them these videos.