I still feel a little rattled from what I saw this morning. I've seen my fair share of drunken brawls in my time and been able to shrug off the violence. Usually one or both guys are asking for it, or too obliterated to realize that they're asking for it. Guys puff up their chests, push each other around, maybe wrestle a little bit and then everything gets broken up. No big deal. Today I was helping my co-teacher edit a title for a technical paper. We settled on "The study of methods to improve middle school vocabulary ability through reading comprehension". As my pen finished writing down the longest title ever put on paper the muffled background of the Korean language that I've learned to ignore reached a whole new volume. I could hear screaming and coughing as my co and I turned to see an extremely angry Korean man at the other end of the cubicle farm being pulled off of someone and dragged into the hall by the gym teacher. From where I sit now I could see the victim's typical Korean bob rise from the floor. At first I thought it was an angry husband raging out on his wife but once I got closer I realized that it was a student. My only guess is that this was her father.
Students are often brought into the office for discipline. They make them stare at the wall for half a day, write sentences thousands of times on graph paper, etc. My detective skills lead me to believe that she was being punished for some trivial classroom disobedience and her father was called. I have no idea what has really gone down due to the language barrier and I don't feel like I have the right to pry. My co-teacher called him a troublemaker. I am not an angry person and I don't like violence but when I saw that this guy was choking out a little girl I was ready to destroy his little Korean existence.
Not cool.
On a lighter note I'm done with classes for the week so I'm thinking I will again try to get ahead on my lessons. There is no class next week either but I'm not sure whether or not they will make me come in. After that it's back to a full load. The next blog should have pictures from my hiking experience.
Teacher Tony
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2 comments:
The way other cultures treat their children and women always amazes me. Shameful doesn't begin to describe it. Hope you have some free time to explore more of your surroundings while classes are out next week. We had about 4 inches of snow yesterday. It's supposed to be spring.... Should be in the 50's for the next week, hopefully that'll help dry out the mud in the driveway. Grandma K comes home from Italy tomorrow, sounds like she had a great time. She and Chuck arrive here the 14th for graduation. Meredith was accepted to Pacific U. (did I tell you that?). We'll know more about the music scholarship soon. She had a solo in their last school concert (Vivaldi) and did a good job - given that she hates solo's!! She bolted off the stage so fast she didn't even wait for her flowers! Have a good weekend, love you much. Auntie G
Pacific, nice!
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