“The Most Frustrating Thing About Teaching: Parents”
Casey, who teaches English in South Korea and runs the blog It’s Always Sunny In South Korea,wrote a great article yesterday titled The Most Frustrating Thing About Teaching.
She describes some of the horrible circumstances that parents have put both her and their own children in. Here’s an excerpt:
His mother told the co-teacher that her son really likes me, but that she’s worried because he sees me as his friend, not his teacher. She also said that he has an older brother at home and that they play very rough together and fight, so she is worried that he is too wild for me and that I can’t handle him.
Then she said that she wants me to “scare” him into listening because he doesn’t behave and needs discipline.
I was furious. Of course I flat out refused to do that. Scare him? How can this woman even be serious? This is her son she’s talking about. Why would you ever want anyone, let alone his teacher, who is still practically a stranger, to deliberately threaten and scare him? Why would anyone want to do that to a five-year-old child? (Of course, I do know the potential answers to that but it still seems incomprehensible to me.)
You guys should definitely check out the complete post and leave a comment telling her what a great job she is doing in such a terrible situation.
As far as my own commentary on this goes, I haven’t actually experienced it first hand with my own students’ parents. The maltreatment I see usually comes from the Chinese assistants.
I do know my kids well enough to be able to guess what kind of parents they have. Being extremely over-protective is one of the traits I suspect is most common, which is preferrable to asking a stranger to scare and discipline your child. Jesus Christ.
I have a theory that the over-protectiveness when it comes to Chinese parents is not out of true genuine concern for their children but rather a side-effect of the one-child policy. That is a mere opinion though and I can’t back it up with any empirical verification.
Anyway, head over to It’s Always Sunny In South Korea and give Casey some support.
