Teacher, Teacher! Dunk the Ball, Please?
I’m generally a laid back guy when it comes to students here. I’ve only recently gotten strict in class about punishments and paying attention. As documented on my facebook, I tend to find rather creative punishments for students to piss me off.
However, my students know I’m a nice guy and I would rather be nice to them then get mad at them. They know I like to joke around and even horse around with them a bit.
However, there is ONE thing I will no tolerate. I will not let them say “YO” or “What’s Up, Man??” to me.
The majority of the time a student will greet me with a “Hello, Teacher” or “Hello, Stokes.” If I’m lucky, a one or two will call me “Sam” which is Korean short for Teacher (Sonsangneim - forgive me if I misspell it.). However, I get a few boys who will try to high five me and say “Yo, What’s up, Man!”
This makes me more than a little angry. I say this because I didn’t take it back home from random drunk white boys and I won’t let my students learn it. I very quickly and firmly make them greet me correctly, making it clear that it’s not acceptable to greet me any other way. I’ve scared more than few of them this way.
Due to TV, many Koreans believe all black men are rappers, entertainers, thugs, sports stars or some combination of the four. This drives me a little crazy, but considering where I came from I found it fairly easy to take it in stride. After all, many Koreans have barely seen black people in person much less gotten to know one. To this day, I get the most amazed (and frightened) stares from both old people and children.
The one thing I’m glad about is that I have noticed just me being here has had a positive effect on some students. Once a girl gave me a note on teacher’s day stating that she was surprised when I first arrived at the school, but was glad she found I was a good person and was glad she got to talk to me.
Rock on for small victories.