I just saw one of my 2nd grade students, who is a difficult student to deal with, getting beat in the main teachers' office. I know my students get beat, and sometimes I have used physical punishment on them myself, but I have never actually seen it done to this extent. The student came into the office towards the end of the lunch period, greeted the teacher, the teacher went to brush her teeth and asked the student to go retrieve 2 large wooden beating sticks (from the discipline office?), and then she started the beating. She had the student bend over in the yoga position "downward dog" and then beat him on the butt 30 times with a 1.5" diameter wooden stick. Then she had the student kneel on a chair and she beat the bottoms of his feet with the same stick 20 times. Then the teacher said "thank you" to the student, he took the beating sticks, and left.
One of the things that most amazed me was the amount of respect the student gave the teacher. Whenever I have to discipline my students, they get very very pissed off. My most common punishment is making the trouble-makers stand with their nose in the back corner as a sort of time out. They hate this. They swear at me in Korean under their breath, they scowl, they slap the top of their desk, etc. If I asked them to come to my desk during lunch so I could beat them, there is no way they would show up. It has been very frustrating not being taken seriously as a teacher here. How am I supposed to teach if the students don't think I have any authority over them? Yes, I would like to be seen as their friend, but only after they accept that I am their teacher and I do have authority.
It is sad that a country as developed (at least economically, if not socially) as Korea still so prevalently uses a system of physical punishment.
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