Corporal Punishment a cultural surprise for recent college grads who find themselves teaching in far away places.

Written by: Liz Reyna

Edited by: Maggie Reed

Standing in the front of the room, Chris Smith watches his students exercise. This is what he sees:

Little “Soda,” who proudly chose his own American name despite his teachers’ many objections, is performing a set of 50 push-ups—like a shaky suspension bridge on a windy day—though, it's the best his scrawny arms can do.

Another child, seated across from Soda shifts his weight while sitting in his invisible chair while he performs wall-sits, as he whines, for “three-whole-minutes!”

Smith with some of his students in a South Korean Classroom

Smith isn’t a physical education teacher and nor are his students exercising. They are being punished, and as Smith says, these exercises are the best choices to use from a whole list of punishments provided.

Smith is an American English as a Second Language teacher working at a school called BCM in Seoul, South Korea.

Smith grew up in Lansing, Mich. and received his Bachelor’s Degree in Classical Studies from Michigan State University. He has been teaching elementary students for more than a year now, and said he recognizes that although difficult to understand for many outsiders, corporal punishment in schools is just an alternative viewpoint for some.

“It’s really shocking at first, but after a while teaching you kind of get used to it,” Smith said.

"My colleagues and I see it as kind of a necessary evil—we don’t like to do it,
but according to the culture, it has to be done.”

According to the World Corporal Punishment Research website, 29 U.S. states including Mich. have abolished the practice, though corporal punishment is still common in some parts of the South.

In today's economy, more and more new college graduates are pursuing post-grad work with programs like Teach for America and Teach English as a Foreign Language, though what they are learning in college is not preparing them for the cultural differences that this entails.

At his school in South Korea, Smith himself doesn’t issue the punishments. He said usually a head teacher, as they call him or her, resides in the room until a child acts out. The head teacher then issues the punishment.

A head teacher in South Korea Administering Corporal Punishment on a High School Student

Smith said the punishments are different depending on the schools at which one teaches. In private schools, such as the one Smith worked at, the punishments are less severe. The punishments, he said, range from standing in a corner with one’s hands above their heads, to leg squats, wall-sits and push-ups.

In public schools, Smith said he heard stories from colleagues that the punishments are more severe.

This March, Smith transfered from teaching in a private school to a public school.

Smith and colleagues had no preparation entering a school that practices corporal punishment.

“It was kind of a crash course in teaching, you just had to feel it out,” Smith said. “You just stop feeling bad. After a while you think maybe they just deserve it.”

Smith added that he could never hit a child, nor would he want to, though he thinks exercising as a form of discipline is effective.

“It’s funny in an odd way to see a whole class of students exercising,” Smith said. “But then again, I also think everyone should get their ass kicked once in their life as a life lesson. It just depends on who does it and when.”

With a mini-triathlon forming nearly every day before his very eyes in his classroom, Smith said he has an idea of why such discipline has disappeared in the U.S. The punishment reminds students of a natural hierarchy, Smith said.

“I think the practice has disappeared in the United States because people have lost a sense of respect for their elders as they have in other countries,” Smith said.

He said he is not an advocate for or against this exercise-discipline practice, he just acknowledges that it is different. For recent graduates who find themselves teaching in a culture that condones the practice of corporal punishment however, it is bound to be jarring.

Jenni Clark, a Grand Valley State University alumna and English elementary education teacher, is far from home and equally as far from her comfort zone. Clark lives in Waianae, Hawaii— 4,000 miles away from GVSU where she is a nanny. But no matter what the location, Clark said, the issue of corporal punishment is still relevant, even in the U.S.

“Let me paint a picture of Waianae as I see it," Clark said. "It's not uncommon for families to live in one tiny house, with immediate, parents, grandparents, cousins, etc. People live on the beach because they can't afford housing. These are at the very bottom of the low-income category,”

Clark went on to say that the fighting has become ingrained in Waianae life. “Fighting is common and many of these kids grow up knowing how to fight, from seeing it and being thrown into situations where you need to know how to fight.

“Coming from where I grew up, these lifestyles not only sadden me, they make me question why things are like this?” Clark added.

Clark’s cousin works at Waianae High School. Waianae High School is a “Title One” school, meaning more than 40 percent of students come from low-income families. According the U.S. Census Bureau, a low-income family means an individual whose family's taxable income for the preceding year did not exceed 150 percent of the poverty level amount.

As a Title One school, Waianae High receives federal funding. Clark says because of this fact, the school has less educational programs or preventative measures in order to teach students to stop fighting.

“These kids aren't your ... polo and chinos, new car on their 16th birthday type,” she said. There are riots every few months, she said, and often involving entire families, not just students. What place does corporal punishment have in the classroom? Clark often asks herself this question when hearing her colleagues joke about corporal punishment.

“A teacher has absolutely no right to put his or her hands on a student, especially in an aggressive or violent way,” said Clark. “Yes, sometimes a smack with a ruler is all it takes to get someone to pay attention and shape up, but there are much more effective ways to control your classroom.”

Clark said her time at the GVSU College of Education taught her that hitting a student was never an alternative. At GVSU, Clark learned many “little tricks and techniques” to control her classroom without resorting to physical or verbal assault.

“As a teacher, I've been told to just keep my hands off and keep myself safe,” Clark said.

But even with the skills of experiencing the dynamics of many classrooms in college, Clark said college can never prepare someone for teaching in the real world.

“I feel like Grand Valley could have at least spent a small chunk of time educating us teachers-to-be on the matter [corporal punishment] and given us some basic knowledge and history on the subject in the case we do move to a school where corporal punishment is not only allowed but enforced,” Clark said. Her own background did little to help her overcome cultural barriers, she said, and cultures that accept corporal punishment.

Sean Duffie, GVSU Spanish and Social Studies Secondary Education Major, has yet to experience teaching outside of the university. Despite this, however, Duffie said he believes he has learned for himself, much about this practice. Duffie said he would like to teach that corporal punishment does not work in modern American culture.

“[We] Americans… are a very hands-to-ourselves nation,” Duffie said. “To accept corporal punishment would be to accept that kind of physical exchange as a mainstream thing, something to which American culture doesn't seem apt to find acceptable any soon.”

Duffie said that corporal punishment cannot be viewed as right or wrong, but as a difference between cultures. He said for an American, South Korean corporal punishment might seem harsh, whereas in Korean culture, it may not be that way. Whether Duffie decides to work out of the country is still uncertain. However, he said he believes that GVSU education has taught him either way, to be goal-oriented and to teach future students to be that way, without corporal punishment.

“For me, it would be a very hard transition [teaching in country with corporal punishment] ,” Duffie said. ”I don't know if I could come to accept corporal punishment as a classroom practice. But ultimately, I'm going to become a teacher to change lives, not social norms.”