It's hard enough to be a teacher -- trying to figure out "who started it" is always a tricky thing. Throw in a language difference and trying to figure out what the heck happened becomes a real headache.
Here in Korea, one of the tactics I've found works surprisingly well is "Rock Scissors Paper" (a.k.a. Ro-Sham-Bo, Jan-ken-Po, etc). As a kid, I remember playing RSP on bus trips to kill time, but it was never really a serious thing. Korean students, though, seem to have a lot of respect for it.
This morning, for example, I had two kindergarten students vying for the same position in line. Rather than try to figure out if one was returning to a "reservation" or merely cutting, I relegated the dispute to the RSP Arbitration Court. Three shakes of two hands later, one student heads to the back of the line -- all parties satisfied.
In the afternooon, there was a question as to who in the class would be the lucky recipient of the potato chip bag surprise. With RSP, all I had to say was, "OK, guys. 가위, 바위, 보." (Ga-we, ba-we, bo.) Using the tournament rules (yes, there are tournament rules), we had ourselves a winner within a few minutes.
The only problem with RSP is when someone tries to appeal after an unofficial, mediative RSP decision. (Mediative meaning they try to resolve it themselves without my supervision.) Then I have to question the individuals and determine its validity. If it really was unfair, they try again.
If it was valid and the person was just trying to be sneaky, I bonk the little fox on the head with a knuckle move on. Serves 'em right for dishonesty....
Looking back, I wonder why RSP Dispute Resolution never caught on in my school -- it certainly wasn't because it was hard to implement. I guess it's because we were always so insistent on proper justice we never wanted the matter decided by something so ... well ... arbitrary.
Do you suppose this is a cultural thing, or just a random way my hagwon differs from my old elementary school?
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i THINK it's a cultural thing. i THINK being a winner or being better have more values rather than proper justice. i can't exactly explain what i want to tell here. like you said the whole things're very arbitrary concept.
btw, your posts make me remember of what little pieces i remember of my childhood. and of cuz this particular post made me think about countless "가위, 바위, 보" performed in my childhood which i don't remember any. sad....
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