As a teacher I am here to confirm all that you suspect [1]. I love giving tests. When I indicate the looming burden of homework to my students and I hear them groan it is like music unto my ears.

Teaching with true intent to discipline and educate, particularly teenage students, is an act of sadomasochism.

#1
Every study hall, extra homework assignment, or quiz is an act of sadism. On the surface my job appears to be to teach English but the true aim of the hagwon system in Korea is to deprive the current generation of the joys of youth. By meeting the responsibilities of my position I am swallowing up the free time of children, I am weighing them down with books, worksheets, and handouts; I am crushing their tiny vertebrae and smothering the spark of life from their eyes.


Conversely, each study hall, extra homework assignment, quiz, worksheet, and handout is an act of masochism, for I and I alone shall grade them. Giving study hall leads to sullen faces, weeping, and whining. The creation of homework and quizzes often forces me to either take grading home with me or go into work 1-2 hours early in order to have everything ready before the day begins because I only have 5 minutes between each class (and, according to our employee handbook, "an extended 10-minute break for dinner" [emphasis mine]).


In spite of the fact that doing my job as I see fit requires me to put in extra hours I find joy in it. I am not pleased that I contribute to putting obstacles in between children and their free time and as a compromise I put a great deal of effort into making class interesting and creating fun homework. I turn my students into ray guns, sneak up on them when they are trying to slip out of the classroom undetected, and I genuinely care about their well-being.


Parenting must be like this. Attempting to influence children to become educated, good adults is filled with a kind of pleasure that is only possible through the pain of the process.

#2
My co-worker created a game for a story booklet that I just finished working through with a subset of students. Once you finish the story and answer all the questions and fill out all the activities you are rewarded with a little board game in the back with a theme based on the story. The kids were very eager to play this (bonus: the die I have is a 6 inch foam cube they abuse). What could be more thrilling than a board game in class! Very little until you realize that the other teacher made 20% of the spaces on the board return you to the start of the game. In addition all the bonus squares you land on that let your piece move forward an extra space or two always land you on a space that makes you start back at the beginning of the board. My students are pretty smart so it did not take them long to catch on to this but for those first few turns when they would land on "Walk Tailspin, move forward two spaces" they would get very excited, the taste of victory on their lips, before realizing that Doris had stolen their science experiment and they had to start over.


It is delightful to escape planning a lesson or forcing little boys to stay on task but, like any game that fails to progress, it quickly becomes painful to watch.


[1] With at least one exception: I would not describe myself as one who "likes" children. I do not like looking at pictures of babies. I practice facial expressions intended to paralyze small children mid-misbehavior. I do not fall apart or lose my ability to properly pronounce words in their presence. Children are proto-people deserving of the majority of our investment in terms of both time and tax dollars. Their humanity should be respected and nurtured, their need for structure met, and their dependent state addressed. They can be a great deal of fun and observing them is fascinating when it is not giving me a headache.