Second Grade Smackdown

Today, I walked into my second grade phonics class and found a kid, Alex, sobbing uncontrollably. Why was Alex sobbing? He had just been hit in the face with a pair of nunchucks. Yes, you read that right: Alex got nunchucked – in the face – at his English academy.

When I found Alex, he was sobbing too much to speak to me. So, I had no idea why he was crying. I asked the other kids but, no one would even look at me, let alone answer me. So, I took Alex to the office staff to see if they could figure out what was wrong with him. Since he’s young, he tends to lose his ability to speak English when he’s upset.

Back in the classroom, the remaining students and I started our lesson. Once again, no one would own up to knowing why Alex was so upset. Then, an administrator came and called two students out. When one student, Daniel, got up wearing his hapkido uniform with a pair of nunchucks on his belt, I knew.

Apparently, Daniel had come straight from hapkido class and didn’t drop off his stuff at home. So, he had the nunchucks with him. Also, it seems that Daniel’s hapkido academy is run by idiots. Instead of giving Daniel rubber foam nunchucks for children studying martial arts, they gave him a pair of real, metal nunchucks.

It turns that the other boys in the room had been playing with the nunchucks before class and Alex got hit by one kid who was wildly flailing his arm with the nunchucks in his hand. It’s not exactly a surprise that children and weapons turned out to be a bad combination.

Later, Alex came back to class but, he was still whimpering and clutching his face. He ended up leaving to go to the doctor to get checked out. At the end of the day, I asked the office staff if Alex was ok. They said he was fine, just in pain. It had to be a pretty dramatic day for a kid too. So, some of his tears were probably from the shock of being nunchucked in English class.

So, it looks like I’m going to have to start patting down my students before the come to class. Who knew that teaching middle and upper middle class Korean kids could be so dangerous?

These are pretty similar to Daniel's nunchucks.