Hitting sticks and thumb wars

As an Asian-taught private educator, my instincts are distinctly Korean. Perhaps then, better off I not teach in my motherland, with its lawsuit-prevent cardinal rule: no touching.

Here, the local teachers carry bamboo hitting-sticks, like some satire on 1950s discipline. Because of my whiteness I’m only permitted the kids’ stuff of authoritative violence: forehead flick and head cuffs.

Not that I really want to hit them. And unlike the parents, my Korean co-teachers swear they don’t smack the kids with the bamboo sticks. But the outdated threat still works wonders.

It didn’t take them long to figure out Teacher Russ isn’t very scary. Now when I reach in for a head-flick they toss both arms up in a protective X and giggle profusely. They stick out limbs as invitations offered to friendlier forms of physical battle: arm wrestles and thumb wars.

Sometimes I take on two at a time with both hands as they wait in line for the bell to ring. And as they rush out the door screaming in Korean I imagine them to say: Don’t mess with Teacher Russ. He’ll totally kick your ass in a thumb war.