Boys and Girls: The Freshman Dilemma

In what is one of the oddities of teaching freshmen students here at CNU, I've found that it is practically impossible to get students of opposite genders to interact during classroom activities. It is one of the cultural differences between Korea and the west that I find hard to get my head around. It defies all the stereo-types about university life that I've ever encountered. I understand that culture and social norms define this issue, but it still is astonishing to me at the extent that the lack of interaction plays out among freshman students.

I give, as an example, the class I taught yesterday afternoon. The unit we are covering n class this week is about making, accepting, and declining invitations and appointments. The activity was for students to partially fill out a weekly schedule, then get up and ask other students to do things. The other students are to accept or decline according to their schedule. Seems simple enough, eh? After explaining that this was only an exercise, and that no one was under any obligation to actually keep the appointments (that was an issue in a class last year which needed to be addressed), I had the students get up and mingle.

Much to my amazement, the class immediately divided by gender with an empty, 5 foot wide slash down the center of the room. This center divide seemed like a static field that would turn any student that entered it into an over-cooked chicken mcnugget. In an effort to get some sort of interaction, I cajoled, threatened, teased, and basically did everything short of whackin'em with a big stick to get these kids to cross the great divide. Finally, since most of the students were hugging the walls like it was some middle school dance, I told them all to move into the center of the room. Feeling migty proud of my initiative and quick thinking, as the students shuffled away from the walls, I went to check some things on the attendance sheet.

While I did notice that a few brave souls had crossed the barrier without getting fried to a crisp (they got extra credit!!), I noticed an amazing phenomenon. The students had moved, but so had the divide. Now, instead of running the length of the classroom, this strange force field was now running the width of the classroom. I'm sure that some of the students in that class think that I'm desperately brain damaged because I could only stand there with my mouth hanging open making inarticulate sounds while my brain tried to comprehend this anamoly.

Fortunately for me, I glanced at my watch just before my head exploded and realized that the class was over.