Freshmen Year: Sleeping Drinking Class Skipping Year

I think that Korean kids should take a gap year after high school. It's true their last year of high school is really hard and most study at school until late at night while sleeping just four or five hours. 

Many students fail their classes or just don't do well their first year of college. In the US and I think most western countries students who fail are asked to not return the next year or to repeat the year in some countries like the UK. 

I want to write about a group of Freshmen students I taught. One class was at 9:30 am which is pretty early for Korean college students especially Freshmen. It's the first class of the day. I taught about twelve of them, half boys and girls. None of them did a good job. 

The girls did a little better than the boys. They came and went as a group, late everyday, even final test day. I don't think they came on time even once. They were usually about 20-30 minutes late for a 50 minute class. They may have even been over 40 minutes late a few times. They all sat in front. One day when they came in late they all sat down and one looked at me with a cute look. It seemed like she was in a good mood but was afraid I was mad. 

The boys did much worse. I don't think they ever held their head up during class. There were 5-6 of them and they sat in the very last row sleeping EVERY SINGLE DAY. They were late or absent regularly. 

Always went around in a group like the girls. One day they said they missed class because they had to get a shot. I don't think they were being honest. The shot was likely given later in the day, not during class time. About 2-3 of them didn't show up for the final exam. After that year they all left. I know some went to military service. 

After two years three of the boys returned and again spent a semester sleeping through my class. I looked and it was the same everyday. Always in the back row. Always with their arms folded into a pillow and their heads down on their desks. 

They were late sometimes, even on the day of the final test. One of them made the pathetic excuse that they were late because of the bus. I was a little mad because all students came on time and I had already finished giving the test instructions before they came. 

There was one student who lived in the US for a year and had a good English level. I gave him an A his freshmen year though now I wish I hadn't. He never did anything during class but had good test scores. His second year after military service there were too many As in his class. I did what I always did when that happened - I looked at the students attendance and attitudes and lowered some grades to B+. His was one of them. He was so upset that he didn't talk to me at the start of the next semester. 

Later we argued about it and he said that he had been sick. 

Well, he was sick all semester? And his friends sick too?