What about this one ?
to the boss:
Mate, you seem like a decent sort most of the time and I don’t really want to get into a public “I’m right and you’re wrong” spat with you. But criticism is useless if you don’t provide alternatives and “find a way” is not an alternative.
To answer a selected few of your points:
7yr olds: I don’t teach 'em, precisely because I’m not able to deal with 'em. I know kindy teachers who have fled high school classes because they can’t deal with the attitudes. Horses for courses.
Finding a way: like I said, 7 foreign teachers and the TW establishment all stumped. This was a problem across the board with the seniors (the original poster was having trouble with juniors, never a problem there for me) at that school. Nobody was able to find a way, and telling me to find a way - as if I have some unique disability - is just going to get my back up.
Finding a way(more): More recently I’ve been teaching the big groups of challenged kids, and been able to find ways without being a brutal teacher. You can always find a way if your students will give you a chance.
Get fired in my own country: Wouldn’t have the problem in my own country. Do kids get away with turning their backs on their teachers and talking amongst theirselves in NZ?
How many would be looking for you other than to give you a hiding? Well, I’ve had emails from a few of them, they gave me a birthday party, and when I went back there to visit friends a while back news spread pretty rapidly and they came looking for me to say hi.
Parents: If the parents care about their kids education then they are welcome to come and talk to me - and then talk to their kids - but they don’t. I sat on my arse at a parent’s day waiting for someone to show an interest, and read with disbelief the comments on report cards asking me to discipline their kids for (relatively minor) lapses in concentration. The kids are like they are because of the parents, not because I’m brutal.
Now, if you want to give me your suggestions for how to win over a bunch of bored disinterested teenagers who have been resisting all efforts from all sides for several months then that might be worth reading. But please spare me the being wrong for doing something that worked.
Finally, thanks for the reasonable comments/tone and the almost smiley in your second to last posting. Honestly speaking you may be right, but I still don’t think anyone could have done anything more effective in the same situation.
Really finally - knee jerk reactions? I thought your argument was against such things.
to epicurean:
You seem to be making a few assumptions about how I teach. Come spend some time with me in a classroom before telling me what I’m doing wrong, or that I lack imagination.
One problem class that stumps everyone, and many successful classes despite the difficulties listed, does not equate with your assessment of the cause of the problem.
Saying that, the advice is good.
to everyone else:
Ok, rant over. I will try to avoid posting here again.
A 13yr old kid launched a basketball at me yesterday during a lesson activity. I think it was aimed for my head, but I dodged it and it grazed off my shoulder and hit the wall behind me.
Some of the kids laughed, nervously I think. Others looked shocked. I was beyond anger…more like stunned disbelief. I stopped the lesson and asked the kid “Would you have done that to one of your Chinese teachers?” He didn’t have to think too hard on that one. “No.” “Alright. So why did you do that to me?” What ensued was a discussion involving the entire class on the differences in their behavior toward Chinese vs. Foreign teachers. At one point the director poked her head into the classroom (she heard the crash of the ball) to see if all was well, but I told her things were cool and we could work it out amongst ourselves. And we did.
This is not the first time I’ve stopped a lesson with these kids to discuss reasons behind certain behaviors. We’ve talked about why they fall asleep in class, why they’re bored to tears with some of the material (thus acting up), and most importantly, why learning English is somewhere near the bottom of their list of priorities. One of the best days I ever had with them was when I posed this question: “If you could do anything you wanted to do right now, what would you do?” Sleep, read a book, watch tv, hang with my friends, play some b-ball; the answers were flying around the room, and the frustrations of a 12hr ‘work’ day were being vented. I’ve never had a more alert, attentive class.
These kids have it tough. I wouldn’t want to spend even one day in their shoes. I try to remember that, when things get out of hand and I’m ready to blow a gasket. Talking to them gets me a lot farther then shouting at them does.
Just my thoughts,
Zen
To tmwc:
You are right about needing to give suggestions about how to deal with this kind of thing. I find, regardless of it being kindy or high school classes, each and every class has it’s own style or personality. This makes it neccessary to find a different method for each class, I think you were also trying to make this point. Although I cannot accept your method, it is good to see that you were thinking outside the box. Obviously standing in the rain was not your ONLY way of getting that classes attention but it may have been the main factor that drew their attention to the problem, but could not possibly have been the only factor causing change.
May I ask what else you did?
If it was only standing in the rain you are very lucky to have not been branded the worst teacher on the planet. So, what else did you do?
I always find any common ground with my students even if I have to find a new interest to do it. Apart from that I never had worry to much about how to keep their attention because I usually had self policing systems in place.
gtg
Jeez, but you guys have a tough job! I can hardly imagine any harder way to make a living. I wouldn’t do it for any amount of money
I used to teach in a government senior high, kindy, and cram school, all at the same time.
Hours like this.
8-8:45am - Senior High
9 - 11:30am Kindy
1 - 3:50pm Senior High
4 - 5pm Kindy
7 - 9pm Cram school adults free talking
Friday Night 9:30pm - 10:30pm Private class
Saturday Morning - Private classes.
Wednesday 6pm - 7pm - Private class.
Now, that was a nightmare. The classes were fine but the hours I put myself through were just plain stupid.
Spot on Boss. Each class has it’s own personality.
Brian
Because when the spotty-faced girl who refuses to participate starts graffiti-ing the desk (bitching about corn soup!) in english, you know that in a week or two more she’ll be talking to you. And she was.
Because the fat kid that his classmates call (jeeringly) ‘sexy boy’ discovered that here was something he could do well, and started volunteering answers.
Because I have letters from sullen teens thanking me for making them believe in themselves.
Because in this screwed-up system these kids are not taught to trust their own abilities, and the feeling you get when a student swaggers away from a recital competition and gives you a thumbs-up is close to unbeatable.
Because when you succeed in winning them over you feel like you’ve earned your money, and while it’s nice to get paid for nothing occasionally I personally want to feel good about myself.
Oh, and because when we’re not struggling with the bad boys we sometimes find ourselves alone in a room with 45 girls aged eighteen. Did someone say flirtatious?
Ooh, a spanking, a spanking!
Pent up rage manifesting itself as open defiance of the moron at the front.
I want to be like teacher!
Will this hat keep the rain off?
Damn it, I guess I should have understood. Seeing the pony tail puts everything into perspective. 
I actually like teaching kindergarten because you are doing something useful. Whether or nor the parents just want to offload their kids, whether or not everyone thinks you’re just an overpaid pub who can’t get a job at “home”, the kids come in speaking no English, and leave speaking good English. That is worth doing IMHO.
[Christ! Guess what I was thinking about on a Friday evening ! “overpaid bum”, of course…!]
Would this school, um, have a ‘mountain’ in its name by any chance?
Brian
Tmwc wrote:
Would this school, um, have a ‘mountain’ in its name by any chance?
Nope. No more guesses pls, to protect the innocent. No matter how much one may bitch about some aspect of a school, or one particular incident, that doesn’t mean that the school is worthy of having it’s name dragged through the mud on the internet. (IACC excepted.)
I just had a PM chat with somone who seemed to have got the wrong end of the stick about me, because I don’t spend my time here chatting about what a great day I’m having.
Bacl to the Boss’s question of a while back about discipline, I see two distinct discipline issues that require very different solutions:
One is ‘boisterous’ behaviour, ie your super-smart juniors climbing the walls because they’ve been in school all day.
The other is negative attitude, ie student’s who can’t be bothered and may or may not get boisterous as a result.
Suggestions on either one anybody?
I think boisterousness is like gushing water. It can be bottled and shelved, used to propel a turbine of activity, played in to a certain extent, and can even massage your shoulders during a stressful time. It just needs to be harnessed creatively and firmly, by a teacher who isn’t threatened by it.
“Indulge” is a good word to use here. I think that a good teacher needs to be almost pavlovian in his use of indulging his students’ need for boisterousness as a reinforcement. He must do so VERY judiciously, if he doesn’t want to be (and feel) walked on. The Japanese would call this judicious indulgence “amae”, and Japanese psychologists like Takeo Doi have written about how indulging someone else’s desire for free expression is often used in human relationships as a reward, and a source of power and control for the indulger. Easily put into words. Not easily put into practice.
I think a bad attitude is harder to combat. If a student is dead set against learning English, doesn’t like foreigners, doesn’t like school, or what have you, then it’s a case of you can take a horse to water…
I’ve had partial success harnessing boisterous energy. I’ve dealt with kids with bad attitudes by mostly pretending I don’t notice the negative vibes they’re giving off. For example, I was at one point asked (read: ordered) to be the moderator (read: the whole show) of my school’s “Living English Club”. I came up with an art project where kids had to pick up cut out pictures from newspapers and magazines, paste them onto cardboard sheets, and write an English story about their picture. One kid did his halfway, then folded it in thirds jadedly, and lay down on his desk. I came around, affected a surprised and happy air, and said to him, “Hey look, this guy made a triptych!” I then went on to write the word on the board and teach the class what a triptych is. Of course that wasn’t the kid’s intention at all. I knew that. So did everybody. I was just trying to A) on the surface, appear supportive and positive, and B) underneath it all, show this kid that “f*** it all” is not an answer in my class. But my response really only built up more resentment, I think.
It seems to me there are better ways to deal with bad attitudes than my idealistic rose-colored spectacles approach, but I haven’t been successful with any of them.