When to give up on a class? =(

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

Hey guys,

I’m a new teacher in Taiwan, and I’m having issues with one of my classes.
The school I’m teaching at is a fairly prestigious private junior high/high school. I’m teaching for an intensive English program at the school, and all of my classes are going great… except for one. It’s a class of about 30 7th graders, with English levels varying from very low to high intermediate. My problem is that this class doesn’t want to do anything, regardless of the activity. They talk, argue, and fight (sometimes physically) during lessons, games, songs, work time, anything I throw at them.

I would think there was something wrong with the way I’m teaching, except that I teach 12 other classes at the school (including four other 7th grade classes) and NONE of them are nearly as bad as this class. When I asked other teachers for advice, I was told that this class was the “rich parents who bribed the school” class. Basically, because this school is prestigious, they accept a certain number of students every year who don’t actually meet the entrance requirements but whose parents gift an extraordinary amount of money (rumor puts it around 300,000NTD) so that their child can get a reputable school on their resume. The school then throws these students together into a class and lets them do whatever. I’ve been specifically instructed by other teachers (Taiwanese and foreign) to not actually teach this class. Just make sure they don’t kill each other, pass them with a 60, and call it good. The homeroom teacher herself calls them the “F Ｃlass,” and told me not even to bother with the jiaoguan or discipline and to just try and think about them less. To make things even better, the students all seem aware of this and take a weird sort of pride in being the stupid, rich class.

I could go on for a while about how bad these students are and how the school fails to discipline them, but my question to the forum: Is it ever okay just to give up on a class? I don’t want to stress and ruin my year because of these little shits, but I’m a real teacher and I’m not really comfortable with just handing out a worksheet and babysitting. I’m certified in the US, got my masters in teaching, and taught in some ROUGH US schools before I came here. Also, some of my other classes are doing great work so I know that these kids are capable of the same thing. Honestly, I think if the school would just DISCIPLINE these kids it would be fine, but the way things are going now I’m at my wits end with this group.

And thoughts are helpful. Thanks for reading the rant at the end of my long work day. :wink:

2

I’d say you are f**** in terms of actually getting them to participate in a normal way.

But maybe you could give them some stories about rich men who did noble things, learned humility etc just on the off chance that they’ll be less assisine in the future.

Maybe you could also show them some stories about people who lived in extreme poverty or misfortune to suggest some humility.

:2cents:

3

My advice is to place one of those roadside manikins in your seat, you know, the ones that look like westerners with the mechanical arms that wave up and down, and sneak off to starbucks or 85 degrees for an hour.

4

Bonus points if it is dressed like a cop as that might help with discipline.

5

The school can’t and won’t discipline them. Their parents have purchased a free ride for them and that’s all there is to it. How can the school respond to a parent when he complains about his child’s complaints of being disciplined, or expected to learn, when he tells them that he’s paid twice the normal tuition for his kid and he doesn’t want any trouble?

In a normal situation, I’d say that it’s never okay to just give up on a class, but this isn’t normal. I too have a MA teaching and did my time with the worst kids here at home. None of my training prepared me for dealing with kids whose parents could simply buy them a grade from an excellent school. I had a difficult time in Taiwan at times because I was a real teacher. I was too professional to function well in the system there.

But you will just have to let this go if you want to get by in Taiwan. Hell, even these kids’ own parents have written them off. And the kids, unlike the other kids in the school, are very unlikely to ever have to work in a real sense. They’ll grow up and daddy will gift them with a highly paid management position in is company and he’ll never actually be responsible for anything.

Consider this a kind of on the job training for dealing with a new set of diverse students with different needs than most other students. This is simply the way the system works in these elite schools. Good luck to you.

6

Soul killing stuff. Housecat, is this why you left Taiwan?

7

Great chance to do the “TPRs or textbook” thing.
Those who want to participate in stories may do so.
Those who do not complete voluminous packets of worksheets in silence for the period.
I fact. everyone ends up getting CI because they cannot hep but listen, and active participation in the CI gets them off worksheet patrol.

8

[quote=“ironlady”]Great chance to do the “TPRs or textbook” thing.
Those who want to participate in stories may do so.
Those who do not complete voluminous packets of worksheets in silence for the period.
I fact. everyone ends up getting CI because they cannot hep but listen, and active participation in the CI gets them off worksheet patrol.[/quote]

You are so sneaky. :notworthy: But that sounds like a great idea as the OP would be able to keep her dignity while genuinely doing her best for the class.

9

I find this sort of thing indescribably sad. So what if daddy has money? Parents who would do this to their kids are no better than the scum who infest the council estates in darkest Wigan. In fact they’re 10x worse, because they ought to know better and have the resources to do better. The school is also doing them a disservice by assuming they’re irredeemable idiots. Some of them might be, but I’m sure a good fraction of them are not. I think, for your own peace of mind, it’s better not to give up completely. Just because you live in the land of chabuduo doesn’t mean you have to lower your own standards to match those of this “prestigious” school.

Ironlady’s suggestion seems a good start. It might be worth giving them a bit of a lecture on real-world economics, viz., that daddy will not always necessarily be rich, especially since daddy is quite obviously a fuckwit and has no doubt acquired his money by pure luck and/or skulduggery (it might be best not to actually spell out that part, though). Then give them the aforementioned lesson choice.

Otherwise, can you separate out the students who genuinely aren’t worth your time, send them as far as possible to the back of the room, and hold a chairs-in-a-circle tutorial session with those who (under other circumstances) might pay attention? Let them self-select; if the idiots at the back choose to behave, they can join the circle of human beings next time. Do whatever is necessary to deflect psychological warfare from the idiots designed to bring normal people into their circle. Or, have you tried treating them like the kids in the ‘bad’ schools? It seems to me there’s no actual difference here, except that their families have money. Just my :2cents: But I’m not a teacher, so take that for whatever little it’s worth.

10

No. But I can completely relate to the “soul killing” frustration. There really is little that can be done. IL’s idea is excellent, if the teacher can get away with it. I’m not sure I could pull it off, but I be IL could.

11

Make sure there is a key for the worksheets, so they have to correct their own work. No sense piling on to the OP’s workload!

12

Hey guys, thanks for your responses!

Story Time:
So the reason for my post is because of what happened today in class. A breakdown: I’d say the class is about 10 kids who actually want to learn, 10 kids who are apathetic and just talk or don’t work, 5 kids who are loud and unruly, and 5 who have very serious behavior problems. I suppose my major management problem at this point is that the 10 crazies in my class are so actively disruptive that it becomes impossible for me to teach or for other students to work. As an example, today I teaching a lesson-- which was actually going fine，students were listening and responding, they were taking guided notes, etc-- but during the middle of the lesson one student suddenly got up, threw another students pencil case across the room, and then pushed his desk over (like I was saying, serious behavior issues). Ｉ told him to sit behind my desk until the end of class, he refused. I told him to sit outside the class (we have windows so I could watch him). He sat there for about one minute, then came back in and threw a chair across the room. I told three other students to escort him to the office. He literally ran away from them, then crawled through a window in the back of the classroom and curled into a fetal position under the desk. The jiaoguan finally came and took him away, but then the office SENT HIM BACK TO MY ROOM 10 minutes later and told him to apologize. He apologized, then spent the next 30 minutes bawling and sobbing at his desk. So basically, the entire period today was wasted due to this student.

Anyway, I actually really like my school but they refuse to deal with this class. Apparently one “donation” class per year is normal, but this year the school bit off more than it could chew and is just trying to do damage control.

In terms of lessons, I don’t see the TPR or worksheets method working in this class. I tried the “participate or silently do bookwork” strategy, but some of the kids in this class are so loud and violent that unless they’re physically removed or restrained they make anything we try to do impossible. The story today was not an exception, something like this has happened every class I’ve taught with them so far.

Ｔhe school is actually planning to split the class into two smaller groups which I think will help, but I have four more class periods with them until this happens. Ugh. It’s like animal training. I can’t really use any of my strategies from back home because, even though I had some similarly disturbed students, we also had SCHOOL WIDE DISCIPLINE POLICIES! Like, a management system, detention, suspension, being held back a grade level… also, school counselors/psychologists/social workers, and home visits for these kinds of kids…

Like I said, thanks for the suggestions and I’m going to give them all a try (including the foreign teacher dummy, ha!）. Keep them coming please! I teach 22 fantastic hours each week, but the 2 hours with this class almost makes it not worth it…

13

I’m glad I’m not the only one that looks at what IL does, thinks “That’s great! I should do that!”, and then thinks “But I’m not sure if I could do that…”

To the OP: good luck. That’s a rough situation, especially since it sounds like none of the other teachers expect them to actually shut up. In general, if the Taiwanese teachers aren’t even trying to control them, it’s going to be really difficult for a foreign teacher to do so. But I guess you already know that.

EDIT: Sorry, “shut up” sounds a bit harsh in light of the students with serious behavioural issues. I should be a bit more sympathetic of the students as well.

14

I am utterly appalled that a supposedly good school does not appreciate that this kid needs help, and this his parents most likely need a good ass-kicking.

My S.O told me a story about a teenage kid who threatened to rape the teacher (my SO’s mum). She took him to the office, who told her “oh, don’t worry, he’s just got a few problems, he’s only a kid, etc etc”. Her husband (ie., my SO’s father) dealt with it by paying a visit to the kid’s house and making sure he understood what would happen to various bits of his body should such behaviour be repeated. The bizarre part is that the kid decided to start behaving himself, which suggests he wasn’t completely psycho but had simply had not the slightest semblance of adult guidance in his entire life.

I shudder to think what passes for professionalism in the bad schools.

15

I’m glad I’m not the only one that looks at what IL does, thinks “That’s great! I should do that!”, and then thinks “But I’m not sure if I could do that…”[/quote]

I say this because I’ve seen her do this live and in person. She’s absolutely excellent. It’s like breathing for her. She tells me, “It’s not rocket science,” and she’s right, but she’s so practiced at it that it looks completely effortless for her. For me, I’ve very little practice and no training other than just watching her and asking her questions.

To the OP, I was a Special Ed teacher here in the states, but I’m not licensed or trained in that specialization. I’d subbed in many SPED classrooms and loved it, so when I showed interested in my former SPED job, and since the school couldn’t find anyone more qualified, I got it. But my classroom not like any SPED classroom I’d ever subbed in, it was more of an ALE. Things like you describe happened every day until I got control of the situation and of the kids as individuals. They each challenged me personally and as a group. It was tough, tough, tough.

As you say, there are more resources “back home” to help a teacher with this, but I can at least share a few things that I felt were helpful to me.

  1. Cardboard dividers that sit on desk tops. It sounds nuts, but it really does help. The kids feel a sense of privacy and will usually become very quiet and settled when they are out of each other’s direct sight. Something like this:

  2. Create a “center” just for this class and leave lesson instructions and worksheets, materials, in this center and make students responsible for their own work. You give minimal instruction, and allow the kids to pick up and hand in their work on their own. There should be procedures for this. For some reason, I found that allowing my SPED kids this sense of self determination–simply by preparing their work and putting in a special place and giving them responsibility for picking it up, getting it done, and having it handed in at the end of class, helped them. Maybe they felt more like they had some control over their environment, or had some say in the way they did their work? Who knows, but it helped.

  3. Tea time. You may or may not want to try this, but I had tea time once a week and it was invitation only. I invited one student per week to have tea with me for ten minutes. They were allowed to talk about anything they wanted for those ten minutes. When I started this, behavior started to turn around drastically. I made it as formal as possible, serving them good, exotic (to them) Taiwanese tea. You will have to find something unique to offer if you want that exotic touch, but it was really just the face time that mattered. The formality was important too. They got a personalized invitation to tea, I prepared and served the tea in nice cups and saucers, we sat down formally, and I spoke with them the way I might have spoken with their parents. This gave them a sense of being valued. It made all the difference.

  4. You have to know your students, but try ignoring inappropriate behavior (as far as possible). Offer positive attention at a time when the student isn’t acting out, and refuse to reward the disruptive, unwanted behavior. Many of these kids likely only get attention from their parents when they’re very badly behaved. They need to learn to get seek attention for good behavior.

  5. Realize that you’re only a teacher, a foreign one at that, and sometimes it’s just not possible for you to do what a parent should do, or to undo years of parenting via the pocketbook.

I hope this is helpful.

16

Have you ever read Fred Jones (“Tools for Teachers”?) Just about everything I do for classroom management comes out of Fred Jones (other than the fact that, teaching as a CI teacher, the kids are set up to succeed with the language, and the TPRS rules require them to make certain, frequent, responses during class, which keeps them busy to some degree!). If you really, really consistently do everything Fred Jones recommends (sometimes you can’t, like for example if your desks are fixed in place, it’s hard to ensure that you have the “cruising lanes” he recommends) you’ll be amazed at how little chance the darlings have to act out.

Simple proximity – getting away from the front of the room and making sure that you can be right in any kid’s face in two or three steps – does wonders. It is your greatest weapon. The other thing is never letting ANYTHING go by. EVERY kid who speaks out of turn has to be dealt with and there has to be a consequence, even if it is just stopping everything and waiting until you could hear a pin drop before you begin teaching again.

The other problem, though, is that your administration isn’t backing you up. So it’s hard to have real consequences.That’s a big problem, both in the fact that they’re sending kids back to class without having addressed behavior problems, and that they are expecting no parent contact or pressure (I’m assuming, since the money seems to be the entree to that class).

You might also look into Power Teaching. Some of the things that are used in it are seen as “tricks” or “dishonest” by some teachers I’ve talked to, but basically you’re using group psychology and reward/punishment (mostly reward and the loss of rewards) to manipulate kids’ behavior in the classroom. For the situation you’re in, it might help.

17

I hope that Mei Fang isn’t getting herself down because she’s entered into an economic loophole that’s beyond her control.

Economically speaking, there are solutions to this problem, and this school simply chose the foolish one. The smarter one would require that the parents and students sign student ethics contracts. That is, if the students, even “endowed entry” students, are a direct hindrance to the learning of other students, then they get expelled and receive no refund. They could actually use that to raise the price of tuition generally if they’re sufficiently strict (as parents will pay more for more peaceful work environments for their children). The school could then outsource the disciplinary action to the home.

I use some things that are labeled under “Power Teaching,” but just use my knowledge of incentive models to get classrooms organized.

I rather like Ironlady’s idea of piling worksheet busywork onto kids who don’t want to participate in the class.

18

Here is what I would do!

Fuck all those people who can buy good reputations without doing anything for it.
First of all, the parents suck. They don’t know how to raise their kids.

I’d give these kids the grades that they deserve. 10%, 20% or 59%.

The other kids have to work very hard in order to be there. I think I know that place and I know some kids who went there. I taught them for over six years 3 times a week 2 hours, till 10:00 pm.
It can’t be fair that some rick ass-holes, who don’t know how to raise their kids, can buy it all. Besides, the good reputations, that the other kids worked for so hard, is going to suffer.

Let them fail! Just do the right thing and you’ll be fine.
They can’t fire you for that. Most likely they’ll give that class to some other teacher willing to play along with corruption.
I hope these kids won’t become doctors at Taiwan University Hospital!

19

[quote=“Hamletintaiwan”]To the previous poster, putting students on Youtube is against the law.

Here is what I would do!

I’d give these kids the grades that they deserve. 10%, 20% or 59%.

Let them fail! Just do the right thing and you’ll be fine.
They can’t fire you for that. Most likely they’ll give that class to some other teacher willing to play along with corruption.
I hope these kids won’t become doctors at Taiwan University Hospital![/quote]

If the teacher assigned grades like that, an administrator would change the grades. The grade is bought and paid for. I’ve worked for several private schools in Taiwan and none of them ever allwed a student to fail. Most universities don’t allow failing, either.

20

Yes. I’ve had issues with university administrations over failing students who only showed up once for an entire semester course. (And it wasn’t to get 100% on the final exam, either.) :unamused: