Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Comment dit-on "It's not possible for anyone to be so horrible on their own. I'm sure you are unfit parents. Me writing this is a waste of time"?

I always try to be a nice person. When I was student teaching, one of the reasons my cooperating teachers marked me down a grade was because they said I was too nice. I don't think I have ever yelled at anyone, Aaron and Eliza aside of course. I don't like feeling as if have I hurt someone's feelings. I hate being mean.
Tivoli has broken me.

I was warned by the girls that taught here last year that teaching here is HELL. But I thought, oh, free housing. It will be worth it. BUT, is it? I am starting to think that a tent pitched in front of Monoprix might be a better alternative. At least then I could collect the spare change of the grocery store shoppers.

I have one class in particular that is beyond controlling. They are 3emes, the French equivalent of 8th grade. And I don't know how it is possible for any group of students to be this bad. Yesterday, one of them THREW A CHAIR. Although it is the first time a chair has been thrown, they throw things daily. It started with bits of paper, then pens/pencils, then pencil bags, then notebooks. So really, a chair just seems like the most logical progression. I expect a desk to be thrown next week.

I don't have to plan lessons for this class. I just have to plan punishments. I usually have them write lines for part of class. I spend another part of class moving one student to the front of the room, one student to the corner, one student to another corner, etc. The few times I actually have managed to get them to do some kind of work, it usually goes something like this:
Me: Write a short description of this picture.
Soulless French 14 year old: en français? ou anglais?
Me: ENGLISH.
SF14YO: Putain! Mais non! Pourquoi?
Me: Don't say putain. And why would you write in French during English class?
SF14YO: But...eeuhhhh...I can't speak the anglais.
The work I do get (if any) is usually something like this "There is a lot building. Devant les buildings, I can see a lac in fact. The lac, it is bleu." Then they ask me "It is good, no?" To which I always reply "No. Actually, it is not good."

So after I particularly bad class yesterday, I asked the teacher if I could start giving detentions or sending kids out of the class. To which she replied "Well, what you can do is write in their carnets" The carnet?! The carnet is a notebook that all the kids have. It is supposed to be a link between the school and home. So I am supposed to write in all the carnets of the students who were bad. No thank you. That seems like a lot of work for me (I would have to write in at least 15 carnets) and a mild slap on the wrist of the student. I would have to write in perfect French, which I don't speak or write. French people have this amazing ability to not realize that learning a language is a two way street. They think the entire world is born speaking French. Daily, I hear sentences such as this "Next Thuesday, I will go in Paris for to make a shopping" but if I make a mistake in French, look out. Suddenly I am not qualified to teach ENGLISH.
So a boy throws a chair at another student, and I supposed to write in his carnet a little paragraph about how naughty Baptiste was during class today? That just makes more work for me and I know nothing will come of it. Grr.
So I am really mean to the Tivoli students. It is a learning experience. And I have 5 months left to learn. I figure by the time I am done here, I will no longer be described as nice.
I don't worry about hurting their feelings because I think a prerequisite to be a Tivoli student is to be born without a soul. They have no feelings. The bad ones are minions of the devil. The "good" ones have indifference. They all have really stupid haircuts.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey laura, it seems to me teenagers today the world over are a bit different than a generation ago. you might try a baseball bat and handcufs. Keep thinking; FREE HOUSING.... GRAMPA M

corynn.koch said...

I can't believe you don't have any other resources... you can't send them out of the room and you can't do anything! Maybe you can perfect a sentence like ' ___'s behavior is absolutely unacceptable." or something and write it in a lot of books. Older kids can be really difficult!

Maybe you can try to listen to American music and talk about the lyrics? Maybe if they are very interested in the subject matter, they will behave better?

Can you reward students who behave well?

jswanson04 said...

i do believe you yelled at our landlord. oh, henry.

but seriously. wow.

Joni said...

Oh Laura, eighth graders are truly small devils, and they are just big enough to do real damage. Tell them to take baths and stop stupiding up the place. :)

I think that the suggestion to have one sentence that you can practice and make perfect to write in all the notebooks would be a good idea.

By the way, who names their kid Baptiste? Seriously, stupid name. It's like people naming their kid St. John, and then pronouncing it Sinjent. Dumb.

Chin up, and just think about CHRISTMAS!!!

Anonymous said...

THIS MADE MY DAY. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I WAS IN THE DEPTHS OF DESPAIR AFTER "WRITING" AN ECON PAPER. NOW, HAVING READ THIS, MY SOUL IS REPAIRED.

Truly brilliant.
Can wet willies be a punishment?

Eliza