Now this is going to come as a surprise! I am not sure I understand fully. Over and over everyone said, discipline problem, you will never have! I saw the kids during Assembly, they stand when you walk into the classroom and won't sit until you tell do so! I was prepared for that. Yesterday, one of the few times ever in a classroom, I was totally ineffective! That was my 11th grade Chemistry class. It was really quite impossible for me to conduct class. After the usual ceremonial of standing, and their "Good Morning, Mam", the class suddenly became a group of hoodlums of the worst kind! The students were talking, they turned their back to the front of the class, got out of their chair here and there, to conduct their conversation. No matter what I said, they just kept at it. So finally I told them how disappointed I was, what a group of hypocrite I thought they were, to after such a show of respect, of getting up when I entered the room that they would carry on like that. After a bit of probing on my part, their response was so totally typical of any teenager, "well, we feel you are not really our teacher. You are here for a little while and then you'll be gone!" I had to straighten them on 2 counts. One, for now, I was the teacher, two, as the teacher, the material taught by me they will be responsible for it!! It really took me by surprise! I remember a past Fulbrighter had said experiencing the same thing when he was in India last year. See, just like any teenager, they'll push the button to see how far they can go. After class they were all repentant and came to apologize to me. The next day, Mr. Moyde who teaches this class also had me go with him to the class, he read them the riot act and after that, everything has been OK.
This is so unfair to the American student! I am sure if Mrs. Badhwar said she had experienced this horrible behavior in her classroom in Miami, we would all have said, yes, we understand. We actually expected it! But I find myself totally flabbergasted by this experience with the Indian students! Well, it's good to know, kids are kids everywhere! :-)
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Bello,
ReplyDeleteYou are so right. Even in Haiti, things have changed. This is globalization, my friend. I was just watching a special report on India on the French TV and was appalled to see also how widowers are considered bad luck and "releguee" en marge de la societe. Ostracised, it seems and reduced to mendicity. Another bad news, at Coral Gables, a young man of 17 years was stabbed to death. Apparently some love squabble. Awful. Then, this young woman was found "enmuree" at Yale university in the medical lab where she went to work on experiments. Two days before she got married. I am telling you, life is precious and we must just try to do our best while here. Hope you fare much better with your students. Mine are behaving pretty well so far but lazy and not studying much. Take care and keep us informed. I enjoy sharing this experience with you.
"kids are kids everywhere! :-)" that is the fact but we should take a momment to pause on the 2 things that followed. The support you got from the fellow teacher and they at least came to appologize.
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