bad students
The Haunted School
Central High School
“Their English is already good….they just need additional practice speaking.” Ralph was filling me in about Central High School where I had just arrived as a new teacher.
“Just talk about anything interesting. You know, food…TV…pop music…movies…the internet…celebrities…fashion. Don’t worry a thing. The students here absolutely LOVE having classes with foreigners.” Wonderful.
Ralph ought to know. He had been teaching at Central High School since the mid-1990s.
Very straightforward. A piece of cake. And I couldn’t believe we were being paid to do this!
Introduction
“Good morning, class. My name’s Ms. Charlotte,” I introduced myself in my first class. With the formalities aside, I began our lesson by writing the word “food” on the blackboard.
“Okay. Now what comes to mind when you hear the word ‘food’?” I asked the students.
“F***** s***!” shouted one fellow slouched in the middle of the room.
There was hardly a response from any of the others.
After a tongue-lashing, I had the students work in groups to discuss various aspects related to the day’s topic.
Cell Phones
It never really took off. They soon became engrossed with their cell-phones and chatting with one another. The better behaved did their homework.
My repeated scolding proved ineffective. To be fair, there were some students who did take the lessons seriously and participated in discussions. This was to be the case with all my other classes.
Gap Hours
During gap hours, I would sometimes walk down the school corridor on my way to the restroom or snack store.
Mysteriously, whenever I passed by the same classrooms—but now with different teachers teaching different subjects such as math, physics, English or German grammar—the same delinquents would now all be diligently listening and taking notes. The same held true for Ralph’s conversation classes.
Role Model
“Why can’t you be like Ralph?” the director nearly shouted me in his office a month later. “He can manage his students and gain their attention and respect. He presents interesting activities and has great rapport with them.”
I suppose Ralph was right after all: serving in the Peace Corps had given him a certain charm and charisma in relating with others.
Royal Marine
Later another foreign teacher joined us. Dudley introduced himself as a retired sergeant major from the Royal Marines. “I can handle them. I’ve turned boys into men. I’ve led troops in battle in the Falklands and Kuwait.”
True to his word, when it came to issuing midterm grades, he stood his ground against insubordinate students (90% of them) and the school staff who felt that he should be more “lenient”.
“Some of the boys said they would ‘unleash their dogs upon me’,” Sergeant Dudley revealed before returning to his native Sutherland for the Winter Break. He never returned.
Auckland
“This is Lyra,” the secretary introduced the teachers to a young lady. Brimming with confidence she told us of the eight years of teaching experience she had had with undisciplined, misbehaved brats in Auckland.
Five weeks later, I found her standing alone in her classroom (something I frequently experienced on the last hour of school).
“Where are your students?” I asked her.
“That’s a very good question,” she replied. Lyra did not return following the Easter Holiday.
“I’ll guide these young individuals and show them the way,” vowed Lawrence, a smartly-dressed, well-groomed gentleman from Salt Lake City. He lasted all of six weeks.
Family Emergency
Towards the end of the school year, Ralph had to return to his hometown in Pennsylvania due to a family emergency.
He wouldn’t be returning until the following autumn, so I substituted for him in his classes, first-year high school students, aged 14-15.
To my utter shock and amazement—they were all BRIGHT, EAGER, POLITE, ATTENTIVE, MOTIVATED and ENTHUSIASTIC.
For once, I had super, fantastic, meaningful, productive, easy and fun lessons at Central High School.
Lucky
It suddenly dawned upon me that Ralph had all the good classes—the good students—while the rest of us did not. How lucky of him. And how unlucky of us.
1. Was Ralph a veteran or a newbie at Central High School?
2. How would you characterize Charlotte’s students?
3. Ralph told Charlotte that the students “absolutely loved” foreign teachers. Elaborate on this.
4. What could account for the differences in behaviour, attitude, motivation between the students in Charlotte’s classes and their math and grammar classes?
5. Did you think Dudley, Lyra and Lawrence would have ”succeeded” with their classes?
6. Why did Charlotte’s students and Ralph’s students differ?
A. Have you have foreign teachers at your high school or university? Where have they come from?
B. How do the students behave in the foreigners’ classes compared to math and computer classes?
C. What sort of school subjects do/did students in your school like? Which subjects bored them?
D. Would you like to be a teacher? Why or why not?
