You see, for four hours a day I teach students that would rather deliberately disobey me, write on the desk, doodle in their notebook, or talk to their friends during the lesson than listen to what I have to say. Granted the academic failures, or stunted growth, of children don't always reflect those that taught them, it can. Despite all 700 of my six graders being on different levels of English comprehension, reading, spelling, and phonemic awareness, I know that if they just listen to me when I'm talking, they will eventually understand me. Concepts and ideas aren't explained just one way. It takes a lot more time, a greater amount of listening, and minimal, if any, audible distractions, to explain and comprehend a second language. Which is why I'm sure you can imagine how the constant talking of the 37 students I teach at a time must dramatically impair their ability to learn anything that is being taught to them....by me. Yesterday a class just decided to stop acknowledging anything I said or asked of them, so I just quit teaching. The rest of class time, Min Chan used to chew 'em out, or a least I pretend he did. Yeah, these kids biggest crime is talking and goofing off too much, or writing on the desk, but these kids can really get away with murder. Their teachers aren't really concern with their behavior while they teach. That makes me feel pretty helpless.
So, second grade. As always, I walked into class and asked them to stand up, as we were going to practice "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear," and do the motions to the song. Then I taught the lesson, and taught them a game. However, this teacher doesn't seem to mind if children get up, move around, constantly come in and out of class, come late to class, leave early from class, or ask random (I assume) questions during my lesson that the teacher just answers. (I used to think it was pertinent to the lesson until I started to learn more Korean). Well, today it seemed to be so much worse. I seemed to never have their attention the whole entire time I was teaching. They were constantly talking or playing with one another, or moving around the room. I seemed to need to stop ever five seconds while the students were talking with the teacher. I even took a pencil from one of the students who was writing in her notebook while I was teaching (and of course, the Korean teacher didn't care) only to find her walk to where I had sat it down to pick it back up and walk to her seat to continue writing. How infuriating!!
When it came to play "pass the ball" where the students practice the question/answer that they learned in the lesson by passing a ball to the student behind them, they had no idea what was going on, as they were still talking up a storm. I said, even though they couldn't understand, "If you don't want to listen, you must not want to learn, and if you don't want to learn, I don't need to be here. So, if you continue to talk....(and I got into this little girls face as she was talking), I'm not coming back to teach you (these classes are optional for me)." Setting structure and disciplinary consistancy in the educational world when it doesn't exist...definitely a task that is too large for one little person to take on. Once the Korean teacher translated (as she was shocked) what I had said, the students quickly shut their mouths. Every now and then, you realize how much these students do actually worship their teachers and want to make them happy. I felt so bad. Even though I have had many straight-up talks with Min Chan about my expectations, as well as, classroom behavior and discipline (which, by the way, have never really one very far), I don't know this teacher very well. Plus, the teacher later gave me two mandarin oranges, which means she was embarrassed that I was dissatisfied with her class today.
Peace!
If there were only clear directions on how to show to the other teachers the connection between students focus and learning.
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