The kids at the school that I teach at are predominately Hispanic and poor. The town is small and there is absolutely nothing there. The majority of the jobs are in the casinos across the border in Nevada, so that is were they work and their families work there and they feel that is where they will work when they graduate.
Education is not a real focus in this community. The Principal is trying to change that, as have some of the teachers, but like I mentioned in my previous post, teachers don't stick around for longer than a year. This year alone the school had 7 new teachers in a staff of 15 (by the way that is complete staff, not just teachers). There are a couple of teachers that have been there forever, but the majority are either brand new teachers or in their second or third year. That means that these kids have never had any consistency in their education since starting at the school in seventh grade. That's right we teach from seventh to twelfth grade, which I didn't know at the time that I decided to take the job. I thought that I would only be teaching High School, not Junior High as well. Anyway, back to the point that I was trying to make.
These kids are so programmed to accept that nobody cares that they don't even bother learning the teacher's names. Any female is call "Miss" and any male is called "Mister". I feel like Happy Gilmore when he would visit his Grandmother in the nursing home and the old lady would always be saying "Mister, Mister". I hear stories from the other teachers of general disrespect and outright defiance in the classroom, and I am appalled. I don't see any of it in my classes. The same students that they have severe problems with are completely courteous to me. I am not saying that they are perfect angels by any stretch of the imagination, but at the same time they don't disrespect me to my face and tell me to go do something to myself that is both physically and anatomically impossible, like they tell other teachers.
I would like to say that they just respect me, but I think for the most part they fear me, which creates a level of respect that is evident to everyone around.
An example of this just happened yesterday in the lunch room. I have tray duty this week, which is making sure that the students don't throw away their little foam trays, but rather stack them up nice and neat on the table next to the trash cans. I understand that this sounds a little asinine, but the school requires it so we enforce it. Anyway, I have this duty this week, which I can't stand, but I do it. A teacher came up to me and was talking to me (now this particular teacher has an over abundance of the aforementioned behavioral problems directed to him on a daily basis), when one of the students came and threw his tray on the stack and didn't make it look nice and neat. I pointed to him, then to the tray and made a turning sign with my hands until he came back and did it without complaining. This teacher was blown away that all I had to do was point and make a gesture and it was complied with. I am a very intolerant and non-politically correct teacher. I say what I am feeling and I let the students know when they've passed the line.
For example a few weeks ago I was instructing my 7th graders on a website that we have to start using in class when they started getting out of hand. I reminded them several times of my expectation, but they would immediately go right back to not listening. There were three in particular in the corner of the room that were causing the majority of the problems and I stopped and told them that I had enough and that if they didn't stop we were going to have a problem. Well one laughed as if I was joking, and I lost it. Directing my entire focus on him I started walking towards him asking if he thought that I was joking. I tried to get to him, but I was stopped by a desk that was blocking my path, which gave me enough time to stop myself from wanting to pick him up and throw him physically out the door. I stopped and told him that he was lucky that the desk was blocking me because I was going to hurt him. He got scared along with the rest of the class. They were perfect angels for the rest of the period. That night we had parent/teacher conferences and two of the three boys came with their parents. One looked as if he was going to cry when he sat down in front of me. He didn't know what I was going to say to his parents. I just looked at him in the eyes and said, "we had some problems today, didn't we?" He nodded in agreeance, and I responded, "but we aren't going to have something like that happen again, right?" And he said "no". Once that was over I turned to the parents and said, we have no problems now. And we haven't had any since.
I just feel that some of these kids just need to be told that enough is enough. They need someone who believes in them enough to expect them to be able to comprehend that their actions bring consequences.
Teaching is a difficult and thankless job. All of us have been in the role of the student, but not that many of us have been in the role of a teacher. This little adventure/mission that I am on is an eye opener for sure. It is interesting. I can't say that I yet feel a sense of accomplishment, but I can say that I am making progress. I am not only teaching my students, but some of the other teachers and paras come in and sit in my classes and take notes and learn from me as well.
I encourage everyone to reach out to a teacher and say thank you. It might just make their day.
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