a day at work
Most of the time I think what happens at work should just stay at work. This day, however, was so whacked, I have to share.
Whining students try to go to PE 2 periods in a row instead of coming to my class. A colleague (sorry) barfs into her lunch tray while a few of us were just nearly finished eating. Actually this is really terrible for her but it was one of those ultimately comical China moments where there just isn't anything that can be done about it except hope she would be ok! I look at it this way: that's better than choking!
A translator tells me 2 of our new students are panicking every day because they never studied English before and they don't know what they are doing in some of their classes. In Japan they would still be in elementary school so going to all the different classes and having different teachers is a major switch for them in addition to being in a completely foreign language. I think they are OK in my class, because they play violin and we are able to communicate well enough for them to understand what's going on.
A student gets reprimanded for emailing during a class, then again for using her i-pod, then again for using her cell phone and I give her a detention. She then has the gall to take out a box of cookies just for her friends. I tell her to put that away because it isn't fair to others to just give some to your friends and not the whole class. She tries to (not very) secretly pass them out anyway. I move her away from the friends and tell her to start working on her assignment. Then she starts complaining to another student that some kids who were finished with their assignment were playing a game. She starts crying when I send her to sit outside the principal's office. Next thing I know, she's getting expelled from school. Apparently, because she has been in so much trouble all year, she had a special contract with the school that said if she got detention again she would be expelled. Next thing I know she is yelling at me in the hall that it's my fault she's getting expelled! %&^*&#%%! I just told her "We have minimum standards of behavior at this school. I am not responsible for your not being able to meet them."
As I go to debrief with the principal I find out some of our middle school students had been hurling large fistfulls of clay over the balcony of school at young kids in the neighboring housing complex where I live!
I am sooooo glad this teaching day is over!
Whining students try to go to PE 2 periods in a row instead of coming to my class. A colleague (sorry) barfs into her lunch tray while a few of us were just nearly finished eating. Actually this is really terrible for her but it was one of those ultimately comical China moments where there just isn't anything that can be done about it except hope she would be ok! I look at it this way: that's better than choking!
A translator tells me 2 of our new students are panicking every day because they never studied English before and they don't know what they are doing in some of their classes. In Japan they would still be in elementary school so going to all the different classes and having different teachers is a major switch for them in addition to being in a completely foreign language. I think they are OK in my class, because they play violin and we are able to communicate well enough for them to understand what's going on.
A student gets reprimanded for emailing during a class, then again for using her i-pod, then again for using her cell phone and I give her a detention. She then has the gall to take out a box of cookies just for her friends. I tell her to put that away because it isn't fair to others to just give some to your friends and not the whole class. She tries to (not very) secretly pass them out anyway. I move her away from the friends and tell her to start working on her assignment. Then she starts complaining to another student that some kids who were finished with their assignment were playing a game. She starts crying when I send her to sit outside the principal's office. Next thing I know, she's getting expelled from school. Apparently, because she has been in so much trouble all year, she had a special contract with the school that said if she got detention again she would be expelled. Next thing I know she is yelling at me in the hall that it's my fault she's getting expelled! %&^*&#%%! I just told her "We have minimum standards of behavior at this school. I am not responsible for your not being able to meet them."
As I go to debrief with the principal I find out some of our middle school students had been hurling large fistfulls of clay over the balcony of school at young kids in the neighboring housing complex where I live!
I am sooooo glad this teaching day is over!
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