Nothin like a good ol' fashioned flip out

This year instead of 1 elementary school, I have shared hours with 2 different elementary schools in the center of the city. Unfortunetely at my new school(Colon), nobody seems to have any sense of classroom control or respect for teachers. The teachers let the children walk all over them and continue to say "I guess we just have to have patience" or "I just don't know what's wrong with these kids" or "Am I doing something wrong here? Because the kids just don't seem to care about anything." It has been nearly impossible for me to teach English here because the kids constantly interupt, talk amongst themselves without a care in the world, are always getting out of their seats, constantly asking stupid questions just to ask them, and acting like completely helpless little babies. They seriously have no concept of respect for teachers or for the person who is talking/teaching. In fact there is so much noise in the classroom that I leave each day feeling a little more deaf, with tension in my jaws and like I am not able to make an ounce of difference in these children's education.

Luckily at San Lorenzo, my other school from last year, the teachers have much more of a presence and are constantly riding the students to keep them in check. You can see that there is a healthy fear of the teachers/authority figures there and it is reflected in their knowledge of English. I teach the classes but the minute someone steps out of line or is acting up, the regular classroom teacher puts them in check. So, there I have been able to reap the rewards of being a language teacher and I feel completely respected as well as useful.

Meanwhile back at Colon, the children get out of their seats so much to ask me rediculous questions over and over again that I cannot even make it through one phrase of teaching without saying "go back to your seat" 5 times to 5 different students. Basically it gets to the point where I just stop and stare at them while they carry on for 45 minutes talking, lauging, fighting, tattling, complaining and whining. I have NEVER seen anything like it in my life and in the U.S. I work with kids with actual problems. These kids come from the best neighborhoods and Colon is supposedly one of the best bilingual public schools but to me it is a frickin joke.

Today the regular teacher, completely exhausted and sucked dry from these kids, left me alone for a minute to talk with a parent. I was trying to start a new unit on plants and the madness started all over again. While I am introducing the new words, several kids come to the black board to tell me "tonterias", kids start fighting and complaining about belly aches and playing every card available to them to manipulate another adult in their life and not have to do any actual work.

That was it. After 4 months of thinking "if somebody only had some balls around here..", I flipped my lid. I started yelling until RED red in the face, slammed the classroom door shut, rattling the class windows ( I actually thought I might break them) and made everyone sit down in their seats. I told them in English and in Spanish that I was super mad and tired of their class. I told them that they were an embarassment, that the kids in my country had much more respect and that from this point on there will be NO questions and that they will do EXACTLY what I tell them to do for the rest of the class. I reminded myself of one of my favorite teachers in High School, Mr. Jackson, whose vein would bulge and his face would get red while he ripped into us. We would laugh later and tease him about his bulging vein but in that moment, we were more than a tad bit uncomfortable. Because that level of pissed offedness (yes, I know) cannot be faked and we knew he meant business. And today with those kids, they knew it as well. The anger was 100% real and boy did they feel the wrath. The fear in their eyes was priceless.

In four months I have seen teacher after teacher try and maintain order in this class and fail pathetically. Its sad to say but obviously this class was long over due for a good put-the-fear-of- God-in-ya, ass chewin. And unfortunately I was the one who had to do it. But let me tell ya, I have NEVER seen this class behave so perfectly as I did today for the rest of the period.

Moral of the story...no matter how nice it is to have patience, there is NO substitute for a good ol' fashioned genuine butt chewin. Accept no substitute.