Even
though I’ve been teaching for a year and a half, I had one of the worst days
I’ve had in a while with my Form Cs. I just could not handle their antics
today. During life skills class, some of the girls were apparently “quenching”
(aka farting), and some of the boys would interrupt me every 5 seconds to let
me know. I told them that I don’t care who is quenching, and that you don’t
have to alert the media every time someone may or may not be quenching, and can
I please finish one sentence about gender roles. They were being so
disrespectful and disruptive that I just walked out of the class, telling them
at the door to let me know when they were ready to listen. Another teacher was
also outside and I told him about the Form Cs and why I had temporarily left
their classroom. He said that for his classes, he now just gives them group
work, leaves, and comes back later, because I guess he often has the same
problem of them not wanting to listen. Some of my loyal girls were sticking up
for me, telling others to “listen to ‘Me Senate!” so I poked my head back in
and said that those who actually wanted to learn about gender could come into
the computer lab, and the others could just stay behind. All of them ended up
coming in there, and we all just stood at the chalk board as we made lists of
typical gender roles and how they are becoming more fluid and changing in the
modern era. They actually wanted to listen and participate, so that was much
better. I guess just a change of scenery was all they needed.
Later,
when some boys came up to tell me that the girls only quench in class (and
don’t do it in other teachers’ classes) because I tell them that it doesn’t
matter or that I don’t care or don’t want to hear about it when the two
students in the back constantly complain about each other quenching. I told the
boys that these students do this only to get attention. They get a reaction out
of other students telling them to stop quenching, which in turn gets a reaction
out of me when I have to tell them to be quiet. I said that if they just
ignored it and didn’t make comments, the quenchers would stop. They seemed to
understand, but it obviously didn’t fully sink in because they kept
complaining.
Other
than the quenching incident, earlier that day in math class, two of my boys
were fighting over a pen or some nonsense and wouldn’t sit down. I was in the
middle of trying to explain something at the board, and soon they were just
up there at the front grabbing each other as they argued and wouldn’t sit down.
I finally got them to stop and told them that they needed to talk to me after
class. Outside of class, I explained to them how rude they were being to me and the rest of the
students trying to learn, and they said they wouldn’t be disruptive again and
apologized. But not 40 minutes later in Life Skills they wouldn’t let me say 3
consecutive words. I’ve been told that students try to get away with more in my
classes because they know I won’t get a stick and beat them like some of the
other teachers do.
But
I guess the one redeeming thing about today was that one of my Form B boys told
me about his idea to start an HIV/AIDS awareness club. Awesome idea, I said.
But he and I both knew that without a (permanent) teacher to help run it, it wouldn’t
last. That’s gonna be his biggest hurdle: trying to make one of these
apathetic, perpetually absent teachers actually care enough to stay and help
him with this club. But as my mom keeps telling me, as much as PC has pushed
sustainability on me, I can still try to do as much good and affect as many
students as I can with the time I have left here, even if it won’t last. So I
agreed to help him out for the time being. Kids like him really inspire me, and
let me know that not everything to come out of a deadbeat school is so bad
after all.
Siblings/neighbors/dog photo shoot!
