A young expatriate teacher - in the 30's I guess - entered the staff room this afternoon, and exclaimed that the class he had just entered as a relief teacher was unbelievable and he "wanted to sit down and cry". Yes, it's a he. I sat nearby smiling to myself though he wasn't talking to me. I could relate to his story. Then he went on describing how the young hyperkids behaved in class - from running around the class to standing on the table. Well, he couldn't believe it when another teacher told him about that class - the infamous Year 1A where no one sits still (apart from the meek new Japanese girl - she'll learn the ropes soon enough). The only teacher who could "control" them is their homeroom teacher, an elderly lady who keeps having a coarse voice as a result of all the regular shouting. It worked for her, but not for that teacher. And certainly not for me too, as I teach them for 80 minutes every week in the computer lab. So if that relief teacher thought that his 40 minute experience was hellish, he should've been in my shoes. The only way to silence them is to let them watch something on YouTube, but that couldn't be done every day.
What do these kids do in the lab? Everything else but learning. The minute the door opens, they barge into the lab, running from one computer to the next, looking for the "best" one despite being assigned places to sit at. Before I could even boot up my computer, a little guy would run to me and ask me if he could go to the toilet. Then another two would rush to me and tell me that the computer is too slow or they had forgotten their password (hey, I've pasted the UserID and password in their homework diaries). Moments later that same student would beg me to let him go to the toilet. If I let him go, others would want to do the same, so sometimes, I'd just ignore and hope they'd pee in their pants, literally so that I know they were not lying.Some are just testing you.
The projector is finally fired up and I had to yell to get their attention - nope, didn't work. I would use the Net Support software to blank their screens. Bad move - they'd slam the keyboard and mouse onto the table and yell "NOOOO!!!" so I would have to turn the computers back on. In one corner, two kids would be fighting, and when I go and attend to them, two more kids could be seen running in front of the class, or look at what's on the teacher's console.
Yeah, it's all the teacher's fault for not being strict from the beginning, right? Maybe. Maybe not. Go ahead, tell me to set the ground rules - like they care. You know what I do these days? I would just help those whom I could, including the notorious ones (who are keen to finish their work so that they could play their flash-based game), while the rest of those who don't see the need to sit still would be left in the hands of God, as I can't be running after each kid while ignoring those handful who want to learn something. So in the end, the computer lab would turn into a market, and adjacent to it is the library. Sometimes I'd yell so loud that the students in the library would pause reading, look up through the glass panel to see who that lion was.
Yes, that's Year 1A in case you don't know. All 25 of them. Hyperactive, nerve-wrecking experience for trainee teachers. They wreak havoc in class and traumatise teachers whom they could bully. So can someone tell me why kids behave this way? I get comments from my own colleagues about Year 1A. Same problem. They can't be all bad teachers.
Blame it on technology. Because of technology, speed is everything. Because of technology, everyone talks simultaneously. Because of technology, there is no real communication because people just won't listen - they'd continue swiping on the keyboard, bashing others, trolling. I'm not anti-technology, but we cannot deny that technology is surely destroying what God had created - humans. Technology is slowly turning man into machines.
Don't let those angelic puppy-dog eyes, warm hugs fool you. They're smarter than you think. Wait a minute, aren't they too young to learn how to use computers? Actually no, but if you're tied down to a syllabus, then it becomes a really daunting task for the students and the teacher.
Don't let those angelic puppy-dog eyes, warm hugs fool you. They're smarter than you think. Wait a minute, aren't they too young to learn how to use computers? Actually no, but if you're tied down to a syllabus, then it becomes a really daunting task for the students and the teacher.
