IDIOTS!! - Is this the Last Straw?

Wednesday 19th August 2009
OK this is it – DEPARTURE DAY!

Didn't expect to be sitting here writing yet ANOTHER entry. However, yesterday brought news which has enraged me like an exploding volcano. I suppose it was to be expected, but it is one of those types of news which you dread but PRAY you will never actually hear has become real.

The soldier boys course is all over now, tests marked, goodbyes done, relief is at hand. Having marked those Final Exams it was mostly “as you were” in terms of who got what kind of mark. OK, so results were tabulated, tallied, handed in and it was now out of my hands.

Yesterday morning it was. There was I just going down the corridor to the toilet. Coming back from the Registrar's Office was our Head of Department. “Got good news for you!', he announced. “ALL the students have been accepted into the college!”

Normally for a teacher this is good news since you know that you have succeeded in your aims and your job is done. But THESE students?

How could it be? I was dumbfounded. “ALL of them?”, I asked him. “HOW CAN THAT BE?? HOWWW CANNN THAAAAT BEEEE??????”

We are talking about the same students that I have raged and stressed and battled with these past four months. The same idiots who have been throwing keys, bringing fish gifts, playing LOUDLY with their mobile phones constantly. The same IMBECILES who have done virtually NOTHING all year. The BIRDBRAINS who couldn't care LESS about learning English. The CACKHEADS who have said things like, “I want to be a nurse but I DON'T like to study!”.

I have given A LOT to those idiots. Plus the early morning starts – up weekdays at 6am. I have been ignored, talked over, treated with contempt when trying to get them to do tests without cheating. I have been STRESSED out of my MIND in that class with a bunch of people having their loud conversations about nothing much in particular. Their disrespect for me as a teacher has been without bounds, and their lack of progress has been expected due to NO EFFORT on their part either inside OR outside the classroom. After lessons, all they do in afternoons, evenings in nights is waste time doing nothing but driving round, talking rubbish, playing even MORE with their stupid phones, inventing tales of what they'd like to do to Filipino girls, online chatting till the early hours and more and MORE stupidities. They come to class, heads full of nothing except the need to sleep and too damn TIRED to put their minds to anything intellectual as learning English.

Now, I don't mean all of them. There are maybe four or five of them who HAVE made an effort and who HAVE shown ability and motivation and some kind of a desire to learn. To them I wish well and they DESERVE to be in the college. But then we have IDIOTS like the much-quoted 'Leg Man' and 'Monitor Man' and the non-stop talking machine guy. We have 'cousin of Monitor Man' who has to be the most useless of ALL of them except when it comes to his standards in cheating in tests and exams.

Cheating ….. yes. Now they can do it all over again.

ALL OF THEM ARE THROUGH!! CAN you believe that or comprehend what that means? What message does it send them? Well, a very clear one of course. They know well that they can just bum around, faff about, make NO EFFORT at ALL, blame only the TEACHER for their lack of learning progress and DO NOTHING THAT A NORMAL STUDENT SHOULD DO!!

“Normal student”? Oh, well you know. Fundamental things really. Bringing a pen, keeping notes, listening to the teacher, doing homework (OK I never gave them any but I doubt they'd have done it anyway!), turning up to class ON TIME. Sounds obvious to you? NOTHING is obvious to THEM.

And it is such an AFFRONT to them when you step in to break up one of their loud cross-classroom conversations. How could you do it? How could you get in their way? This is IMPORTANT! He is insulting my CAR / PHONE / WATCH / etc. etc.

So back to my anger. Why am I so angry about this? And WHY am I sitting at home now writing this when, technically speaking, I should be spending this time in the office as “the contract” states we must?

Well, my goodwill has GONE, ALL gone, TOTALLY GONE!!

How would you feel? It is like the college has said to me, “Your time was worthless, your energy was pointless and everything you did was a waste of time!”.

Well, it quite clearly WAS!! ALL I tried to do with them, my efforts to make them listen, times I have shouted and yelled at them to LISTEN to me, the stresses I have felt most Saturday mornings confronted by a bunch of uniformed ASSHOLES who didn't even recognise I was in the ROOM even and carried on their cross-classroom loud talks even though I was trying to Do SOMETHING.

ALL THAT was for totally and utterly NOTHING!!!

Jeez, I may as well have gone in, sat there and drank coffee for three hours a day watching them do all this.

Ah, but here is my weak point I suppose. I LIKE my job and I LIKE to try to do my best for my students. To help them LEARN. Yeah. Well, isn't that why I do this job?

In general, yes, if this was a normal country with normal students with normal educational requirements and standards. But it is FAR FROM THAT!

This is a country where no matter what LITTLE a student does, he will get through and pass along the educational road nice and easily. Effort in actual STUDYING? Not likely. And if the college makes a fuss and kicks him out then he just calls upon daddy or uncle who has connections and they make sure he is re-instated PRONTO!!

We're on a hiding to nothing.

Until a few weeks ago, I was thinking that, although this is not the worst teaching job I've ever been in it was pretty way DOWN there. But there are many factors which determine whether a job is “good” or not, and in teaching these are basically Students, Workplace, Support and Money. Well, in teaching the Money side is rarely a plus but it doesn't matter so much as the others. If those other three go wrong – one or more of – then you're in trouble.

Thinking about my worst ever teaching job now …. yep, that tipped the scale on those first three being pretty damn rubbish. But being HERE tips the scales to a new low now. I really mean the Students and Support/Workplace side of things. I wouldn't say this is a workplace I much have conflicts with – I am allowed to do my job without much interference so far. HOWEVER, thee is no SUPPORT for what values I try to encourage in students – that is, STUDYING and what happens if they don't.

Because they need to know this. They simply have to get it in their heads that you can't bum around forever. If they don't work, if they don't put in the effort then they should only expect nothing in return.

As a teacher, I don't, of course, expect my students to be the best of the best. Certainly not. But what I DO expect is that they put in EFFORT and make an EFFORT to learn. Yes, they may find it hard, but if they DO SOMETHING about that to TRY, then that is all I ask. Layabouts are NOT welcome in my language setup.

So HOW is it that the college does not share this aim??

Have I truly wasted five months of my life out here?