Job Discussion Forums

[tvik]

is it possible to be friendly and reasonable with kids who hate school??

[tekirdag]

Yes. If you are on prozac...

[tvik]

i'm beginning to find out that dropping the hammer on these kids is sometimes the only way to get the class quite... i always hated teachers who did that and now i've become like that.... am i living in a mirror universe now??

[tekirdag]

I'll add... I taught kids in Turkey at a private school a year ago and for a few months last winter at a language course. Very few of the kids came from really rich families at the private school and non of those at the language school were rich, I think.

The behaviour, however, of most of the kids I taught was TERRIBLE. I blamed myself of course and spied on the Turkish teachers while in their lessons to see if I could learn how to do it better . Many of the teachers let the kids do pretty much what they wanted. Kids wandered around, turned in their seats, went where they wanted, shouted, talked... you get the picture.

Can't speak for all teachers and schools in Turkey but where I worked they really didn't have any any discipline.

I wouldn't work at a Turkish private school again for ANY amount of money... well, maybe 10 000 lira a month then I'd hire a big tough body guard guy to go to all my lessons with me.

[Sheikh Inal Ovar]

In my wife's former high school here, they had a guy who the teachers could send naughty students to ... he'd give them a good clout ... so good in fact that they sometimes used to return to class winded .. it kept them pretty quiet for the next few days ...

Would make for an interesting research paper ..

[yaramaz]

In my old lise, for one particular class (17 fifteen year old mafia boys and three scared girls who I saw only 4 hours a week, thank god), the deputy headmaster (also head gym coach and all around big, scary guy) offered to stand at the door outside my class and if I gave the signal, he'd come in and kick ass immediately. And he did. Often. And bone jarringly. And it was great, actually, because after a while the kids assumed he was always going to be there and so reduced their deviant ways (I should note that this class was famed for breaking the tops off desks and hitting each other with the sharp bits, spitting on me, lighting things on fire, smacking the girls around. A real bunch of charmers)

[tekirdag]

[mongrelcat]

i'm in a private school and i actually like it.

Yes many of the kids are beastly, but put 20 7 year olds together in one room for 8 hours and that's what you get.

(i teach primary)

i know that Lise is different though. I haven't taught the older ones and I don't think i would. I think the main problem with these private kids is that they learn from a VERY young age that they don't understand the native speaker, and the native speaker doesn't understand them. So they learn to ignore you. By the time they get to the next grade, and the next, etc. they've got this subconscıous voice telling them "you don't have to pay attention to the English teacher, and you can do what you want, because there are NO CONSEQUENCES!"

discipline and consequences are 4 letter words in private schools. Anywhere in the world.

But i really do like teaching the young children.

[almuze]

yeah! impressionable young children who really enjoy using scissors with rounded edges! ah, a day in the life...

but for those of you stuck in private school lise hell, I would agree, I have only seen out of control classes either controlled by brute force (yaramaz's example) or, the