Teacher Discussion Forums

I am a male teacher currently working as a state certified teacher in a public school (secondary school, teaching science) in Norway and I am struggling with disruptive students and general lack of interest in the subjects I am teaching. Not that this is uncommon in this country, unfortunately. According to a recent survey Norwegian pupils, together with Greek pupils (?) , were at the rock bottom regarding discipline and good conduct in the classroom.

I really do like to work as a teacher, but I am quite fed up with bad behavior and would really like to teach in a country where student behave acceptably. I really don’t think I am worse or better in classroom management than any average teacher… it’s just that this kind of behavior from pupils is wearing me out completely. I am not expecting kids age 12-16 to behave like angels, it's just that I am sooooooo tired of disruptive behavior in the classroom and kids running around like monkeys. Any suggestion on which country to try to get a break from these crazy kids? Good salary is not an issue, as long as I can make an acceptable living on my work.

Bjorn

I don't know what it is like in your country or school, but secondary school is known for these kinds of problems. I think it would be wise to recognize that dealing with discipline issues is a large portion of the job at this age. Doing this you have to give yourself the freedom to take less priority off academic goals or to at least let the academic goals share some priority with the behavior/discipline goals.

I am afraid if you go to any country you are going to find the same issues.

I didn't mean to stop the conversation! Does anyone else out there have an opinion about this topic?

Should academic and formative goals have equal priority when dealing with secondary school students?

You could try a private school with a strict behavioural code. Or you could try a country like Mongolia with even more extreme behaviour problems and then you might be happy when you get back to the easier problems in Norway. I, for one, enjoy these disrupter and they usually are my favourite students. They have spunk, guts, individuality, issues and so on and are very interesting people. Or you could go back in time and teach when everything was more controlled or at least they thought it was.

Sally, it's interesting you mention Mongolia. I remember when I took my teacher training course 2 years ago, some of my professors in pedagogy did mention that my university had some cooperation with Mongolia in teacher education. You know, a rich western country helping a poor 3. world country to build a good school system. Anyway, according to my professor it would have been better that we learned from them. Basically, there were far more issues in Norwegian school than in Mongolia and we really couldn’t teach them anything useful. Or at least that was the opinion of my professor. In fact I have read something similar in a Danish book about discipline problems in schools and kinder gardens.

It would be very interesting to hear more about you experience in Mongolian schools. Where are you now by the way and how is the situation in your current school?



By the way, I did try a private school some years ago and although this school didn't have any strict behavioural code there were very few problems. And the kids were basically from the same soscial class as my current student. (working class kids) . Strange how sometimes disipline problems simply is not an issue. But now both me and several other teachers in my school really struggle with disipline problems



Bjorn

Of course the Mongolians have a lot to teach us and the individual students as well. But I am afraid that I saw a lot that isn't working as well and the students are pretty wild. Mostly though it was because of the methods of discipline- they just hit them when they were bad. If you didn't hit some of the students they didn't listen and since I wouldn't, I had some rough times until the students got to understand my methods.

I do think that particular schools have their own culture and you can change the culture. I saw Montesorri schools in Mongolia that produced loving, caring, patient, stable students. Many of the children of teachers were model students. It was just one or two in each class that had grown up on the move and spent their summers in the countryside who had difficulty with school culture - sitting in one place, writing, reading, sharing with others, etc. They were excellent at hunting, herding, tending sick animals, and many other talents. They were taught to tease, push, poke, dominate younger children and so on because it fit with their lifestyle but not the school lifestyle or at least my lifestyle. So I just took it as part of my duties to tell them how things worked in schools. It is just part of the teaching job and should be done with as much patience, humour and explanation as possible. I spent the first six months in most schools teaching them about my expectations and concentrated on this part of the lesson without fail, not worrying about the academic goals I was trying to reach with them. They still learned a lot of English - No pinching, poking, hitting, spitting, teasing, swearing, and so on. Since they have the actions right there in front of them and the victim doesn't like it, it is very hands on English. There are lots of games on the co-operative games sites to encourage people to work together and not against each other and I used a lot of those including the parachute which they loved. (Don't try to take a parachute in your suitcase to Isreal though - I spent an hour being questioned about that in the airport).

I am presently doing my PhD at UBC in Vancouver and trying to apply Systemic Functional Linguistics to the materials that I developed for Greenland, Mongolia and Japan and to the written materials I brought back. No discipline problems at all although some very heated discussions.

Try putting up a sign that says, Be Nice and Work Hard at the front of the room and whenever anyone disrupts the class point to the sign and discuss the behaviour. Don't worry about taking time away from the class, they can do the usual curriculum of the year in the last six months or less if they learn how to work.

Thank you Sally for your reply

Yes, I believe the problems in my school have all to do with school culture. The school is in the far north of the country and the people here are, although open and friendly, quite loud. That is, immediately when I came to this school I discovered that they were running it by something I would call scolding or shouting pedagogy. And many pupils, also the relatively well behaved, seem to shout instead of talking normally when speaking to each other. Although I myself can be angry sometimes( I know, it’s inappropriate for a teacher to get mad) I had decided in the beginning that I was going to try to avoid this kind of class management. But, unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work here, at least not yet (after 6 months). Even the kids themselves say that "You have to shout to us, then we will listen to you"

Of course, we do have 3 basic roles in the classroom which really says “Be good and work hard” and the pupils themselves were making these rules. Every time they break their own rules they have the same excuse, “Well, that’s just the way we are. We have always been the worst class here”

Of course, that’s a large part of the problem, a very negative self-image. As one of my (most disruptive )pupils told me once I was discussing our problems in class “it’s not that you are a bad teacher, it’s just that we are such bad pupils” And he said with a voice and an expression in his face which was so sad
Yes, I know that if I can turn around this class into a positive class it would feel very satisfying for me as a teacher. However, sometimes it just feels too much, especially when one doesn’t have any support from the school admin.

Bjorn

Yes, I have had the same response from students in Greenland and Mongolia and also individual students in other places. People like to have a role and if you can't be good, you might as well be good at being bad. I think that in some of these more islolated places, the students can't see their lives going beyond what they see from day to day. The good people don't have much fun and the bad people have a great deal of "fun". But I have seen students change and so know it is possible. One of my students in Mongolia was charged with murder along with 12 friends after a wild 16th birthday party involving lots of vodka. The party in the next room at the hotel just happened to be the basketball team of our rival school and things got out of hand. Their forward was knifed to death and no one remembered doing it. Since he was really a friend, this was a life changing event for all the boys but particularly my student. He remembers trying to stop the blood at least although he doesn't remember being the one to cause his friend to bleed. When he got out of jail, he came back to school with new determination. He hadn't wanted to learn English before but decided that he wanted to become a doctor to know what to do to save another person since he couldn't save his friend. In two months he learned what I had been vainly trying to teach him for 8 months. I show the slide show of my school in Mongolia to all my students and explain this story (with his permission but not using his true name) and it usually has quite an impact. I could tell you stories like this from Greenland as well, usually involving suicide. I'm sure you can tell me stories like that as well. It justifies us keeping going with or without support. If I were you, I would just give up and have fun with the students from now on. You are going to quit anyway so why not just enjoy yourself and take them out skiing and picnicing and take lots of pictures and make stories out of them on the days that you can't go out of the classroom. Sing, dance, have a karoke, do plays and games and play games on the internet. Give up all ideas of actually teaching them and just shower them with oral English, movies, and so on.

We talk about this subject a bit at:
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... ght=#16655

I would have said Japan about 8 years ago. Now I would have to change my mind. Although if you teach in a good private junior/high school it could be excellent.

www.teachjapanforum.com

I used to feel frustrated and helpless too when I first worked as an English teacher in a secondary school in beijing, China. I really met a great deal of trouble made by my students. and it seemed that such trouble would never end. I think, things won't be better in any other secondary school. So, to change your attitude to students and make your teaching more interesting would be helpful. I mean that you'd better not expect too much from students. They won't learn so hard as you expect.However,you could focus on what they have try to done and how much they have improved. If you can find something to praise, both you and they would feel better. Besides, to make your teaching more interesting,vary the teaching method and involve a lot to students' daily life would be helpful.

Yanwen

"...it's just that I am sooooooo tired of disruptive behavior in the classroom and kids running around like monkeys."

Bjorn,
I really understand what your situation is , because I have ever worked as a English teacher in a private secondary school. I also used to suffer this problem. BUT I changed my attitude and methodology later and the teaching result is a bit satidfying and improving.

First I try to make friends with the students and understand what they are thinking and their favorites and charecteristics, which, I think, is very important, especially for those disruptive students.

Secon, just as Yanwen and Sally suggesetd, try all kind of methods to make the class interestiong and motivate the students. Also you 'd better praise the studens even if a little progress for him.

Lastly, under the basis of democracy of all the students in the class, get the students to set up a set of disciple rules for everyone to obey. THIS way is a bit useful, because the rules are made by all. So they would realize their misbehaviour if they broke the rules. Of course, as a teacher, the aim of setting up class rules is not for punishing. It's just rugalate them and get the students to form good habits.

I hope all the above can be helpful for you.

Xiaowen

singapore has the most behaved students

esp in secondary school

hahahahahaha

around 80% of secondary school have the really behaved students

but it depends on which stream of students u teach

we have special stream(those brilliant kids usually they score 85% above)
express stream,normal academic and normal technical

i think normal tech is the one that is not so good...