No, this post is not a repeat of last week’s post on the same subject; rather it’s a post on the similar events as happened last week.
Today we got rain and that means the weather’s about to turn hot and the changing weather and air pressure is messing with lots of people’s heads. I got to school mostly soaked and in a bad mood.
That was the perfect setting for teaching my worst class.
Once again, they started off with the “Jason’s” and this time were more persistent about it. Once again I ignored them and went on with the class.
Things went reasonably well after that until I checked answers by having students stand up. (If you answer you get to sit down and last brat standing starts the next row). At one point, three students decided to play a game by refusing to answer. One guy even turned away. This not being my first rodeo, so to speak, I made three rows stand up which suddenly inspired faster response times.
Towards the end of the activity, a different group of three brats decided to try the same game. This time I just let them stand. I told them I had no problem making them stand until the end of class. (I stand for hours a day as part of my job so half a class is no big deal for me, but it’s torture to them.) One of the brats then tried to lead the class in the “We Will Rock You” beat. I let them do it and started working on my notes for my next class which stopped the music (although they tried it a couple more times).
When they finally realized they couldn’t out-stubborn me or piss me off enough to yell, they answered questions and got to sit down. (Note: the ring-leaders did this to their teacher last year, too.)
Their final gimmick was to refuse to memorize the conversation I told them to memorize. They took great joy in getting help or blatantly reading from the book. In this case the joke was on them, though, as I actually got all but one of them to perform the conversation, which they wouldn’t have done unless they thought they were making a game of it. (See, I know a few tricks.) Everyone who read (which was all but two pairs) earned a zero for the day but at least they spoke English.
One boy in a group of three didn’t perform the conversation as both his partner’s refused to go twice. I told them to come in at lunch (flash forward: they didn’t, but I’ll get them.)
As I left the room, I heard someone say “Fuck you” (Remember, the school where I work is nominally a Christian school). The good news is the homeroom teacher is on my side. I told him to warn them that if I hear another “fuck you” I’ll keep the class after school every night until final exams. It’ll be my own little English club as they write “fuck you” 10,000 times or spell all the numbers from one to ten-thousand.
If they think I’m joking, well, I’ll be the only one laughing. I do this kind of stuff for sport.