Darkthorn’s Blog

Now, don’t get me wrong, they are a great bunch of kids in 9H. But trying to teach them is like talking to a brick wall. Literally. They turn their backs when I come in, they talk so loudly that you can’t even hear the lovely classical music I put on to assist their learning, that was something suggested by my teaching manual in college.

Nothing there had prepared me for this. The practice classes I had taken in my second year had all been quiet, well-behaved and willing to learn. Older teachers had sometimes sniggered at my light-hearted methods, telling the kids how well they had done etc etc, but it had worked in practice. 9H was going to take stronger stuff than that though.

Seating plans never worked with them, not the regular ones anyway. The nice kids, the ones who wanted to learn all sat up the front. You couldn’t put them next to the rat-bags of the class, freedom of learning and all that. Parents would complain about their little precious not being able to study his English in peace.

Other ideas I have tried included doing plays, letting them play the parts. Sadly, most of the girls are too blonde to even understand what is going on, let alone remember when Ophelia or Juliet are about to speak. The boys are too busy wondering who will get it on with Hamlet or Romeo, and enacting Mercuito’s death on the poor fat boy in the corner.

I know that kid will go far one day, I heard his mom on parent-teacher telling his friends how great he was at chess. Pity board games were useless commodities in this collectable-card playing world of high school. Once he gets to uni he’ll find his place. If he gets there without being suicidal or something else.

There is one girl in the class that is really quiet. I don’t think she is simple, she just doesn’t like talking with the rest of us. The others whisper about her behind her back, but I don’t think she notices. The piercings would get her suspended or thrown out by any teacher but me. I think they look kinda cool. At least she has something individual about her, unlike the rest of the jocks in the class. She and the fat kid are always spending time together too, a really odd combo. I think.

Today, I’m going to mix them up. Each kid has to have an empty seat on each side of them, and when I run out of seats I’m going to put them in the corners. A bit like baseball. First base, one detention, second, two detentions, and so on until they get to home base. For home base, they get to go and see the vice principal. That will get a few out of the class for a while, suspensions are becoming so common. Pity they took out corporal punishment, all these rules make it hard to teach what I am supposed to. No way of enforcing peace and quiet. I noticed that they like their lunch-time though, I can take that away from them until they learn.