I HATE middle school kids!
Just a little rant.
I'm an English as a Second Language teacher, and this evening I was leading my 8th graders in playing "Family Feud." They were trying to guess the top 5 answers for "Name an animal that weighs over 1000 lbs."
...now, being a little heavy, working with immature 8th graders, I should have thought about where this was going to go ahead of time... but I didn't. So, the little bastard's answer, of course, was: "YOU!!!" and the whole class rolled on the floor.
Hahaha, so frickin' funny. ...and it's not like I can defend myself by saying "I know I look good! I've lost 50 lbs, so screw you little kids!" I tried to ignore him at first, except the whole class was gasping for air because they were laughing so hard, and all I could come up with was "You're such a rude little brat!" which didn't really help, because they don't know what a "brat" is.
I hate middle school kids. 
OMG that is soooooooo bratty!!!! Middle school kids are at such an annoying age they just want to make others feel insecure because they feel that way. ESL kids have it tough but that isn't an excuse for that kind of behavior.
That is exceptionally bratty, can you complain to his parents or give him detention or something?
That's where you, as their teacher, comes back and assigns a 1000 word essay on respect to elders in their culture (Korean? by your profile), and then have them summarize it in English. Both my parents were teachers and believe me could come up with some horrendous paybacks. But yeah, i feel ya. Just think, in the back of your mind, reminder yourself, in a few months i am coming back to live in a culture that doesn't eat the family pet! Sorry, my bad. But then, looking back, i would not go back to junior high/ be 13/14 yrs old again if you paid me a million bucks. It is bad enough being a fat adult, much less a fat hormonal teenager - take care!
I think I would have responded with "The topic is NOT "Things to say when you're trying to get extra homework and a pop quiz", now try again."
Keep your chin up - they are, after all, just brats. A shame they can't treat people with a smidgen of respect, but still just brats. Teachers are so under appreciated - however when I was in middle school, I would have never dreamed of saying something like that to one of my teachers, because I would have gotten a response like the one I suggested (and would have deserved it).
Great job on the loss so far, keep up the great work! 
I'm also an ESL teacher in S.Korea. Typically the middle school kids I've had haven't been so bad but when I first started teaching about 17 months ago my little kids would make comments like "teacher is fat" blah blah. I kept pretending it didn't bother and eventually they stopped. With my middle school kids, I just became the "cool" teacher and made class really fun. Also, dressing 'fun' scored me some points with the middle school kids.
Just keep in mind, you're just a fleeting teacher in their lives. Rarely do foreign teachers stay more than 1 year at the school so for them it isn't worth it to open themselves up to the foreign teacher knowing you aren't staying. And also, calling someone fat isn't necessarily meant as an insult there. It's a statement of fact. You have a cute face and that wins more points in Korea. :)
Thanks for the comments, they made me feel better. (Hehe, especially the part about the "family pet." We actually have a dog soup restaurant around the corner from our apartment!)
The nasty little brat who made the comment is actively trying to get kicked out of the academy, but so far it hasn't worked for him. Instead he's just been terrorizing his teachers. I've run out of ways to punish the kid. He's stopped doing homework and stopped participating in class. Plus class finishes at 10pm, so he and I both know I'm not staying to monitor him in detention. Plus, I can't talk to anyone's parents, because none of them speak English. So he knows I'm harmless and I hate it. ...though, I was given permission to beat the kid today, I don't think I'd have the heart to do it.
...I've known these kids for almost 16 months, so it's not like I'm new to them. They were worse in the beginning, but it's died off since they've gotten to know me. It's just irritating to have to deal with their attitudes. They're getting ready to start their last year of middle school, so they've changed quite a bit in the last month or so. Regardless, I hope going back to school after spring vacation beats them back into submission.
Middle school teachers, no matter where they teach, deserve combat pay.
Original Post by ellajayne:
So he knows I'm harmless and I hate it. ...though, I was given permission to beat the kid today, I don't think I'd have the heart to do it.
Punish them the way the Korean teachers do. I also have permission to hit my kids but I can't do it. There are other things you can do... stress positions (like squatting, etc) seem to work. I have a kid who is particularly difficult. I do a "3 strikes" rule. As soon as I walk in the class, I write his name on the board. If he gets 3 checks during class for being disruptive, talking too much, no homework, etc. then he gets kicked out of class and has to go to the teacher's room to do his work there. :shrug: Sometimes the kids are just a-holes and you just have to try to deal with it.
I definitely understand so good luck.
Original Post by clairelaine:amen!Middle school teachers, no matter where they teach, deserve combat pay.
My brother and I were also taught early on by our parents not to remark on someone's weight. Guess that's a lost concept...
I know what you mean. I drive school bus and one of my runs is Grade 7/8. As far as I'm concerned, these kids aren't completely human at this age. Punishments don't last, no matter what you do. Although, I have to say that I have a few very good kids, the silver lining I guess.
Original Post by coffincritter:
My brother and I were also taught early on by our parents not to remark on someone's weight. Guess that's a lost concept...
Weight is not a taboo topic in S.Korea though. If you need to lose weight, your family will tell you, your friends, etc. I have a Korean friend who told me I needed to lose weight (whom I hadn't told I was trying to do so). After living there as long as I have, I've stopped letting it bother me. You've gotta build up thick skin.
I'm a dorm parent at a boarding school (high school) that has a high Asian population (Korean and Chinese) and I'm right there with alibsam, the girls remark on weight and think nothing of it - to each other, to the dorm parents, teachers, etc. There is also a different approach to food, as in, we have to require that everyone be present for breakfast and dinner because these girls will go days without eating. Ella's experience though, is a little more blatantly rude. If there's nothing you can do to punish him, I guess all you can do is try not to let it bother you, I know, easier said than done. A Chinese student told me that I eat too much and a Korean one told the college counselor that she needs to go to the gym! I understand!
This is why I could NOT handle being a teacher. More props to you for the work that you do!
Any of the punishment suggestions listed above would do nicely. But if he's stopped doing homework or caring, perhaps it is best to go to the principal and have him/her deal with it?
Original Post by alibsam:
Original Post by coffincritter:
My brother and I were also taught early on by our parents not to remark on someone's weight. Guess that's a lost concept...Weight is not a taboo topic in S.Korea though. If you need to lose weight, your family will tell you, your friends, etc. I have a Korean friend who told me I needed to lose weight (whom I hadn't told I was trying to do so). After living there as long as I have, I've stopped letting it bother me. You've gotta build up thick skin.
Ok, then. But though I know we're supposed to be all diverse and multicultural and that stuff, I gotta say, sometimes just because that's the way they do things in another culture doesn't automatically mean they are better. I doubt South Koreans have a utopian society any more than Americans do.(The fact that lizzyliz says they'll go days without eating if not supervised makes me wonder if all this bluntness really has a good effect...) Americans may be bad because they lie to someone who has gained weight, when asked, but I don't think offering up that opinion to someone unprompted is going to really be productive for them either. Also the boy didn't simply say "You need to lose weight", he made a wisecrack about her being a 1000 pound animal. To me that kind of exaggeration just sounds like he's trying to be fresh, not give her advice.
FWIW my Cuban grandmother is also nasty about weight (and other topics) with the rest of the family. Since I'm American born I couldn't say if that how things were done on the island of Cuba or if she herself is just an insensitive individual, though no one else in the family seems to care for it much, and if it turned out thois were the norm over there i doubt they'd be any happier with it.
I think you are looking at the sittuation wrong....
You are the teacher, its your job to help raise these kids (teachers are a big part of a childs life).... because its such a young age, you are getting them before the system filters them (like you wont find a kid acting like that in higher education). The child obviously is having lots of trouble in his life if he is trying to get kicked out.... maybe he is having trouble at home? Maybe something else is going on? But its your job to help them (all of them, not just the good kids who come from good homes and have been raised well).
Talk to the kid. Find out whats going on. Ignore the insult because it means nothing, its just him lashing out from other problems going on. Figure out what needs to be done to help the kid move on with his life...or help him understand what his options are....
Teachers arent just robots who read a book mindlessly to the students in their class. You are there to help them develop and learn a wide range of things. YOU are the adult and YOU have your stuff together.... you arent their equal, you arent just one of the kids, you are a mentor and a person who is in a possition to really guide how these kids end up as they pass through those early years.
If you didnt want to put up with developing people ...you should get out and find a job where you just deal with people who are already matured (IE, not lower education).
Original Post by coffincritter:Also the boy didn't simply say "You need to lose weight", he made a wisecrack about her being a 1000 pound animal.
...well, when you put it like that, I think I'm going to cry now... 
hehe, just kidding.
coffincritter's right that in that there are definitely ways to approach vs. ways NOT to approach the topic. My co-teachers are always trying to encourage me to eat healthier and push me toward the gym. Plus, when I mentioned to my head teacher that I'd lost 3kg in December she told told all of the teachers and lead them in applause. I thought was really weird and a little annoying, but at least they were being supportive.
and bean_7's right when she said punishments on kids this age don't last. The kid's been to the director's office every school day for the last month and a half. She doesn't want to kick him out because that means one less student who's paying tuition.
I know this kid is useless. I think what bothered me the most was the whole class cracking up about it... like, kids who are usually good in class and seem to like me. ...I hate teenage peer-pressure mentality more than isolated nasty comments.
also- lorik, that's pretty harsh. There are some kids that are unmanageable. Not everyone can be Michelle Pfeiffer (Dangerous Minds.) I've pulled the kid aside and tried to talk to him on numerous occassions, but you have to remember this is an ESL class. Speaking English isn't their forte, and they're not always able to express themselves to me. It's the parents job to raise the children, teachers are just there to support them. I don't get paid enough to raise the 200 kids I teach.
Original Post by coffincritter:
Original Post by alibsam:
Original Post by coffincritter:
My brother and I were also taught early on by our parents not to remark on someone's weight. Guess that's a lost concept...Weight is not a taboo topic in S.Korea though. If you need to lose weight, your family will tell you, your friends, etc. I have a Korean friend who told me I needed to lose weight (whom I hadn't told I was trying to do so). After living there as long as I have, I've stopped letting it bother me. You've gotta build up thick skin.
Ok, then. But though I know we're supposed to be all diverse and multicultural and that stuff, I gotta say, sometimes just because that's the way they do things in another culture doesn't automatically mean they are better. I doubt South Koreans have a utopian society any more than Americans do.(The fact that lizzyliz says they'll go days without eating if not supervised makes me wonder if all this bluntness really has a good effect...) Americans may be bad because they lie to someone who has gained weight, when asked, but I don't think offering up that opinion to someone unprompted is going to really be productive for them either. Also the boy didn't simply say "You need to lose weight", he made a wisecrack about her being a 1000 pound animal. To me that kind of exaggeration just sounds like he's trying to be fresh, not give her advice.
When did I say Korea had a utopian society? I just said weight was looked at differently. I've had students say "Teacher" and point to a photo of an elephant. I was referring to adults not middle school kids. Middle school kids are asses. An American kid would've made the same comment as the Korean student in her class.
All I'm saying is you've gotta just ignore the kid and don't let it bother you.
Also as ellajayne pointed out, there are different approaches. There's a difference between saying encouraging things about going to the gym and pointing at a picture of an elephant. First you said it's that Koreans are blunt about weight, now you're saying it's middle school kids anywhere. And while yes it's true that an American middle schooler might also do that, I know that in the past at least, they would have been reprimanded for it. These days with everything revolving around kids so-called "self-esteem", I'm not so sure.
Original Post by loriklorik:
I think you are looking at the sittuation wrong....
You are the teacher, its your job to help raise these kids (teachers are a big part of a childs life).... because its such a young age, you are getting them before the system filters them (like you wont find a kid acting like that in higher education). The child obviously is having lots of trouble in his life if he is trying to get kicked out.... maybe he is having trouble at home? Maybe something else is going on? But its your job to help them (all of them, not just the good kids who come from good homes and have been raised well).
Talk to the kid. Find out whats going on. Ignore the insult because it means nothing, its just him lashing out from other problems going on. Figure out what needs to be done to help the kid move on with his life...or help him understand what his options are....
Teachers arent just robots who read a book mindlessly to the students in their class. You are there to help them develop and learn a wide range of things. YOU are the adult and YOU have your stuff together.... you arent their equal, you arent just one of the kids, you are a mentor and a person who is in a possition to really guide how these kids end up as they pass through those early years.
If you didnt want to put up with developing people ...you should get out and find a job where you just deal with people who are already matured (IE, not lower education).
Lorik, unless you have been a teacher...you can't possibly understand what an insurmountable amount of CRAP that teachers have to dig through just to get to the core job of teaching ! We have first year teachers who try to become the mushy-couselor/caring types and they end up being chewed up and spit out..by either the parents or the administration. The administration wants the students to be academically strong...(if you are wasting the entire classes time counseling a wayward child, you are robbing the other kids of their instructional time.) So much of our staffs time is taken up by discipline that it leaves less and less time to teach the kids who's parents have taken the time to teach them those things AT HOME....rather than leave it entirely up to the school. And with the pay that teachers get...I'd say telling them to get another job might be wise. But who is left who wants to deal with the garbage? It starts at home. You cannot raise a little jerk with no manners and then expect to send them to school and let teachers fix it.
Perhaps that is what is wrong with society in general. The attitude that it is someone elses job to fix your problems.
I subbed everything from Honors Calculus to Remedial Middle-School English (the latter of which I also sat as the fill-in teacher for a month).
As a sub you start in the negative when it comes to respect and cooperation, but my classes always finished their lesson plan and I did it by turning the pack on itself.
Psych 101 - Kids are sheep and class-clowns are attention starved. The two are bad enough alone, but if you add in the "it's cool to be stupid" vibe in remedial classes then you've got a recipe for disaster... and all disasters need damage control.
Mine was simple.
I wrote the numbers 1. and 2. on the board with space for a name.
I filled out 3 detention slips omitting the name.
Carrot:I explained to the class that they'd have five minutes at the end of class to talk freely and move about the classroom IF we got through class without me handing out detention slips.
Big ASS stick:I explained that the first minor disruption would result in the person's name on the board, but no detention. If a second person created a disruption their name would go up as well. If a third person created a disruption, everyone with a name on the board would get detention (holding up the completed slips just looking for a name), the class would lose the time to hang out, and any minor disruption out of anyone from that point forward would also be a detention.
I also explained that if someone with a name on the board caused a second disruption that it would be treated as if three people had caused disruptions.
I only had to follow through once at any school I ever subbed for and it usually required 4 detentions (3 for the list and 1 for the inevitable outburst). Word carried quickly around the school and everyone knew the drill by the third period.
Turn the mob on itself imho, it works. Calc students were a different matter entirely.
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