Treatment of students

Sometimes the students really drive me nuts.

But sometimes you discover something interesting about them.

Today, when my co-teacher (in my previous post) took over the first half of the class, I had to temporarily change my role to a classroom assistant until his lesson was finished. Apparently the class had fallen behind a bit and needed to catch up on some things.

The co-teacher tends to teach with an air of authority. He is one of those teachers who likes to be strict and force the students to listen rather than ask questions or interact in English; the students were told to be quiet all the time, even when they were. He handed out a worksheet about past tense, and had the students work on it.

I was near the back of the room and looked at the students. Some were a bit confused and didn't know what to do. These are normally my problematic students; they're the ones who are often off-task. When they saw me coming, they looked a little scared.

I stopped and spoke to them in the kindest voice I can manage. "Do you understand?" They shook their heads. So I knelt down and showed them how to do the worksheet. I did it in the gentlest way possible. These students are smart but they were just confused; they didn't want to ask for help because the class was so strict.

After showing them, they started to understand. And one of the most rewarding things with that is how they see you afterwards. In a class where things are strict, I tried to show that I am approachable and care about them. It proved to be helpful later when they discovered an error in the worksheet. Who was the person they asked for, when pointing it out? Me. They specifically asked for me to come and said, "Mr. C., there's a mistake." It appeared like they were more comfortable telling me about it than the co-teacher, which surprised me.

The students, especially the ones who used to be at the back and disruptive, seemed to treat me a lot better when it was my turn to teach the class. There seemed to be a newfound respect and trust as they started to be ease with me.

That is one of the coolest feelings in the world.