arg
One of my students made me so angry today that walking home I started to cry.
We had to do a retest for students who got less than 60 on the test. So this test has been delayed because the students who have to take it keep being absent from school. Finally, today they were all three here. I told them explicitly to come after short homeroom to take the retest. Only 2 out of 3 came, and the 2 only because I escorted them to the room. I was the prison warden taking the inmates to their death sentence, and I was annoyed that the one student didn't come (this means we will have yet another retest). So I give them the test, and one kid writes for about 10 minutes, and stops. Then he starts making his test paper into a paper airplane. I didn't think he'd be audacious enough to throw it, but he did. And then got up to pick it up before I told him to sit down and stop. The other student (one from my class) wrote for about 14 minutes. Then he gave me a big smile and held out the test, as if to say, "I'm so cute, you must take this and let me go play soccer!" But I said, "The test is 50 minutes, so you must stay here for 50 minutes." Or I get in trouble, I thought. The next 30 odd minutes were torture for them, and slowly began to be purgatory for me.
The paper airplane kid slowly moved chairs (in slow motion, as if I couldn't see him that way) so that he'd get closer and closer and closer to the door, and blessed freedom. He got to the chair closest to the door (I didn't stop him before this, just to see how he was planning to make a futile escape attempt) and made movements to slide the chair closer to the door, when I said, "stop." He tried again 3 minutes later, like I was stupid enough not to see his feet starting to move. Again I said stop. Courageously and with profound stupidity, he moved an inch again, and I nearly shouted his name. He pretended to sleep after that.
At about 35 minutes into the farce I had called a test, my student kicked his desk about six inches away from him (they are on wheels). About 47 minutes into the test, I said they could go, and he stood up and pushed over his chair, slammed the door, and I could hear him running down the hall, hitting the doors as he went down. The airplane kid beat it out of there in a flash too. I just sat there for a bit, angry and a bit scared at them being violent for such a petty thing as keeping time on an exam. This was certainly a battle of wills, and although I won the battle I am scared at how my student will act from now on in my class. From what he did, I don't think I've won the war of wills. It will be perpetual hell from now on.
I was so disturbed that I tried to tell his homeroom teacher. Even with my coworker helping me out explaining in Japanese, the teacher pretended it wasn't a big deal, that I was a stupid foreign teacher and I didn't know anything, being paranoid, for how could such cute rich spoiled brats do something bad? The little punk. I got frustrated and almost started to cry trying to explain to him; then I ran home and cried.
Went to pizza and the bookstore afterwards to try to chase away the bad feelings. It didn't really work...
We had to do a retest for students who got less than 60 on the test. So this test has been delayed because the students who have to take it keep being absent from school. Finally, today they were all three here. I told them explicitly to come after short homeroom to take the retest. Only 2 out of 3 came, and the 2 only because I escorted them to the room. I was the prison warden taking the inmates to their death sentence, and I was annoyed that the one student didn't come (this means we will have yet another retest). So I give them the test, and one kid writes for about 10 minutes, and stops. Then he starts making his test paper into a paper airplane. I didn't think he'd be audacious enough to throw it, but he did. And then got up to pick it up before I told him to sit down and stop. The other student (one from my class) wrote for about 14 minutes. Then he gave me a big smile and held out the test, as if to say, "I'm so cute, you must take this and let me go play soccer!" But I said, "The test is 50 minutes, so you must stay here for 50 minutes." Or I get in trouble, I thought. The next 30 odd minutes were torture for them, and slowly began to be purgatory for me.
The paper airplane kid slowly moved chairs (in slow motion, as if I couldn't see him that way) so that he'd get closer and closer and closer to the door, and blessed freedom. He got to the chair closest to the door (I didn't stop him before this, just to see how he was planning to make a futile escape attempt) and made movements to slide the chair closer to the door, when I said, "stop." He tried again 3 minutes later, like I was stupid enough not to see his feet starting to move. Again I said stop. Courageously and with profound stupidity, he moved an inch again, and I nearly shouted his name. He pretended to sleep after that.
At about 35 minutes into the farce I had called a test, my student kicked his desk about six inches away from him (they are on wheels). About 47 minutes into the test, I said they could go, and he stood up and pushed over his chair, slammed the door, and I could hear him running down the hall, hitting the doors as he went down. The airplane kid beat it out of there in a flash too. I just sat there for a bit, angry and a bit scared at them being violent for such a petty thing as keeping time on an exam. This was certainly a battle of wills, and although I won the battle I am scared at how my student will act from now on in my class. From what he did, I don't think I've won the war of wills. It will be perpetual hell from now on.
I was so disturbed that I tried to tell his homeroom teacher. Even with my coworker helping me out explaining in Japanese, the teacher pretended it wasn't a big deal, that I was a stupid foreign teacher and I didn't know anything, being paranoid, for how could such cute rich spoiled brats do something bad? The little punk. I got frustrated and almost started to cry trying to explain to him; then I ran home and cried.
Went to pizza and the bookstore afterwards to try to chase away the bad feelings. It didn't really work...