Save me from teenage girls or the continuing saga of why Saff is a terrible person
Tuesdays and Thursday nights I teach essay & debate and TOEFL test prep. Everyone remarked that I seemed sad - which given the circumstances - is an understatement. I'm trying to not be a martyr, as kitsune714 warned me against and remember exactly why and who I did this for, but TTH classes are so hard.
Last night was a particularly unpleasant night because I lost my temper and went past making things a teaching moment and straight into - "I'm sorry, but that's STUPID."
So my topic was "What would you do if a natural disaster hit Korea? Who would you call? What is the most important thing to save?" Etc, etc. I gave all my classes a little background information about the unfolding tragedy in Japan (everyone knew what was going on for once) and in my second class, one of the students (I'll call her J) said as I was wrapping my summary up - "I hope all of Japan dies. I hope the Japanese president dies and falls into a hole."
I finish speaking and then I just looked at her.
J is both one of my brightest students and also one of the most clueless - she is book smart, she has excellent almost native pronunciation and understanding of English - she lived abroad in the Philippines for a few years and has also traveled and lived in America. She loves corned beef, the Jonas brothers, Selena Gomez, and the Wizards of Waverly Place. She also loves Secret Garden (the Hyun Bin Ha Ji Won drama juggernaut that took over Korea earlier this year) and aside from these burning loves, shows little enthusiasm for learning English or anything. She hates her math teacher, math, the boys in class, and having feelings aside from disdain and boredom.
I have never really warmed up to her. Which is something I've discovered about teaching - I don't like all of my students. I don't love all my students either. I do love some and like the majority of them, and then there's students like J (and her brother K) who I just -- there's no connection. I never disliked her before, but last night - J's petulant refusal to explain her opinion sent me off into attack mode. Which I'm not proud of.
I tried to be patient and understanding at first - South Korea and Japan have a terrible history and I understand that. My grandmother when she was alive, voiced very strong anti-Japanese sentiments because of the horrors of the war. However, it was not because of historical context - J said repeatedly, "it's not because of that, I don't have a reason," which just set me OFF.
I had been very tired - I didn't go to sleep until early morning again (stupid! stupid! if you see me on twitter, tell me to go to bed), the previous classes I teach before essay class are my least favorite classes (despite the overwhelming sweetness when they thought I was going away) and the resentment and annoyance I had been supressing all day just boiled over.
Looking back, it could just have been a typical teenage response - I remember being a teenager. I don't think I was a particularly 'evil' or difficult and hateful one (though I suspect my mother would differ on that) - I remember being a smart ass (which just got upgraded into an asshole when I grew up), but generally aside from the awful soul deadening depression at the tail end of my junior year in high school, I remember all the ups and downs and feelings of being a teenager. And the tactic of saying stupid shit just to piss people in authority off, because that's what teenagers DO.
But J is - I don't know. I'm probably projecting expectations of human empathy and responsibility unto her.
Because as I got progressively angrier, she withdrew and became more defensive and blank. I always tried to be as non judgmental and open minded in these classes because they are the few classes I can be creative in and not follow a strict curriculum with, and I just want the kids to write and have fun writing and talking about what they write - but I couldn't let J's thoughtlessness (which I knew about before) slide. The pass of 'oh she's only thirteen years old' just doesn't work in this instance.
I told her - well, what about the babies of Japan? Or the older people? Or the dogs and cats? What have they done to YOU personally, that you would want them to die? She tried to backtrack - "I didn't say them -"
"You said you wished all of Japan would die. That means the babies, the older people, the animals - everything."
"I don't have a reason - I mean I do, but I can't say it to you."
Which brings me to my next peeve about getting the kids to write or explain themselves - the dreaded, "just because" reason, or as it's shortened here, "Just." I hate it even more than when I hear "So-so" when I ask kids how they're feeling. "So-so" I just....they're children. So-so is something you hear when you're working in an office or you're an age older than twelve.
No. You can't hate Japan just because.
You can have negative assocations with Japan because of what select stupid men in power decided years ago, but what they did does not reflect on Japan as a whole - it doesn't make the lives being lost less precious than your own, it doesn't make the horrors going on okay or right. I told them being American and traveling around the world had exposed me to anti-American sentiment and so I know what it is to be from a country that isn't universally respected, only feared or mocked, and that if people only believed what they heard from third hand accounts or the news, that no one would care if I died or got hurt, because I was American and I deserved it.
I think I was shaking at one point, I was so angry.
J and I avoided each other for the rest of the night and then I went into Faye's room and told her what happened - she just shook her head and said, "That's why I don't like her, she's so thoughtless, always saying stupid things like that."
For every J I encounter, I am happy to remember the well-adjusted, thoughtful, kind and amazing teenagers I met and have known. Teenagehood is a particularly tough time in life and transitioning, but there has to be a time when you become responsible for what you say and do as a person and age doesn't come into it.
You can't be young and stupid forever. Well, you can't be young forever.
Last night was a particularly unpleasant night because I lost my temper and went past making things a teaching moment and straight into - "I'm sorry, but that's STUPID."
So my topic was "What would you do if a natural disaster hit Korea? Who would you call? What is the most important thing to save?" Etc, etc. I gave all my classes a little background information about the unfolding tragedy in Japan (everyone knew what was going on for once) and in my second class, one of the students (I'll call her J) said as I was wrapping my summary up - "I hope all of Japan dies. I hope the Japanese president dies and falls into a hole."
I finish speaking and then I just looked at her.
J is both one of my brightest students and also one of the most clueless - she is book smart, she has excellent almost native pronunciation and understanding of English - she lived abroad in the Philippines for a few years and has also traveled and lived in America. She loves corned beef, the Jonas brothers, Selena Gomez, and the Wizards of Waverly Place. She also loves Secret Garden (the Hyun Bin Ha Ji Won drama juggernaut that took over Korea earlier this year) and aside from these burning loves, shows little enthusiasm for learning English or anything. She hates her math teacher, math, the boys in class, and having feelings aside from disdain and boredom.
I have never really warmed up to her. Which is something I've discovered about teaching - I don't like all of my students. I don't love all my students either. I do love some and like the majority of them, and then there's students like J (and her brother K) who I just -- there's no connection. I never disliked her before, but last night - J's petulant refusal to explain her opinion sent me off into attack mode. Which I'm not proud of.
I tried to be patient and understanding at first - South Korea and Japan have a terrible history and I understand that. My grandmother when she was alive, voiced very strong anti-Japanese sentiments because of the horrors of the war. However, it was not because of historical context - J said repeatedly, "it's not because of that, I don't have a reason," which just set me OFF.
I had been very tired - I didn't go to sleep until early morning again (stupid! stupid! if you see me on twitter, tell me to go to bed), the previous classes I teach before essay class are my least favorite classes (despite the overwhelming sweetness when they thought I was going away) and the resentment and annoyance I had been supressing all day just boiled over.
Looking back, it could just have been a typical teenage response - I remember being a teenager. I don't think I was a particularly 'evil' or difficult and hateful one (though I suspect my mother would differ on that) - I remember being a smart ass (which just got upgraded into an asshole when I grew up), but generally aside from the awful soul deadening depression at the tail end of my junior year in high school, I remember all the ups and downs and feelings of being a teenager. And the tactic of saying stupid shit just to piss people in authority off, because that's what teenagers DO.
But J is - I don't know. I'm probably projecting expectations of human empathy and responsibility unto her.
Because as I got progressively angrier, she withdrew and became more defensive and blank. I always tried to be as non judgmental and open minded in these classes because they are the few classes I can be creative in and not follow a strict curriculum with, and I just want the kids to write and have fun writing and talking about what they write - but I couldn't let J's thoughtlessness (which I knew about before) slide. The pass of 'oh she's only thirteen years old' just doesn't work in this instance.
I told her - well, what about the babies of Japan? Or the older people? Or the dogs and cats? What have they done to YOU personally, that you would want them to die? She tried to backtrack - "I didn't say them -"
"You said you wished all of Japan would die. That means the babies, the older people, the animals - everything."
"I don't have a reason - I mean I do, but I can't say it to you."
Which brings me to my next peeve about getting the kids to write or explain themselves - the dreaded, "just because" reason, or as it's shortened here, "Just." I hate it even more than when I hear "So-so" when I ask kids how they're feeling. "So-so" I just....they're children. So-so is something you hear when you're working in an office or you're an age older than twelve.
No. You can't hate Japan just because.
You can have negative assocations with Japan because of what select stupid men in power decided years ago, but what they did does not reflect on Japan as a whole - it doesn't make the lives being lost less precious than your own, it doesn't make the horrors going on okay or right. I told them being American and traveling around the world had exposed me to anti-American sentiment and so I know what it is to be from a country that isn't universally respected, only feared or mocked, and that if people only believed what they heard from third hand accounts or the news, that no one would care if I died or got hurt, because I was American and I deserved it.
I think I was shaking at one point, I was so angry.
J and I avoided each other for the rest of the night and then I went into Faye's room and told her what happened - she just shook her head and said, "That's why I don't like her, she's so thoughtless, always saying stupid things like that."
For every J I encounter, I am happy to remember the well-adjusted, thoughtful, kind and amazing teenagers I met and have known. Teenagehood is a particularly tough time in life and transitioning, but there has to be a time when you become responsible for what you say and do as a person and age doesn't come into it.
You can't be young and stupid forever. Well, you can't be young forever.