Every week is a “rough week” when you’re a new teacher. While I may not be “new” (I’ve been in classrooms for coming up on 15 years now), most of my years have in South Korean classrooms — this is only my 2nd year as a teacher in America. So, I still count myself amongst the ranks of people who are just figuring things out.
The biggest difference so far is that South Korean middle-schoolers are more “adult” than most of my American high-schoolers. By every measurable rubric. There’s more accountability, more empathy, more hard work. I try not to get too down on American high-schoolers because of it — I don’t think it’s their fault — but it makes my job a lot harder, and it just makes me…I don’t know. Sad.
One of my students this week got in trouble for standing up and walking out of the classroom. Where’d he go? I’m not 100%, but I suspect he went to do drugs. (Weed vapes are a big problem.) When he tried to come back into class, I sent him up to his administrator. “That’s unfair! I was just going to the bathroom!”
“Okay, but you went without asking, didn’t sign out, and you didn’t get a pass.”
“I had the pass!”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I had the pass, but [ANOTHER STUDENT] took it from me!”
“Alright, you can explain that to your administrator and we’ll sort it out.”
He left in a huff, throwing that day’s assignment on the ground — a gesture that somehow lost its meaning when you consider that he hadn’t yet done any work on the assignment. Matter of fact, this student hasn’t turned in a single assignment all year.
His administrator listened to the student and called me to confirm the story. “[STUDENT] says you sent him to me for going to the bathroom. Is that true?”
“He left class without permission and without a pass. I don’t know where he went.”
“So he’s lying when he says he had a pass?”
“Yes.”
I heard the student in the background practically crying about what a liar I was. A bold move considering our security cameras clearly showed him leaving class without a pass. Even when that was explained to him — even when he was shown the security footage — he still maintained that he’d left with a pass.
I should point out that, while I was talking to the student and his administrator, 34 other students were waiting for class to continue. Class sizes in most American schools are ridiculous and, frankly, untenable. There should be, at most, 20 students per teacher. Our school usually does 35. (One of my classes has 36, even though there are only 35 desks. It’s a trivial problem considering there hasn’t been a single day when every student has been in class, but still.)
And many people might say, “What’s the big deal? If the student had to go to the bathroom and went to the bathroom, he shouldn’t be punished for that. Stop micromanaging!” I can see why some people might think that — it’s because they are idiots who haven’t spent any time at a school in the last 20 years.
The problem isn’t that he went to the bathroom, it’s that he left class and nobody knew where he went. Why is that such a big deal? Safety. For one, unsupervised students sometimes fight each other in hallways, brutally, and for two: In the event of a fire or, you know, an active shooter, you need to know where everyone is.
The fact that this student lies and behaves like a petulant child isn’t surprising; he is a petulant child, and likely a petulant child being raised by a petulant child — but what is surprising is that we’re expecting him to improve while stuffing him in a classroom filled with 30+ students who also have behavior issues, students who have learning disabilities, and students who lost out on years of socialization because of COVID.
I’ve spent several hours after school this week talking with counselors, administrators, and making phone calls to parents. Not just about this one student, but about him and dozens of others. When I get home, I haven’t been in a “reading” mood.
Mostly what I want to do is sleep.
I have made some progress on “I Capture the Castle,” which is light-hearted and just as sweet as box of lady fingers — by I’ve fallen awfully short of my reading goal. I’m almost finished, though!
This is turning into one of those “should I post this?” posts that I ultimately end up deleting because this is supposed to be a blog about books and I want it to be a positive one. Ultimately, though, my job drastically impacts my reading habits. And it’s probably cathartic to let all this stuff out.
I should point out that I have a few exchange students from South Korea in my homeroom. We spent part of yesterday looking at where we used to live in Seoul on Google Maps while lamenting how much we miss things like Isaac Toast. It was a fun, if not bittersweet trip down memory lane.
I’ve been dreaming about South Korea a lot recently. It’d be an understatement to say I miss it there, but it’s true. I miss the students, the food, the people I used to work with. It’s not a perfect place, but they care about education in a way that most Americans can’t fathom.
And I frankly can’t imagine what it’s like for a South Korean student to transfer here to America. I mean, I’m sure they have a lot more free time without after-school academies, and the workload is probably trivial for them, but the culture shock must be huge.