82. My class is large and they don't want to learn


Joe responded to my question,
"You're right when you say that teachers in Spain, a lot of times, have to teach adolescents, many of them disruptive, plus a large class.
It's a complex problem.
Once, a student butted in his teacher's presentation of the program of the subject, on the first day of the academic year. The student asked - in Spanish. 'Ok all that, but are you going to give me Sobresaliente (the highest grade)? His teacher stopped speaking. Silence.
A tense one.
This professional stared at this 'little-terrorist'.
Silence.
Silence.
How is this new teacher going to react?
'You yourself, reply your own question.'
I mean, that's the bulk of the anecdote. So, stop speaking, make the students use their minds, quench any starting 'rebellion', silences, show seriously what your professional work is about, your service to him or to them, show what his work should be , make the contrast between good and bad manners, state the main objective of this subject, the assessment and evaluation system, address a single student, though there could be more students in the 'gang'...
And also take this student apart, when outside, when you encounter him and his friends in the hall, apart, and just you and he, talk with him, about what is positive, what negative, about his behavior, trying to pull him to good learning in the classroom; about his dignity as a person; about the due respect to an adult, to his classmates, to himself;
about the fact that he will need English in his future, within a few years, like the famous conversation in English at his Selectividad examination - This Selectividad is a previous examination to enter university."
On the pic is a picturesque street of a small town south of Spain, in Andalucía.

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