I have a friend who just so happens to be a primary school teacher.
So one day, while the school was still in session I had some time-critical things I needed to tell him face-to-face. The Headmistress gives me permission to go and speak to him, I find the classroom and knock on the door.
I wat for a second and step in, intending on showing good manners while there as an example for the 9-year olds.
I step in and am faced with a most mind-boggling sight, for me at least.
The entire classroom is a mess, an uncontrolled pit of chaos with the children talking to cellphones, to eachother in loud voices, doing who knows what to their desks and generally doing everything they could to ignore my friend, the teacher. A small group of quiet, timid children were almost huddled up in a corner, doing their best to overhear the teacher over the cacophony. A few children were not even sitting, instead preferring to stand next to their friends on other desks, talking of GTA IV. Some girls were bullying another girl, pulling her hair and calling her names.
My friend was supposed to be teaching them biology, but I doubt anyone learned anything during that lesson. When I saw him, for that single moment I entered and no reaction from the children were yet to be seen,, he looked almost tearful. He also looked like hell, the stress of the unruly kids clearly getting to him.
Then one of the kids in the front row yells to his friends while looking at me: " Oh look, another fag. Wonder who that **** is?"
These kids were fricking nine. I felt apalled and confused on how these children could say such things in front of a complete stranger while their teacher is present. I also felt so much sympathy for my friend right then.
Later I asked my friend how the situation is so bad, on why the unruly kids aren't put on detention and removed from the classroom until they pipe down. I asked, honestly stumped, why such blatant bulying was happening in the classroom. Sure, I got bullied and beaten while a kid, but never during school hours and the bullies always got repercussions from it.
But this went so much beyond that.
The answer horrified me, giving me the worst experience with school kids on the same day I lost a lot of faith in parents of this country:
The parents are dismissing all claims made by the teachers: call a student's home that their Christine has been pulling the hair of other girls in the class and the response is a knee-jerk answer of 'Not my little baby! You must be mistaken, I am taking this up with the headmistress to stop this baseless accusation'.
Children could not be sent outside of classroom suring teaching, because the group sizes are already pushing 45 due to lack of teachers, further due to lack of money put towards hiring them. Same problem with detention: a teacher has to be present, doing overtime for little if no benefit at all to them.
So the teachers can't do anything during school and after school isn't that much of an option either. And since every child there is their mommy's little angel/daddy's little princess, then of course they are innocent and no diciplary action is taken at home. Any more severe punishments by the school get's immediately walled by the furious parents complaining of unfair treatment, baseless rumours and incompetent teachers/headmistress, sometimes going so far as to complain directly to municipal government.
So yeah.... That was possibly one of my most horrible days during the last few years.
And the worst part is, I'm just 25. I have no recollection of primary school being anywhere near that bad when I was attending. It's like someone has turned but the system and parenting of the children, at least on that particular school, inside out and then somehow twisted and bent it so much that it's barely recognisable. And all this in less than 15 years.
And from what I've heard, that school was by no means an exception.
So yeah, Wall-O-Text summons complete. But there you have it, my response to the OP. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and call my teacher friend, see how he is doing and if he'd like me to offer him a beer or two. I'm pretty sure they might help him unwind....
