The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

19th March 2025

Reasons teachers are leaving the profession:

Adapted from Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond (2017). Figure displays percentages of teachers reporting each factor as important; teachers were able to select more than one reason, so percentages do not total 100.

Data from Wing Institute https://www.winginstitute.org/quality-teachers-retention

Learning a language is a skill.

Developing skills require

discipline

hard work

practice

practice

practice

Glenn Gould

Lessons can still be fun and engaging, stimulating and creative.

Last night, I substituted for a class of students, 10-11 years old. One boy arrived over 10 minutes late, and the other students warned me that he was the noisiest.

Within five minutes I had given him a BLACK STAR for disruption and disrespect.

Then I helped him, made him repeat new words, improved his intonation, told him that he was intelligent and could be a good student; I asked him if was going to work now …

“No!”

After two hours, both my much younger TA and I were exhausted. Class management is part of the job but it shouldn’t be the entire job.

I have heard non-teachers tell me that I “must inspire the children.”

Have you ever tired to inspire and motivate people that do not want to be inspired or motivated ? People that turn their heads away when you try to help them, that look at the wall when you talk to them, that whistle during class to block out your voice.

Try inspiring a reluctant, recalcitrant class for two hours … then do it again for another two hours … six days a week … fifty weeks a year … year after year.

I admit my own imperfections, faults and mistakes, but I think the following suggestions are reasonable:

1) Students should only have an accepted first or given name, not named after products, film characters, food, foreign expressions or non-organic items.

2) Students must learn how to behave in the classroom and the school. No running, shouting, screaming, fighting etc.

3) I always appreciate if a teacher has cleaned the board, logged out of the computer and left the room presentable. We do have cleaners, but there is no way they can cover all the rooms in the ten-minute window.

4) I do not appreciate going into a room, finding writing over the boards and equipment, computer just left with all windows open. I have to close their work before I can log into my work. Meanwhile there is a classroom of students with nothing to do, so they will talk, shout, scream etc.

5) Finding old tissues, food wrappers, empty bottles on the teacher’s console and floor is totally unacceptable. I find it disgusting, and an insult.

6) Security guards should provide security. A friend told me that in a different country, a guard began harassing a young TA, stalking her, and saying inappropriate things to her young students.

7) No student should ever be allowed to wear an inappropriate item of clothing, with either offensive text or political images.

8) Vietnamese staff should learn the importance of saying “thank you,” and “sorry.”

So what to do after a terrible day at the office ?

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