[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Zee

I know, same here... my English class in 4th and 5th year especially, we were the 2nd set so we were meant to be really good and it was just full of these 'popular' kids who ****ed around for two years and treated our teacher like **** because they were all showing off, and she was a really good teacher, it was such a struggle to learn, she basically just ended up talking to the 7 of us who sat on our side of the classroom who actually wanted to learn more or less and ignored that lot and they all got Cs or they failed; I got an A because I wanted to learn and put the work in... it's really frustrating being at school. It's not much fun on the other side of the classroom either, after my year being an English assistant I wouldn't go back into education as a teacher...

...hmm, I'm a bit confused Zee..4th/5th year, for me that’s 8/9yr olds..are your years in Scotland different because grades don’t come until later and it sounds as though you’re talking about when you were older, at secondary or upper school..?...but anyway, it is quite interesting seeing things from both sides as it were, which you must have found as well...it’s kind of hard to get that balance with pupils who really just want to learn and not distract and those who do distract, especially when it’s regularly...you can’t just ignore the ones who find learning easy and think oh, you don’t need my help, you’ll do very well on your own because you motivate yourself..well not quite like that but you know what I mean...and you can’t exactly ‘reward’ bad behaviour but you also can’t and shouldn’t ignore these disruptions and the reasons for them...hmm, this is difficult because I actually think that your teacher was wrong in just concentrating on the ones who ‘wanted to learn’ and it’s sad those others failed but I don’t know exactly how it was and circumstances are different and have to be adapted so I’m not really judging her as such, I guess I’m just looking at your perspective of it, which was full of frustrations and understandably so...anyway, for me, I would feel that if pupils were constantly disruptive then I would be looking at why I wasn’t engaging their attention and if I was failing them..and maybe it would be nothing to do with me, there are different reasons for everything and you can’t always ‘fix’ them...but as frustrating as it is for others, I would actually be giving them a lot of attention but not in a way that I would give them the impression that I condoned their behaviour or that it was acceptable..but obviously that has to be balanced out with attention to the less disruptive pupils as well, so it’s hard...and I don’t work with older children so don’t encounter a wider range of problems ..but on the whole, as odd as it sounds, I would rather if a pupil found it hard to engage, that they were disruptive, rather than quiet as it would draw my attention to any potential learning difficulties much earlier so I kind of don’t always see it as a negative thing...but that’s from the ‘other side’ so I understand how frustrating it is for their fellow pupils and as I say, I don’t work with older children....

..it’s sad that your experience put you off though, I think maybe you would have made a good teacher and mentor...my friend’s son now teaches at the upper school he himself went to, which is quite unusual and we often have chats about it because it’s not only ‘from the other side’, it’s also the exact same people who taught him who are now his colleagues...I think even calling them by their first names is strange for him..but yeah, it is interesting reading your views because your experiences are from both sides....