Nightmare. And then Hope.

I had the worst 45 minutes of my teaching "career" today.

All of the classes I teach fall into one of four categories: excited, interested, apathetic and hopeless. The apathetic classes are usually hopeless too.

But this class in particular is hard because for the most part, it's a in the "hopeless" category. Most of the class is rowdy as hell and refuses to listen to anything I say. Or on the off chance they do listen, they'll refuse to work with me and won't participate. But they won't just go do something else, they'll drag everyone else around them down with them.

I solved (or failed) another class like this by weeding out the people who just didn't care and moved them to the back and let them play games, under the condition they would be silent. That tactic is impossible for this class. It's too big and they're too crazy.

I spent most of the class just standing there watching them. A small handful of them actually practiced the activity. Most of them just chatted away. After a while most of the class felt that something was wrong and hushed up and stared back at me. Slightly frustrated, I tried to do what I already knew was futile. I wanted to figure out what they wanted and how I could help them. So I asked them a series of questions in Chinese. Are my instructions clear? Is this boring? Is English useless to you? etc.

Of course they told me it was interesting. They would never say otherwise. But it's easier to punch a hole through that lie than paper. I went one by one and more or less proved to everyone that they either thought the activity was boring because they weren't participating or that they never bothered to listen to me in the first place.

For most of the time I honestly didn't care. I no longer really take anything that happens in the classroom personally, with any class. I know what I'm up against, and people tell me it's amazing I can do anything at all. The disadvantages working against me are numerous and each a giant in its own right.

But what really sent me into a rage, was strangely enough, a sense of sadness. Like I said, most of this class falls into the "hopeless" category. Most. Unfortunately for my psyche, it also borderlines on the "interested" side.

As the class descended into obvious craziness*, I could see a few students look at me with despair. One student, who constantly tried to quiet his classmates (one of the many exercises in futility), asked me, "teacher can we start again?" (as in, can you try to restart your lesson because we want to learn something). Some of the others just gave me this look that said, "we really, really want to learn." One student even started reading out loud this prompt I had given them in an attempt to practice on her own.

Sadly, they're 10 (max) out of a class of 50 (*2). Towards the end, my standing in the front and just staring at them (mostly thinking about some plot ideas for some movie), eventually caught their attention. "The teacher's mad..." they whispered to each other. It was funny hearing that, and thinking to myself, 'I'm actually not mad. I just don't want to over exert myself just to get you kids to listen to two words I say.'

I gave a short speech at the end, that mostly said, "I know there's a handful of you who really want to learn. And I'm sorry, that today we weren't able to do anything."

The bell rang right after that, thank God. Because I was on the verge of tearing up. It was eerily silent as I left. Usually they're a riot, but today, they just sat there and watched me march out. You really could have heard the proverbial pin drop.

I felt a twinge of remorse. To a degree, I feel like I failed those handful of people, hence the (almost) tears. And then I realized I lied to myself. I was mad. I was so mad that all I could do was bike out of there as hard as possible. And I didn't realize how fast I was going, until I got off and felt my legs burn.

7 hours and 2 classes later, my anger's gone, but I still feel that twinge of remorse. It stings to know that people wanted something from me that I tried to give, but just couldn't, even if it was because of circumstances way beyond my control. I know the class got some idea that something was very wrong and that I wasn't going to stand for it. Whether that translates into something different next week, well..at least I know it won't be boring.

* - This might give the impression that I simply do not have the ability to control them. I guess this technically could be true. But to "control" the people in this class, I would have to be a dictator. But to do that, I would lose my voice (which is already recovering from one death), I would be ruling about fear, and they still wouldn't learn anything. Everyone loses.

*2 - Yes. Most of my classes are 50 strong.