Camilo

Homework

This event ocurred when was doing my practice at the Saint Benedict College in Viña del Mar. That day, I had english classes with the 8th grade class. I was informed that the teacher was not able to do the class due to a sickness, so principal asked me if I wanted to do the class in replace of the teacher. I responded yes. When I arrived at the classroom the students were at the art class, so the entire classroom was a mess. After they cleaned everything up I told them that teacher was sick, therefore I was going to do the class, besides the teacher left some workshop for the students to do, so my work there was to supervise the students. Nevertheless, the students started complaining about a movie that the professor promised to watch last week. I explained them that the teacher had left homework for them, that I did not know about the movie, but they kept insisting about the film, in that moment I lost the control of the class. Luckily the art teacher happened to be in the classroom so she made them to be quiet. After she left, I gave them the instructions about the workshop; it was a pair work where the students had to read about the Internet addiction and how that affected people. After that they had to answer a couple questions about that topic. It was too difficult to put them into work, since they did not cease to complain about the promised movie, however I told them that I couldn’t do anything about it. During the class, the frustration of not watching the movie was put on me, they started to misbehave and sometimes they told me some improper words. At the end of the class not everyone finished the homework. This event called my attention because, in one minute I passed to be the friendly teacher’s helper to an opressing authority, besides the fact that they did not watched the movie frustrated them so their anger was put on the person who is in charge, in that case myself. When I was in the class I was wondering why did the students showed so much disrespect to me? The answer could be that when something amusing is negated the students need to vent their frustration to anyone they they think responsible, in that case it was the teacher. What if the movie wasn’t promised to the students? In my opinion, it would not have done too much difference, during my assistance in that class, I noticed how those students showed no interest in the subject, so the behavior wouldn’t have been any different. When someone takes the role of an authority, do always the students feel threaten? I think they don’t, because their anger was produced by the frustration caused by the fact they didn’t get what they wanted: the movie. In my opinión, it’s the other way around, the saw an students who took the role of an authority, but it wasn’t the a real authority so they felt free to do whatever they want since the students believed that no punishment were to be applied. Camilo Vásquez Tapia