Being a teacher is frustrating, sometimes.

Today I want to write about something that happened to me the other day in a private class that got me really upset. Have you ever encountered a student who doesn’t want to do anything, and no matter how hard you try to explain the problem to them that they just don’t even bother to try?

I was helping a student with French, but since he started studying it last year he hated it. He tries to make me do everything instead of him making the effort to complete the homework. He had to do some homework related to the verb aller (go) and the negative form. We went through the questions he had at the beginning of the class so we could do the homework without any problem, but fool of me, that was not what happened.

When we were doing the first exercise, he sat there waiting for me to give him the answer and when I told him I was not going to do it, he started swearing and breaking things he had around because he didn’t want to do anything at all. What happened next is that he decided not to do anything, and I told him that I was not there to waste my time so we could finish the class. As he was scared that I was going to tell his mother, he started to do his homework and guess what? He knew how to do the exercises! That got me thinking, why do children have this lack of interest nowadays? Why do they expect us to do everything for them? Yesterday I got the answer.

Parents don’t have the control anymore, is the children who have it. This student that I’m writing about had his French exam last Tuesday and the mother asked me to help him out during the weekend, but because he didn’t want to study, we didn’t end up having the class. What the hell?! Since when children of the age of 14 take these decisions? They are getting use to achieving what they want.

I believe parents have their children in a bubble and they don’t want to do anything to hurt them or to hurt their feelings, but let me tell you something, when I was little, I had to obey my parents whether if I liked it or not, and nothing happened. I ended up normal, and my self-esteem is perfectly fine.

The previous paragraph got me thinking of teachers as well. Can't teachers now penalize children for bad behavior? Do they have to do everything the students say? I'm sorry, but I disagree. Although we should try to avoid punishment sometimes a steady hand is necessary, otherwise, teachers will lose the control of their class.

This is something I wanted to write about because it really upset me the other day.