Brea: The Bratty Kids

I visited the campus and observed the classes for the last week of the semester. This was finals week, or at least this was the week when students were supposed to prepare for their finals.

It was panda-freaking-monium in almost every class. The students were loud and uncouth, they refused to be quiet. The teachers had to handle a rowdy set of kids. When I observed the French teacher's class, I was appalled at how the students would just shout and talk over the young lady. This woman whom I was going to replace, by the way, was about six months pregnant, of Algerian descent, so she was a native French speaker, but she did a terrible job managing the class. It was really bad.

One student took pleasure in picking on another student. While the French teachers refused to do anything about it, I called the student over to me right away, and I made it crystal clear that I was not going to put up with any nonsense when I was teaching in that class. Little did I realize that I would have no support when I finally stepped into the class.

The administration then told me to visit the other foreign language classes. The older Spanish teacher ran another loud and noisy class, one where the paperwork was flying just about everywhere. This gentleman had been teaching for over thirty years. He had taught children and grandchildren in the same family, too. One of those legacy teachers, apparently.

I then visited the Department chair, whose class was better behaved than other classes. The students were still a little talkative, but at least all the students were on task. She was an interesting lady, one who knew what she wanted, and knew how to impart what she had prepared for the lessons of the day.

Then there was another two Spanish classes. The first one, the class that I visited just before lunch time. They were the rudest students I had ever witnesses. The class would never get quiet enough for the teacher to be heard over the noise. One of the students brazenly insulted her, and she then threw him out. So frustrated was she that she just put him out in the hallway, even though the administration would later lecture me that in no way was I allowed to put students outside. This teacher reminded me of the many first and second your teachers who just hate the job, but they have no idea what to do. What she was then, I would be for the next year and a half.

These students refused to listen. This school created an entitlement culture, one in which they were always right, because the wealthy parents gave themselves permission to harass teachers and the like who did not do what they wanted.