How to tame your teachers

Three weeks ago I had an opportunity to talk to an English teacher who is working in a high school. That got me very excited because I have heard about some things that are allegedly happening in Danish schools which I wanted to check with someone who actually works there so I can get information from the first hand. And it is as bad as I have heard. Danish schools have completely eliminated any form of upbringing of children and as a consequence have degraded the professional integrity of their teachers. Danish students in schools have a free reign to act as they want, no boundaries and teachers can do nothing about it. They became a well paid punching bags.

But let's start from the beginning. When I just started with language school, there was one teacher who was always starting her classes in the way that was foreign to me. She would present the topics of today's class with "I was thinking maybe we could..." or "I suggest that today we...". After she would present it she would ask "if everyone is ok with that?"

That confused me a bit. I wasn't sure why is she asking for our blessing. None of us in class knows Danish and that is the reason why have we came to school, we came to learn. On the other hand, she is the teacher, she is the professional. I assume that she has the knowledge and the tools to teach us. When it comes to knowledge and expertise, in the classroom students and teachers are not equals. The teacher know and have the tools and students don't. And, I assume that she has the tools and the knowledge to teach me danish because she is the professional.
 

When I came home I commented on the event with Luci and asked her what was that all about and what happens if the student declines the suggested lesson? She said that students indeed have the right to decline lessons and that is why the teacher is offering them as a suggestions at the start of the class. But what can the teacher do in the case that the student declines? Basically nothing! If the student declines the suggested lesson, teacher can proceed with the planned lesson with other students but she will have to find something else for the student that refused. If the student keeps refusing the teacher will have to proceed with the search for a lesson that the student will accept in the end. This was indeed a shock for me but it was only the first one.

Then there was Rita. Rita is a very popular Danish TV show about a super cool school teacher. TV show is about her private life but also about the school life and some problems that both teachers and student are facing. While it is fiction and the TV show does exaggerate a bit, but in essence it does portray what is going on in Danish schools. What is going on in Danish schools is at least a bit chaotic, a bit of education and 0 upbringing. From the perspective of values, Danish students can learn that bullying teachers is institutionally approved, that having no respect for others is also approved and that whatever you do, there will be no consequences for your actions.

Here is the most extreme example. In one episode a student mounted a blow up sex doll on the ceiling of the classroom and the teacher was completely powerless to do anything. The only thing he could do was ask the student politely to take it down, which he refused. As that student was the class leader, he started throwing pebbles at the teacher and the whole classroom followed. At that moment the teacher couldn't take it any more so he got up and went out of the class. The student that started it all went after the teacher saying: "You can't touch me, you can't touch me!" In the end, the teacher couldn't take the bullying anymore so he stops, turns and slaps the student, which in the end leads to his dismissal from the school. Do not get me wrong, of course that was very unprofessional from the teacher and he had it coming, but how come that he was powerless do do any form of disciplinary action before the situation completely went out of control?

But ok, it was just a TV show, so at that point I didn't want to jump to any conclusions. Fortunately I didn't have to. Two weeks ago I had a chance to talk to a teacher and he in essence confirmed everything I have been seeing and hearing. The teachers indeed have no tools to bring order into classroom if it starts descending into chaos.

I asked him: "Let's say that someone starts causing a mess during the class, what can you do in that situation in order to put a stop to it in that moment?"

The answer is... nothing. You can politely ask him to stop and if he doesn't, you are powerless. The best thing you can try to do in that situation is to turn the class against him. So you can hope that the rest of the class wants to participate in a lesson and that they will enforce the discipline because you are not allowed to do it. So instead of giving teacher proper tools to enforce discipline in the class, teachers are in the complete mercy of their students and if they can resort to any tools it is subtle manipulation? Sounds like a good recipe to bring out the worst in people

Teachers can do certain things but only after the class, not during the class. They can go to the principal office and call in for a parents-school-teacher-student meeting and try to talk some sense into the student and/or the parents but there is a distinct possibility that they will be dismissed. A number of parents in Denmark is bold enough to question the teachers ability to teach, the teachers ability to choose work materials and instead of trying to educate or up-bring their kid, they will defend his/her unruly behavior and teachers again, can do nothing against it.

Of course that the teachers are not perfect. I had my share of bad teachers and there wasn't one of my ex students who didn't experience at least one bad teacher while they were in their study years. So there is something to keep an eye on. With that being said, teachers are still the people who spend a lot of time with children. In Denmark, maybe even more then their parents spend with them. Don't they deserve at least the basic human decency? Why are schools fighting against bullying among students but allow bullying of teachers by students? At what point did students became the untouchable holy cows who demand royal treatment from others but can treat others like garbage without any consequences? And I am at a total loss to figure out how is that in any way helping with their education and upbringing? Is being disrespectful indeed became a positive value in the modern world and if it did, when?

Bad teachers and language learning

Last year, in September, I started attending Danish lessons. The other day it occurred to me just how fast I have progressed. Last September Danish sounded like white noise to me. When people around me would be talking in Danish I wasn't getting anything. Today, 9 and a half months later I am ready to start reading books in Danish (real books, with the help of the dictionary of course), I can hear what Danes are saying and depending on the topic of conversation I can understand, from the general topic of the conversations to the details, but I still need to focus. If my mind is wandering I still get very little. But the point of this blog post isn't bragging.

When I was finishing elementary school and I needed to choose high school, one of the important criteria for me was the second language. I wanted to avoid German, I didn't feel like learning German and I was lucky. There was an option to sign up for the class where primary foreign language was English and secondary foreign language was Italian. I immediately jumped for the opportunity.

As it turned out, maybe I wasn't lucky at all, maybe it would have been better if I went for German, despite my reluctance. At least today I could say that I know two foreign languages and am currently working on the 3rd one.

I was motivated to learn Italian, not as I am today to learn Danish, but I was motivated. I was always a bit of a geek for learning and school and social and humanistic sciences always appealed to me. But today, the only thing I can say in Italian is "My name is Bruno." I don't even remember how to spell it though. And the lessons were equally intensive as I have them today in language school, two times per week.

The problem was that we had a horrible teacher. She neither could teach nor keep us in check. Every class was mayhem and it was like that for 4 years and we weren't happy with that either. There was a couple of students in my class who learned Italian in the elementary school. I remember one of them saying to me at the end of the fourth year that now he knows less Italian compared to when he finished elementary-school.

So after four years of learning Italian from a person who wasn't supposed to teach, I got nothing. After 6 and a half months (from September 1st to middle of March when school stopped because of corona) of learning danish, taught by good teachers, I got enough knowledge that by working at home I brought myself to the level where, with the help of the dictionary, I can read real books in danish and news. Tthere is still a lot to do for me. But compared to where I was at the beginning of September, today I am light years ahead.

The tragedy of Croatian educational system is that bad teachers that unfortunately work in schools, like my Italian teacher, are not uncommon. While I was working on university I was talking to my students about it often and there wasn't one student who didn't encounter at least one, sometimes more teachers who were like that. The problem is that, as I was joking around, when you get a permanent employment contract in Croatian schools, you can get fired only if you kill a student or arrive into the classroom naked. How it is in Denmark, I cannot say. My experiences for now were positive but very narrow in scope to make an assumption on a bigger scale.