Mrs. Lagos-- April 3, 2013

When I walked into the room today, none of the students greeted me. In fact they completely ignored my own greeting and continued their boisterous activities. Cinthia had pulled the teacher’s chair up to one of her friend’s desk and was sitting in it. I said, “Cinthia, will you please return my chair to where it belongs?” She ignored me. I had to ask three times before she finally pushed it a few feet away and returned to her own desk. “Cinthia, I have asked you to put the chair back where it belongs.” She looked up at me and said, “You have legs. Do it yourself.”

Today, as is typical, Luz, Danna, Cinthia and Ishla led the class in various forms of defiance and disrespect. They would stomp their feet and get everyone to do it, and then when I asked them to stop a student “rebelled” by sticking his legs straight out in front of him.  They also rapped on their desk and performed various other acts of disturbance. Next they moved on to coughing in unison, and Cinthia ran outside of the classroom twice without asking permission to “cough outside” where she laughed and danced around before coming back into the room. “Miss, I’m sick” she would automatically claim as she entered back into the room. Other times students have read so quietly that no one could hear them. Just yesterday, I asked Ishla and Danna at different times to write something on the board, and they both wrote with microscopic font. The majority of the times when I call on them, they will play dumb. The answers are obvious—for instance, yesterday I asked one of them, “Should singular subjects agree with plural or singular verbs?” and the student said, “Miss, I don’t know.” This is a small example—I was finding that nearly every question I asked them, whether devised by me or from their workbooks, they would claim, “I don’t know. I don’t understand anything.” And then proceed to tune out the rest of my lesson.

At another point in class today, four girls (Luz, Danna, Cinthia and Ishla) kept derailing my instructions regarding an upcoming exam. I had made it clear that I was not going to discuss anything unrelated to this future exam because I wanted to be certain that the students understood my expectations. However, the students would not stop talking and barely paid attention. I heard another of their favorite phrases—“Miss I don’t understand.”—from a student who hadn’t paid attention to anything I’d said previously. And the four girls kept asking me unrelated questions.

When I did open up our discussion to other matters, the four girls became increasingly belligerent towards me. They were frustrated and questioning me over a past exam and whether or not I would drop their (failing) grades. (Three had skipped the first twenty minutes of a class once and missed out on a quiz that the rest of the students were taking. I had previously stated that I was considering dropping this quiz, but also indicated that I was not certain. Given their behavior in class at this point I do not consider dropping this quiz to be an option.) I attempted to address them civilly but warned them that I would not continue engaging in conversation if they were going to continue their disrespectful line of questioning. They did not change their behavior, so I told them I wasn’t going to talk about it any more. Cinthia fired at me, “Miss, my father pays you a lot of money to teach. You need to be a good teacher and talk to us.”

I found this comment rather offensive but masked my irritation and attempted to dignify her with a response. “Cinthia, while your father’s money is a nice gesture, I am not here to make money. I am here because I actually want to be here.”

(“That’s the right attitude, Miss!” encouraged one of the other students—one of the few that have remained respectful.)

I continued, “I am here because I want to help—I will do whatever I can to help you guys out. But I am not going to deal with your disrespect. There is no point in me engaging in conversation with you if you are not going to talk to me civilly.”

I think the class is a self-contained unit, and I’ve learned that I cannot rely on outside forces to control the behaviors inside the room. However, this class is encouraged in their behavior BY outside forces—so I am swimming upstream in effort to curtail disrespect which has been encouraged—by Mr. Mayorga, parents, and even Mr. Rodriguez in his efforts to “counsel” them.

It’s infuriating to me that this has been allowed to continue. That Cinthia was granted the privilege of classroom instruction with me after her disrespect and obscene language—and that she was discharged with little more than a slap on the wrist. That experience apparently taught her nothing, as her disrespect has only grown.

A variety of explanations has been given as to why these students are acting out so much in my class. From boredom to teacher ineptitude, I’ve heard it all. I wanted so badly for things to go well that I was determined to work very hard in order to assure myself that I’d done everything I could to reach them. But despite my efforts, most of the students shut down the moment I walk into the room. Whatever I have to say is a rather moot when the students barely acknowledge my entrance, slouch or put their head down repeatedly, and feign ignorance whenever I call on them.

They are determined not to learn from me, and I don’t see the point in continuing to fight them on this issue. Class is not meant to be a battle. The anxiety I feel before entering the room is awful. I am effectively being bullied by my own students. This is so far from what I hoped would occur when I came to Honduras. I fell in love with the country, but have fallen out of favor with the school.

I don’t like admitting that I’m failing—but I really don’t forsee any changes in the future. I don’t see any point in me continuing to teach these students. They obviously have determined there is no point in learning from me. I also wonder if I should continue to teach at the school at all—as these problems are systemic.

I believe I’m rather realistic about things. I know that I am not a perfect teacher. I had some prior training and experience, but I still felt overwhelmed in this environment. I am sure that there are many other talented teachers who would never have come to this circumstance in the first place. The unfortunate reality is that we are in this circumstance and all prior efforts to ameliorate the situation have not done so.

I appreciated meeting with you and am glad that you took the time to talk with us—but I can’t wait around for more meetings and more promises.

It’s so late in the year to make changes to a schedule, and yet with the continued disrespect and refusal to participate, I see no benefit from the status quo.

I will follow whatever instructions you have. If that means discharging me from teaching 11^th grade—or letting me go as a teacher in general, I will accept your decision with no hard feelings. I am completely opening myself up to whatever you and the administration decide is the best course of action.

Thank you for your time and consideration in all of this. I appreciate the effort that you’ve put forth—not only with these recent hurdles, but even back to settling Eric and Candra in their apartments and all the assistance since.

Best,

Hannah