Parents will only have themselves to blame

I alredy am ashamed of my generation but the more I watch children today, the more I'm concearned about the future. What led me to this ephifany? The first mother that complained about me in my new job. (Yeah, I've been there for a week and someone alredy complained about me) 

I'm a teacher assistant in this school and yesterday the lead teacher of the class went to talk with the headmaster and the owner of the school. When she came back to class she told me that a mother said to the owner of the school that when she came to pick her son up, she saw me yelling to another child. I was shocked. Of course that I always have to control the italian part of me that talks loudly very often but knowing that these little "angels" will tell their parents everything I say or do, I am really carefull.  I kept thinking about the day before trying to remember why did I scream to the boy - that she couldn't even say who was, then I remembered.

The boy in question spent the whole day pushing the other students. He pushed students on the line while we were walking by the hallways. He pushed students in the playground, he was doing this the whole day, really. The teacher and me were calling his attention for his actions, trying to make him see that pushing his classmates is wrong, not yelling at him. Not talking down at him! Well, when the woman was arriving to pick her son the child was pushing a classmate, the child fell over a desk and of course started to cry! The first thing I did after picking the one who fell was saying: "Hey! We alredy told you about pushing your friends. You could have hurt him! Don't do that again!" Then the woman came in. What was I supposed to do? Say "Congratulations! You just pushed a classmate again, well done." ???? I wonder if it was her son the one who was pushed if she would be thinking that I was yelling to the other kid. 

I'm not a mother, I don't intend to be soon. But you don't need to be one nor a genious to see that if the kids are little brats with no limits at all, parents only have themselves to blame. Still they don't want to see that. I have seen 4 years old children stealing, I have seem them bullying, I have seen them lying shamelessly and the only thing I was told to do was: keep quiet. Schools are, now, made to stuck knowledge on children's heads and not to try to make the world better trying to do what parents don't want to: raising their children. 

Eventually these children will grow up and become people with serious character disorder - and other disorders - and parents will only have themselves to blame even if they can't see that. 

Parenting

Why do people have kids?Yes, they can be little annoying brats but the problem here isn't about children themselves. It's about parents. Why do they have kids if they don't want to BE parents. 


In my little work experience I have seen extremes. Junkie or alchoolic parents, parents that just don't give a shit, parents with no money. And rich parents that work too much or that simply don't have time to 'waste' taking care of their children because go shopping is more important. The difference is, when you have (much) more money you can pay a better school and your kid is in better hands. What pisses me off the this lauzy person thinking that this is enough.

And they don't really know that they miss the best in that children. 

So much to say...

My day didn't start in a good way yesterday. A moth got in my bedroom last morning while I was changing clothers to go to work. I HATE those things, it was huge and it was coming straight ahead to MY head! I freaked out. I went out of my room running and stumbled, twisting my foot. It hurted a lot, I didn't woked that day.

I sent my student's tests results by e-mail to my boss. Three students of Elementary were with bad marks, he called me and said: "It doesn't exist a student of Elementary School with grades like this in English!" I told him that just a few students (3) were in this situation but what I really wanted to do was scream and say "You motherfucker, they are with this same grades since the first test they did and you came to say to me that 'this grades don't exist in Elementary now?  We have only two more months!" I couldn't sleep, because I had to reply an e-mail from him, and I tried really hard not to be sarcastic, but the unspoken words were sreaming inside my head.

At least I had my first driving lesson (well... not exactly the first but count as if it was). I wasn't as bad as I thought that I would be but I still suck (and I'll probably still suck for a looooong time). I hope that by my birthday I'll be with the driving license. =D

At least today was an interesting day. I went with some friends to the University Archives, they were taking their students from the trainee program there to see how a historian work, interpreting data from the files. They saw some files from the Brazilian Military Dictatorship and last week a university teacher and a torture survivor talked to them (unfortunately I couldn't watch this). It was really nice and I believed they enjoyed the ride around the campus and the Archives itself.

What people think about Ancient Greece...

I'm studying Ancient History again at the university, it isn't a compulsory subject and it talks about specifically about sex, power and religion in Greece and Rome. As it isn't a compulsory subject, people from other courses can enroll. So there are some design, Portuguese, journalism, law and biology students (the thing would be funnier if there were some people from Medical school)

Anyway... the funny (or disgusting) part is that people think that Greece is the gay paradise of the ancient world. I don't really know how that happens, maybe it's fault of high school teachers but it's the image people have from ancient Greece is that everyone could have sex anywhere and that every man was homossexual. But that didn't really happened.

They had moral codes, different from ours, but they had. You couldn't be caught havig sex in the street, you would be punished by losing your citizenship and that's the biggest shame for a ancient greek. Paederasty had an educational value, the younger is learning to be a citizen by learning to control himself, there wasn't any sexual act, the poor boy couldn't have an erection because if he can't control himself there he wouldn't be able to control himself at the assembly.

The thing could be even funnier when the thing is talking about Lesbos Island and Safo. You know... brazilian lexicon contributes with this prejudice since the word "safado" that means in English "shameless" or "pervert" comes from Safo.

I don't really believe in "Historia Magistra Vitae", History's utility isn't really learn from the past. But I do believe that many values had changed for worse. Modern society have forgotten about temperance and constancy, we've forgotten about becoming better people, of growing our minds better than our bodies.

I'll quote Plato and I apologize myself because I haven't found this quote in English so I had to translate from Portuguese.

"And it is bad that popular lover that loves the body more than the soul; because he isn't constant by loving an object that isn't constant as well."
Plato - The feast or On love.

Education and it's ways

Well if someone doens't know I'm a teacher (and a student too). Today I spent all day correcting tests and once again I'm afraid of the ways education is going.
I'm not a freak teacher I don't think that tests are a way to plot a revenge against bad students and don't even think that tests must be hard. I just think that they must mesure if the students have learned what they were suposed to learn. I don't like traditional examinations because I don't really think that they mesure anything. Most of the times the student that had a terrible grade really learned more that the one that got a strait A.

Anyway... What am I worried about?
Well... even with me looking for different ways to asses the learning and writing easy tests the students (in general, thanks God there are exeptions) aren't capable to to the basics. I mean, to at least read a text and really understand what's written! I usually feel quite depressed, maybe the problem is with me.

A couple of weeks ago the headmaster of the school were I work asked me to make my test even dumbier (with this words) because parents seems not to care if their children are really learning something they want good grades. They say: "In the other school my child only got good grades if she or he isn't getting any here it's your problem" The kid that came from other school with excellent grades is a completely dumb and I have to make a miracle. And believe me I did this bimester. My last tests were completely dumb (and some found a way not to get good marks) but if you ask me if I'm happy I must say that I'm not. I don't want to be a teacher for this. It's just not right! What these kids will become? Completely assholes! It's strange to see things going this way...

Tomorrow It's the last day at school this semester. I'll get there only in August, I really need resting. I only have two more classes at the university and I'm done. HOLIDAYS!

ps. I'm trying to install another comment system, let's see how it works.