earthling

I never thought I'd have to deal with this, but here we are. It's not common sense that racism is shameful and bad.

I teach a group of fourteen-year-olds who still think dropping the n-word is funny, but I can deal with those situations and made it pretty clear to them that if I ever hear it (or anything similar) in my classroom, they will have earned a ticket to the principal's office and I will be talking to their parents.

However, there is a more complex situation that has been occupying my mind lately and I would appreciate your thoughts and advice.

A kid turned up to my class wearing ladder laced boots with white laces. (For those who don't know, this means the person is a white supremacist, lace colour was/is used to showcase identity and can differ from place to place) It caught my eye when I heard her asking a friend if her laces were visible enough the way she folded the cargo pants she was wearing. I asked her if she was aware of the meaning of white laces and she said yes, but added that according to her skinhead friend, lace code was no longer taken seriously. I told her that while that is true, you can still get in a lot of trouble in certain places and that I do not want to see it on her again.

I also mentioned it to another teacher who immediately went and talked to her about it, but I feel like she is going to keep wearing the laces as a fuck you.

She wants to be cool and edgy, but she has no idea what shaky ground she's on. She often makes racist remarks, but nothing that could get her into trouble so far.

I will stand my ground and speak to the principal about this if she continues wearing the laces, but very very few people know about their meaning so it's not taken as seriously as if she wore a swastika or something similar. Still, I told her that if I know (and I'm not in those circles) then someone else will, too.

The bigger question here is sensitization, how I could not just enforce not showcasing racism symbols as a part of her outfit but to get through to her and the others who might think they are cool and edgy.

Thank you for reading!

I am currently undergoing my formal education as a teacher of English and German as a second language, but I've been a full-time private tutor for 5 years. I'm not supposed to teach in a school yet, but due to the state of the education system in my country, there was a lack of teachers and I got invited to teach in my former high school. I teach a group of 11 thirteen-year-olds 6x45 minutes on Mondays and Tuesdays.

I felt like I was doing quite well, but today devastated me. We had our second lesson in the canteen (due to lack of available classrooms) and it was a disaster. I try my best to plan engaging, exciting lessons, so after a short vocabulary test they were due to write, I asked them to go around the classroom and ask each other some questions related to our new unit, I even made and printed them a spreadhseet with their names that they could fill out. They started asking each other for the information in our native language, no matter how many times I asked them to speak in English, and after the time was up, I could not, for the life of me, get them to settle. Half of them were shouting and chatting, the other half were eyeing me, waiting for my response. They are generally quite lively, but today was the first time I could not get them to settle.

Now, I never yell. I do my absolute best to respect everyone, just like I promised them the first time we met. However, I asked for their respect and cooperation in return and I can see that faltering. They got used to me, got bored with me, I don't know.

Initially I thought I would have more problems with the boys, but they are okay. It's the girls, they mature faster so they are already these moody teenagers. I can't get them all to do their homework, even by giving them bad grades for it, can't get them to engage, put away their phones, nothing. I tried interesting debates, topics, but it doesn't work for more than 5 minutes. Nothing I've seen in movies, experienced as a student myself works anymore. They don't have the attention span. They are under- and overstimulated at the same time and cannot sit still, but cannot do a stand-up activity in an organised manner, it turns into chaos.

Academically, they are bright and have a very good level of English thanks to video games and movies. They do fairly well in tests, but they won't improve unless I manage to get through to them. I have some rules in place and I stick to them, so I have given them a few bad grades, etc. but I don't feel like it's enough.

For information, I'm barely taller than them and I'm a 25-year-old, younger looking girl so I'm not very intimidating. I'm also not mean-spirited and never talk down to any of my students, but I realised I need a modified approach to teaching in a group compared to teaching privately.

I would appreciate any insight or tips on how to achieve a calm and disciplined environment in which I can actually use the fun stuff I work hard to prepare.