A long rant about ... Parents ...
... or, rather, customers of the great Government school system of Australia. 'Customers', even though it's FREE education.

One of the reasons I prefer teaching in Asia - if the parents are twats, they bitch-out the Asian staff, 'coz we don't understand them.

This happened back in Oz. I hate teaching bogans (chavs, white trash). How many times can you tolerate explaining that I CAN'T tell them how to spell, "HAFTA" and, "COULDA", because they AREN'T WORDS!?!?

Little bogan girl runs up to me at the end of lunch period with a lunchbox emergency.
Her yoghurt has burst open, covering the inside of the box, and the apple that accompanied it.

Pushing aside my surprise that she actually has something other than take-away food for her lunch, I start cleaning out the lunchbox.

She has the apple in one hand, yoghurt pot in the other - "Waddowoi do wif dis?"

It's an empty yoghurt container, what do you think?

"Throw it in the bin."

Off she toddles. Things are cleaned up, problem sorted.

Until the next morning.

I'm sitting on the floor with my class of 5-year-olds, most with emotional and/or psychological problems, one is autistic and VERY violent. Easy to set them off into screaming chaos.

Bogan girl's mum - a veritable hambeast - suddenly appears at the door with a posse of large, grotty-tracksuit-wearing, ugly-stick victims.

"Oi. YOU. YOU TELLED BOGAN GIRL TO THROW OUT 'ER APPLE YESTERDEE WHO DO YA FINK YA ARE HUH YA BLOODY BITCH I DON'T WORK ME ARSE ORF TA BUY SHIT FOR YA TA CHUCK OUT I WANT YOU TA PAY ME FOR THAT FRIGGIN APPLE!"

I calmly attempted to explain the real story, at the same time wondering how "having kids by multiple fathers and getting child allowance" translates in her mind to "working [her] arse off". And trying to ignore the threatening looks from her 'gang'.

"I WANT ME MONEY FOR THAT APPLE I'M GOIN' TA THE PRINCIPAL YA FAT COW YA FINK I CAN WASTE MONEY?"

Well, buying your kids take-away for every school lunch would indicate that.
"WE'RE GONNA BE BACK, ROIGHT GIRLS?" Her 'girls' nod.

Keep in mind, I was a small, 24-year-old. They were in their 40's (I know the mum was also a grandmother) and just one of them could've kicked my arse.

Apparently, the principal told her politely that it was a 'miscommunication' and that further issues with me should be brought directly to him.

Bogan girl later stole my purse, took out my money that was there to pay bills after work, and left the purse in the carpark. All my cards got bent when the cars drove over it, so I couldn't use the ATM to get more cash, and it was Friday.

This sort of crap happened all the time, parents think that because we raise their children for them, so that they can spend more time cheating Centrelink and being scummy and shoplifting from Crazy Clint's, that they can dictate what the school does and heap abuse on the hard-working 'education implementation and assessment officers'.

I've also been physically attacked, threatened and generally disrespected by parents and students alike.
I hate teaching in Australia.
(Celerydemon, Mon 8 Sep 2008, 4:49, 6 replies)

Small point
Education is not free, there is a thing called "taxes" which is how you manage to get paid ever month. Or do you do it for free ?
(Yellow Car is now red, Mon 8 Sep 2008, 6:43, closed)

Click
Yeah - working in schools can be hell sometimes! And I do love it when the parents seem to be a bigger problem than the kids!
(Fredz A graveyard of hopes, a dump of ambition, Mon 8 Sep 2008, 7:07, closed)

Celerydemon
Where in Aus were you teaching? My missus teaches in the Campbelltown area of Sydney. At one of the better primary schools in the region, believe it or not.

You'd sympathise with this then: b3ta.com/questions/customersfromhell/post237780

I admire teachers. I couldn't be one. Well, the court says I'm not allowed to be anyway.....

PS: A clicky-click for you.
(David CopAFeel Used to be The_Elcat - Spouting crap since 1970., Mon 8 Sep 2008, 7:56, closed)

it's a highly depressing problem
that chavs and their foreign counterparts are not only permitted to breed, but do so with no regard for the welfare of society as a whole. Anyone who thinks that the number of chavs has shot up in the last 10 years would be right, as those young scallies hanging around on street corners in 1998 are grandparents now.
(Stu Moo winner of five nobble piece prizes, Mon 8 Sep 2008, 10:31, closed)

Yellow Car
What I meant was, 'Free' as in, not a private school where the parents have to pay term fees in order to have their children attend. Independent private schools, secular (religious), Montessori, that sort of thing, they are not 'free'.
The Government system is basically free, but you have to pay 'voluntary' fees (if you don't, your kids don't get to participate in school excursions or incursions).
If you're on some kind of welfare, you get allowances that can be used towards this and for uniforms, so you're really not out of pocket for the schooling.
And, yes, my taxes went towards the support of this education system.
(Celerydemon, Mon 8 Sep 2008, 14:19, closed)

^Elcat
A few different schools in the, er, less-salubrious suburbs of Melbourne, and a large town not far north of Tullamarine airport.
(Celerydemon, Mon 8 Sep 2008, 14:41, closed)