I represent a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving social welfare and the mental wellbeing of our global society. It's called the Don't Be A Dick Foundation. We have an interest in encouraging people not to be dicks in the span of their normal social interaction.
And- Well, let's just sit down a moment, and we'll talk about what I saw today.
See, there's this language school in Barcelona, Don Quijote. They operate in a manner quite different to American language schools... Here, the way things work is you pay for and enroll in a certain number of weeks in the program, but rather than having a concrete start-and-end date for classes, all of the classes are constantly ongoing, and you're moved into the class nearest to your level of ability in Spanish. At the beginning of each week, there come new students who are shuffled into existing classes, but, see, since there are OLD students in these classes, that means that the curriculum is ongoing, without regard for who is joining or leaving the class.
What this basically means is that you can study a subject one week and have new students show up in class just when you begin studying the next subject, which is particularly bad if this next subject relies on the first.
This is an organizational problem, but I don't really see how they can fix it. They could have fixed enrollment dates for the classes, but that'd make it harder for those with less time to spend in the program- or very SPECIFIC weeks they can spend in the program, as not everybody's vacation time is the same- to get here and give their money to the school. And the school likes money. A whole lot. They could also give private one-on-one tutoring, but that'd require having more professors of Spanish than they have, so they'd need to hire more- and the school likes money. A whole lot.
So, honestly, I'm not going to dwell on why they don't fix this. For the things they consider important (i.e., money, flexibility, and a basic understanding of Spanish), this is probably the best they could come up with. Instead, I'm here to talk about the way some of the students behave.
Let's say that there are two new students entering a Spanish class right after the class has finished studying the grammar of the Preterite Indirect and the Imperfect tenses for the past two weeks, and the class is moving on to talk about how each tense is used in complicated compound sentences.
Let's say that the two new students, being fresh and new to Spanish, don't actually KNOW the Preterite and the Imperfect conjugations, and have to refer to a table they're sharing, put in the back of the book, to figure out how to respond to the oral exercises in class.
And let's say that one of the students who's been in the class for a few weeks- We'll call her Talita, which is her real name, as the chances of her seeing this blog are pretty minimal, and even if she DID see it and COULD understand the English, one would hope she has the breeding to actually change her behavior based on it rather than just take offense- is a Brazilian upper-class woman who's been in Spanish classes back home, and is skilled with both verb tenses despite floundering more than once with the conjugations during the previous week.
Now, let's say that one of the two new students is asked to discuss what she did the previous week-end, and that she is having a little trouble figuring out which tense to use where, or even what the difference between them is.
And then Talita, rather than helping them understand the nuances of the question and the difference between the two tenses, rolls her eyes and loudly, in an annoyed tone of voice, corrects the other student and mutters something about how her time is being wasted.
What the hell, lady?
Now, some of you out there might think it hypocritical for ME to complain about someone annoyed at other students for slowing down the class. And to these people I respond: "Wait, who the hell are you? How the fuck did you find my blog?"
But after I've calmed down, stopped swearing, and figured out who it is that's calling me a hypocrite, I'd likely reply "Okay, this is actually a completely different situation."
You see, in college, there were times when I was pissed off at how the other students in the class would have trouble paying attention to the material and would thus waste my time by needing the professor to lead them through it by the hand. The difference is that those were students who had BEEN in the class since day one and whose inability to remember the material usually had to do with sleeping through or skipping classes, or just plain not giving a shit. THESE students just arrived in the program THIS MORNING and were just put into a class that spent TWO WEEKS going over this material. And these students have NO prior experience with the past tenses in Spanish, and were only placed in this class because putting them into a lower class would have been wasting THEIR time and money by having them repeat information they'd already learned.
Talita, you're on notice, dear. I was annoyed enough when you were rude to me, multiple times, for actually wanting to learn Spanish the way it's spoken as opposed to the way a robot would speak it, but pulling elitism and saying your time is being wasted when, as I remember it, YOU were the one fucking up this material last week... that's officially a step too far. (And no, readers, she's not going to see this, but I am going to politely imply she should shut the fuck up if she does this again. Learning a language is an exercise in thinking and expressing yourself differently, and that's hard enough for most people when they're not being attacked by a know-nothing know-it-all who's on a superiority rush.)
So, please, dear reader, take the message of the Don't Be A Dick Foundation to heart, and please, please, please, please, please don't be a dick.
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