Pretty Discouraging: Ungrateful Students Make Me Want To Quit Teaching

This past weekend, I went up to Camp Jones Gulch up in Half-Moon Bay. What would possess a man to leave his month-old baby and wife for an entire weekend, you ask?

37 kids.

This past weekend, we had our First Annual Gunderson Advanced Placement Retreat. Which of course raises all kinds of questions, namely can you have a first annual something? Doesn't the word annual imply repetition?

I digress. So the idea was not mine, but my co-teacher and probably closest male friend on campus, Matt Hewitson. Hewitson teaches AP Government, so we share like 90 percent of our kids. We got it in our heads that it would be a fun and memorable event to take our kids up to cabins in the Redwoods and just hang out, have fun, prepare for the up-coming tests.

We were half right. Memorable it was. But for all the wrong reasons.

I don't mean to over-generalize, and there were definately some shining moments that I'll always remember. For example, taking on the challenge posed by three members of the boys' basketball team to face them 3-3 with myself and two members of the girl's varsity basketball team. The girls and Tieche won 15-13.

There was also a moment this morning when 4 kids joined me around the outdoor chapel, which was a ring of Redwoods for a Sunday morning outdoor church service. The morning mist shrouded the camp in coolness, and we all sat, huddled in blankets, talking about our journeys with Christ. The kids talked about how it was difficult to be Christian in high school. It was a good time. Later on, Hewitson joined our small circle, and we got to talk about some great stuff and I learned about his faith, and where he is. It was a really cool conversation which I know will continue.

But overall, the weekend sucked eggs.

And you want to know why? Because I did nothing pretty much the whole weekend except fend off complaints: Why are we doing that? That's stupid? This sucks. I don't want to do that. That isn't fair. I don't want to. This sucks.

We took them down a zip line. That sucked.
A four-story climbing wall. That sucked.
Kickball? Sucked.
Indoor games? Sucked.
Night hike? Sucked.
Skits? Sucked.
Campfire. Sucked.

I heard the comments everwhere I turned. To be fair, and to be sure, it wasn't every kid. There were about 20 of the 37 who probably didn't say a single negative comment. But the other 17 did nothing but spew forth negativity. And they were loud enough and vocal enough and negative enough to drain even the most dedicated of teachers.

The whole thing started out on an auspicious note. On Friday, the day we were going to leave, Matt took the day off to finalize getting stuff for the retreat. He ran to Cosco, bought food, got a whole bunch of flashlights. He came back to campus about 11 a.m., and we were slated to leave at 1. Sometime before lunch, someone broke into his car, took all his camping gear, took the food, took the flashlights, took his sleeping bag. They even took his car stereo.

While he was parked in Gunderson's parking lot.

Did I mention we have security on campus? And two police officers? Yeah.

Again, certainly not something that every kid on Gunderson's campus did. But it's the kind of stuff that just totally deflates you.

Then, after taking the whole weekend off to plan and provide this awesome experience, to see this side of the kids. To hear the way that cuss words just flowed out of their mouths without thinking. To see the sexual innuendos and language they freely used. To see their stark sense of entitlement.

And I kept wondering, "These kids are poor. The school paid 2,500 for this trip. They only had to pay like 40 dollars for the whole weekend. Where did they get this sense that they deserve it?"

I don't know. But it drained me emotionally. And spiritually.

I was reminded of two things. First, that I would buy my son any toy to make him smile and give him joy. But the second I sense a spirit of ungratefulness, I'm going to come down like a hammer.

Second, I thought about how often God has to deal with this, and on so much of a larger, more personal scale.

Makes you stop and think before you complain.

Regardless, this is the kind of weekend that made all of us reconsider teaching. Maybe it's because it's April, and we're all a bit tired. Or maybe it's because it's late, and I'll feel differently tomorrow. Or maybe, like the kids, I'm being overwhelmingly negative.

Or maybe it's because we've just plain had enough.