A typical class...

We get in. Five students are messing around - listening to their mp3 player, playing with their phone, fighting, flirting... We have to wait another 10 minutes for the rest of the class to get in and sit down. And then it takes another 10 minutes to divide them into 4 groups. I leave the room with mine, to go work outside, in the refectory or under a tree in front of the school. 10 minutes later we're ready to start. I start. Today we're reading short stories. A few minutes into the exercise Mairone goes off to pick the fruits of the tree we're sat under, I tell him to come back. Roger asks if he can go to the bathroom, I say no not yet. And Anderson asks me if there are badam trees in France. Now guys, we're reading short stories here, and we need to choose one to present for the day of the book, I mean, this will be marked, don't you think you should be paying attention?? And so on. Why is it that these kids have absolutely no attention span? Why is it that they see absolutely no obligation in listening to you and paying attention to your class? The problem is not that they're not interested in learning or are not curious, it's that they will not accept to be forced to sit down and think during a predetermined period of time. For me, they've all got ADHD. And no respect at all for the school, the teacher, and whatever knowledge these can give them. But when we get to understanding and analysing the text, they all do a brilliant job! Even ADHD Mairone, who's actually the cleverest, and this might explain the hyperactivity. How frustrating! How much time lost every class trying to keep the group together and focused!