So... My Spanish class is awful. I love Spanish, don't get me wrong, but that's exactly the problem! We only actually learn Spanish about 2% of the time, and the rest of the time is spent on my poor teacher trying to reign in the chaos that runs rampant through our little classroom. It's actually so awful that I get a headache pretty much every day after that class. Kids are talking over my teacher, shouting at each other, interrupting class with things like dance-offs, texting and playing stupid ringtones at top volume, pulling down their pants, (yes really, even though there was something underneath to cover him, thank goodness!), flipping tables, being generally stupid both in choices and knowledge, vandalizing desks, and just generally driving me slowly to insanity. Things like this happen every single day.
The worst of it is when we have time to actually work on questions my teacher will assign us to respond to, because nobody except for myself plus a couple of others ever actually participate. Instead, they all shout over each other to all have a stupid conversation about something completely and utterly mindless and I'm just sitting there trying to answer and not scream or make the way I have my hands clasped over my ears too obvious, or curl up in the fetal position and just give up on it all.
And then they're like "Hmm, I didn't do my work! Hey Kala(this isn't my real name btw), what did you get for question 1?"
Okay, let me explain why this is all so extremely horrible from my point of view, besides the obvious, because I probably sound like I'm overreacting quite a lot right now, and I guess I kind of am, in a sense, except that from my perception it's not overreacting at all. The thing is, I have a hyperactive sensory processing disorder. It's not severe, but it does basically make a lot of supposedly small, ordinary sensory stimulation in my daily life (such as getting my hair brushed, being in the same room as a pepper, or walking by somebody wearing perfume,) somewhat overwhelming. Okay, maybe a lot overwhelming. Maybe it's the "I'm trying to hold in how frustrated I am right now but I am freaking out and wringing my hands to death, and I am about to scream but I won't because I am fighting very hard to be the civilized one here," sort of overwhelming. When my class is all shouting over each other at once, I am literally fighting not to start freaking out in a noticeable way, because from my point of view, the situation feels very extreme. To me, these kids are deafening. It makes it quite a struggle to do simple work that would otherwise take me about five seconds or so, and of course everyone expects me to always have the right answers after all of this, because I almost always do, and I force myself to get it done and try to shut it out but inside my head I'm literally just screaming like "Please, please, please, please, please, shut up!" It literally hurts. It's so overwhelming it's suffocating.
I guess I can't blame my peers too much, because I've only really told a few friends about my whole sensory thing, (and even the people I've told never really listen to me when I try to talk to them about it, because usually nobody actually gives a care about what I'm saying,)so most of them don't know, but still, would it kill them to just be respectful, even if nobody else is going through this? Sure, almost none of my classmates know how painful it is for me to sit through that kind of senseless commotion, but I am so darn sick of their uncalled for childish behavior. If they would just grow up and invest some effort in learning for just a few minutes, maybe we wouldn't have a problem here in the first place! But no, that was stupid of me. I can't possibly expect a class to be respectful during a lesson, even if some of them are LEGAL ADULTS WHO CAN VOTE AND DRIVE WHO STILL CAN'T KEEP THEIR BIG MOUTHS SHUT FOR FIVE MINUTES AND BE PROFESSIONAL! And I don't call people out on it because I don't want to be annoying and nobody would listen, but I just can't stand it! It's just so rude, sensory issues or not!
Ahem. Yes. So, that is my story of my Spanish class, which was really just a raging rant. I don't get to rant in real life, (I have never yelled at my Spanish class, or done anything besides subtly cover my ears, which obviously nobody notices since I'm basically invisible unless they need help,) so that was sort of nice. Anyway, if you read this, you're probably wondering what exactly to make of it besides me going crazy furious at my classmates. What I would like you to get out of this story is for you to, please, please just be respectful of others in your class (or workplace.) Even if you don't care about what you're being taught and there are no kids with SPD in your class, please keep your voices down, because some people DO care about learning and their futures. You don't know everybody's story, and it's very unfair to make other students suffer through something that should be easy just because you think yelling a bunch of profanity back and forth with your friends is cute and funny. There are times to be loud and goofy and mess around. Class is not one of them.

Thank you for your time and your patience while reading this.

Yeesh, I'm guessing you go to public school? I've been through it, except for me, the teacher I had really didn't care about teaching.

In high school, I have heard stories about teachers who are struggling with students that act like the ones in your class. I feel sorry for them.

But I never knew it would be a problem for other students as well. I have to admit, I think I used to be like your classmates back then.

I'm not like that now, obviously. What I'm trying to say is that your classmates would (eventually) mature, albeit it might unfortunately take them longer than most people.

If you're classmates are bothering you that much, I think you should tell your teacher that you want to switch seats (hopefully with the other classmates of yours who are trying to learn) and maybe you'll have less contact with those who are bugging you.

Anyways, I really am sorry that you have to suffer all that through a class you like. I know if I had classmates like yours for an English class, I would be pretty darn angry.

Yeah almost everything like that happens in my school (even if it's a private school) like when my Spanish teacher had a sore throat everyone was screaming, singing and talking. My teacher couldn't even speak and i didn't hear her.

PokefanKala :

Apparently, high school teachers have lack of control in their classes in general. There are those handpicked people who wanted to learn the subject of the class and then the rest of the class just want to goof out or get out of control to disrupt the whole learning session.

I remember having this French teacher back in my whole freshmen year and it was pretty hectic for me. 90% of my class would either not care about the class or disrupt the class in some sense. There was this one time when a random kid came to tease my teacher about entering and leaving my class in a second then my teacher chased after him to lecture him that it was wrong to do that. There was also another time when one of my classmates had a big attitude problem and she would argue with my teacher and start flipping desks around twice a week for a whole year. I was forced to pay attention to the lessons since I was in a program in my school that required me to take 3 years of one language. That class was really sad because my teacher kept the same lesson for a month then move onto another lesson.

I just hate how people are so disruptive during class. They should at least skip class if they don't want to learn. I feel bad for the students who want to learn especially the teacher who has to come to class to teach but has to control the class.

I am guessing most people are so rude and loud due to the fact that public education is free and people take advantage over it. Also, the maturity levels are just way off. The class environment in college has mature people since after all, you pay for education in general and the last thing that you would want is to be kicked out by a stupid reason like immaturity.

I admire the fact that you're a hardworking student no matter what. My advice to you is to keep focus on your school studies, get tutoring for Spanish, and it's okay to release your feelings out (to a friend or parent). You will be a way better adult than the ones in your class.

Wow... that does sound pretty awful. I have never taken Spanish, even though classes are open at my school. I have always stuck to French, English and Arabic though. They are easier, I find.

I know exactly how you feel, last year in my spanish class was miserable, I would say me and about a group of 4 other kids actually wanted to learn the subject and what she was actually trying to teach. We never were able to cover anything though because my teacher was always interrupted by these obnoxious ghetto kids that would always talk and carry on with their ghetto conversations which always interfered with what we were learning. My teacher didn't exactly help at all because she didn't do anything about it, she would just put their name on the board with a check next to it like we were in elementary school and she expected that to shut them up. 

It was absolutely horrible, they would listen to ipods in class, chew gum abhorrently, talk about sex and drugs and who is dating who in their ghetto world, it was complete nonsense. There were about a good 5-7 of them that interrupted the entire class from learning anything. When it came time for a quiz I always did well and got 90s-100s on all of them because I knew all of the material which was a recap from other older stuff we already learned. The ghetto group however always took pictures of their "notes"  or wrote the answers on their desks or slid folders and papers under desks and cheated off of them. I wanted to kill myself during that class. 


However if that wasn't enough I had health which was right up there in ignorant levels with my spanish class. No one was mature enough to learn anything except for me. Guys would focus on stupid stuff and ask dumb questions or share stupid stories hardly pertaining to the topic at hand. Someone hardly mentions sex cells and they all started laughing like a group of morons, we were in freshman year already, I mean really, if you can't handle it why don't you just leave the class now and go experience the dangers of drugs and bodily diseases first hand. This is what I had to put up with. I hated every single second of it....This year is much better because my spanish 3 class is advanced enough to where most of the bozos have thinned out and the students are more willing to actually learn something for a change. Plus I don't have health anymore, I have driver's ed instead....can't imagine these fools on the road though...ugh. 


So I am sorry for what you have to put up with because I can relate, all I can say is just hang in their and be patient because in a few years you will have a good career and a good life while these fools that interrupted class and didn't take school seriously will be working at McDonald's or living on the streets if they are lucky. Just hang in their and d your best to ignore them. I have had times where I wanted to murder myself and the kids around me in school for being so stupid and childish for every dumb little thing...and I also use to come home with headaches every other day because of them...so I know what it's like. Hopefully you can exercise strong patience and learn to cope with these fools. I hope you never have to go through this experience of being in a class with people not willing to learn again. 

Oh wow that is terrible.. Sounds like your teacher doesn't have control over the class. I never really got a chance to take Spanish or any other classes sense I started to home school and all but my sister experienced a lot of trouble in Spanish.. Just like you except the teacher was at another school teaching her class through a live tv stream.. it was terrible and she didn't know how to teach.. kids are loud and crazy.. if the teacher doesn't gain control this is just what happens.