School Daze

A few vignettes from my day:

First period - My angels-of-the-morning (yes, I'm throwing in Juice Newton references early) are "hard at work" on a vocabulary project. I sit at my desk, under- caffeinated and battling the early stages of a terrible hair day. I call the kids up to my desk, one-by-one, to give them their grades for the first marking period. In general, I'm met with nods of casual indifference. My first period kids are pretty good, and there are no real surprises in the numbers I'm doling out; high A's to moderate B's. Then, I call up the one kid who got a D in my class. For most of the quarter, he'd been failing with a grade that resembled Derek Anderson's 2009 Passer Rating (that wasn't a complement, for you non-sports fans). I show him the grade, and with a pat on the shoulder, say, "Dude, you got a 64. Remember a couple of weeks ago when you had a 48? You did some great work these last couple weeks. Nice comeback, buddy!" This kid looks me dead in the eye, and replies, "Yeah, whatever. Why are you touching my shoulder?" The worst part? He legitimately wanted an answer. We stared at each other in dumbfounded silence for at least 45 seconds. I had nothing. Why was I touching his shoulder? I had no explanation. "I don't know, man." That's what I told him. Mercifully, he returned to his seat. Fuck me, right?

Second Period - Seniors. Two years ago, I had nothing but seniors. I'm convinced that the planets were perfectly aligned during my first year, because I made personal connections with almost every kid I had. This year, the only things connecting in my senior class are their Blackberries and iPhones. Don't get me wrong - they're great kids. Personally, I like [almost] all of them. But, they've put in their three and a half years and they're over it. I get it, because I was over it by that stage of high school, too. They do what I ask them to do. But, that's all they do. I'm not used to seniors like that. But then again, my first year of teaching was that class' first year at that school, so it was a honeymoon for all of us. Now, the honeymoon is over and it seems like we've jumped straight to the married for 20+ years and only-have-sex on special occasions (or when we're REALLY drunk) stage. Wait, is that an appropriate analogy for me to be making about my students and I? Oh well, fuck it. I mean, the chick who gave her kids a DVD of herself spread-eagle on her bed, pleasuring herself with a vibrator didn't get fired, so I should be safe, right? But I digress.

We've been reading Macbeth, and, although I'm not mad at them for slowly and painfully killing my favorite piece of literature with their apathy and disinterest, the constant whines of "this book is sooooo long," and "when are we going to be done with this?" have been silently murdering my spirit. But today, God bless them, two of them started a fantastic debate over whether the witches just provided Macbeth with some information and let him decide what do to of his own free will, or whether they were actually pulling his strings and leading him to his doom all along. I sat back with the prideful smile of a father whose son just took the training wheels off his Huffy and was cruising, albeit wobbly and awkwardly, around the block. But, do you know what inevitably happens to that very same child? He faceplants on the curb, knocking out his two front teeth - and the prideful father rushes over, suddenly feeling like a complete jackass for standing around with a smug-ass smile on his face instead of watching the fuckin' kid. "Ugh, whatever! Who cares? It's just a stupid play. Let's just move on so we can be done with it!" BOOM - FACEPLANT! The best part? The girl who said that was the girl WHO STARTED THE FUCKING DEBATE! It's a good thing I only weep on the inside - of course, if I ever did cry on the outside, most of them would be too busy texting to notice. FML. Send.

4th Period - The exact same scenario as first period. Most of them have come down off of the daily crack-high that they're normally on when they walk into my classroom - at least enough to concentrate on some work. By the way, I mean that as a complement. They are great kids, but they are out of their fucking minds. For instance, I called out a kid's grade, and this was the exchange that took place:

Me: Eighty-Five for the quarter

Kid: That's bullshit!

Me: Shut up.

Kid: Okay.

That was literally how the conversation went. Things like that make me smile. Then, I get to the one girl that has a C in a class full of A's and B's. I call her up. She skulks up to my desk looking extremely put-off, like walking the twenty-five feet from her desk to mine was the most arduous of tasks. I show her the grade, and try to explain to her why it is that low. "You didn't turn in this one assignment, which was double-weighted. If you would have turned that in, you would've had..." I don't get to finish. "Yeah. Okay. That's fine." By the time she spits out these four short words, she's already back at her desk and I realize that I've been talking to my stapler for the past ten seconds. Sorry. I guess I'll just go fuck myself. Mahalo.

I didn't write this so that everyone could cry for me (Argentina?), nor am I trying to chronicle the trials and tribulations of the overworked, underpaid public school teacher. Truth be told, I hate teachers who complain about how rough we have it. And I'm fully aware that, if the wrong person comes across this and forwards a copy to my principal, that I'll most likely be applying at every fast food restaurant between here and the unemployment line. That's the climate in the world of education today, folks. A teacher can be fired for almost anything (except sharing home made fingerbang tapes with a bunch of eleven year olds - but we already covered that). But here's the truth - you have to poke fun at this shit. You HAVE to. I love teaching. It's an awesome job. And at times, it can be indescribably rewarding. But, it also has its moments where it lines you up and stomps on you junk like Ed Norton in American History X. And in those junk-stomping moments, you gotta' take it all with a grain of salt and just laugh.

So, if you're reading this after a shitty day at work - or reading it right in the middle of one - I hope it cheers you up a bit; either because my writing is so entertaining (which I know it isn't - I'm just fishing for compliments. Remember, I'm slowly dying inside), or because it allows you to sit back and poke fun at you're asshole boss or your annoying co-worker. Because after all, it's just work, right?