Damn Those 6th Graders!

It finally happened...

I became so angry with a group of kids that my so-often-repressed Irish temper finally got the better of me (one day before Saint Patty's Day, interestingly enough) and I cursed at my students. It was only one word, and it was merely PG-level profanity, but it was profanity none the less and that violates even the teacher's behavior code.

In retrospect, my great anger began to well up before I'd even started interacting with the students. I had signed up to be a K6 Bitch at Garden City Elementary. Now a lesson I've learned the hard way is that "Roaming Teacher" is a wildcard assignment. A lot of the time, the schools that post this job don't plan on having the sub roam one bit.

They use the job category as a troubleshooting catch-all, which is the reason that the office can place you in an awful room no one wants to be in or drop you in the midst of a classroom where the teacher has just left unexpectedly. When one of these two situations has fallen to me as a roaming sub, only once has it turned out well for me...which makes my overall percentage of enjoyable days that take shape in this manner a meager 20% or less. As I've already made clear, yesterday did not fall into the 20%.

About 2 minutes before students are allowed to begin filtering into the classroom, I was told that a 6th grade class was still without a substitute and that they would need me to fill in there until someone else accepted the listing the secretary had placed on SubFinder. I made it perfectly clear that I despise teaching 6th graders and would prefer to do just about any other task that might need me for than go where they had directed me. But, as a true bitch often must, I had to take a big, fat one up the pooper from the big dogs in administration and do that which I was exceedingly loathe to do.

This 6th grade room was every bit as bad as I had feared. No fights, very little open disrespect towards the teacher, but nearly everything else a class can do wrong went wrong. And the disobedience was incessant. No matter how many incentives or punishments were promised to these shits, their collective behavior never altered.

At the asst. principal's suggestion, I had made a "contract" with the class and posted the details on the chalkboard for the entire school day. If they did three things for me, I would do three things for them. I asked that they not talk out (in the classroom or the hallways), disrespect me or other students, or fail to follow instructions the first time. In return, I would let them have snack time, I would not yell at them, and I would help them work through difficult problems instead of telling them to figure them out on their own. They mostly adhered to my second item in the contract, but the first and third were thoroughly ignored. Most irritating to me was the fact they walked through the hallways like they owned the damn place and didn't have to remain quiet or form a straight line.

When this infraction was performed for the 6th or 7th time that day...that was the straw that finally broke this albino camel's back. Coming back from lunch (a time during which the class had gotten in trouble with the adults on duty), they talked and laughed and meandered through the halls and about a third of the class went to the restroom without asking for permission. The raucous remnant that actually followed me into the classroom were the unlucky souls who got a violent earful. It went something like this:

"That's ENOUGH!!! It's obvious our contract doesn't mean jack crap to you guys, so now it doesn't mean crap to me either. [Some kids are still talking to one another while I'm saying this so now I'm really getting shined on.] SIT DOWN AND SHUT THE HELL UP!!!"

Needless to say, their ears perked up at this moment and they actually shut up...for about 5 seconds.

"Were you talking to me or to the whole class?" asked a particularly obnoxious dunce named Sy.

"What do you think, Sy?" I responded indignantly. "Did I look you straight in the eyes when I said to shut up?" [All the kids who had been silent start laughing again.]
"No."
"Then I must have been talking to the whole class."

At that moment, I realized I had sworn and instantly felt upset with myself for letting a group of 13 year-old assholes get to me so much. "I apologize for swearing at you," I told them. "But you guys should never have made me angry to the point I would use language like that."

"It's OK," Sy chirped in. "It's not like we haven't heard that kind of talk before."

"All of you go to the bathroom. Go!"

I think other adults had heard my initial yell, because one teacher's aide stopped these kids in the hall while they were headed to the restroom. She told them that anyone who was sent out of the room for the rest of the day would have Saturday School the next morning. At this time, another teacher's aide, Ms. Bowen, entered the classroom to find me in a self-imposed time out.

Facing the corner behind the teacher's desk with my hands on the back of my head, I was fuming. The pressure my anger and disgust with this class, with the office, with myself for losing my cool, with the whole damn situation, was so great that tears began running out of my eyes. It wasn't because my feelings were hurt or I was just that embarrassed. Such tears have always been my body's way of letting some of that angry pressure out when I can't otherwise release it.

Ms. Bowen offered to take over the class if I wanted to take a short break. I sure as hell did. I went to the only place in the school where a boy of 25 can have some real privacy: the bathroom. Shutting myself in the corner stall, I pulled some tissue paper off the roll, clenched it in both of my fists, and pushed it against my eye sockets like I was trying to push my hands through the back of my skull. I was seething not sobbing. All I could think about for nearly 5 minutes was marching back into that class and breaking some pubescent asses, then marching downstairs to the administrative offices and breaking an adult ass or two.

When my five minutes of fuming were at there end, I walked around the floor I was on for another five minutes, waiting for the urge to hit someone to subside. Thankfully, it did and I went back into the battle zone. Ms. Bowen was doing an excellent job leading the students through a science lesson, and I had the help of her and other aides for the remaining 90 minutes of the school day. Ten more minutes of the shit I was putting up with yesterday and you would have heard a report on the evening news that went something like...

Our top story this evening involves a shocking and violent incident at a Westside school this afternoon. Three students from Garden City Elementary are dead and seven more are in critical condition. Eye witnesses stated to police that their substitute teacher- Wayne Township employee David Scott -went into an unprovoked rage, first screaming profane language at the class and then physically assaulting many of the children.

Several surviving students claimed to have been paralyzed by horror when they saw their classmates being beaten with their own chairs. The most horrifying part of this crime, police told reporters, came when Scott killed 13 year-old Sydney Owens with a desk. The most brutal of the three murders, Scott cracked Owens' sternum with the desk, spread his ribcage open, and proceeded to beat the boy's internal organs into, what the Marion County coroner's office has already described as, "a gelatinous paste."

Scott, age 25, is presently in the custody of Marion County Police and is facing charges of murder, assault and battery, as well as the newly instituted charge of gratuitous bludgeoning. Surprisingly, Scott has no previous criminal history. We'll have more on this tragic story later in our news cast. Brad.

Thank you, Cindy. Our other top story this evening:

"Bear Fucking" -a potentially fatal hobby for those who practice it. But do gaming commissions have the authority to regulate this dangerous pastime.