A Clash of Titans Idiots

Although the "March Madness" which stemmed from the NCAA basketball tournament is over, the madness at our school has spilled over well into April. With 24 days left for seniors, and 8 days until spring break, the "knuckleheads" (the polite term used by the administration) are in supreme knucklehead form.

Today that was brought front-and-center.

After an oh-so-exciting lecture on using completing the square to solve quadratic equations (yawn), I gave my 4th period class time to get started on their homework and ask questions while they worked. Standard operating procedure. I wandered from cluster to cluster of students as they got into the assignment.

And then...

I'm working with one student, and I hear a scuffle of some sorts so I look up. I see one senior, let's call him RJ, standing, and he pushes another senior, the Big Baby (a term used frequently by the vice principal when describing him), who is seated. It was quite a push, and the desk the Big Baby (who easily weighs 230 pounds) was sitting in fell to its side, with BB still in it.

BB, face beet red with embarrassment and anger, gets up and starts screaming at RJ, "I'm gonna fucking kill you!" and goes right after him. I try to get between them before anything happens, but am not successful. They try to throw some punches (uncoordinatedly, for sure) and over my shouting, end up in a heated melee. RJ is tall and has an athletic build, so this was no ticky-tack fight.

Eventually I'm able to get a good hold of RJ and pull him out of the fray. As I'm doing this, and RJ has stopped fighting, the Big Baby, still beet-red in the face, stands up holding RJ's foot. I shout at BB to let RJ's foot go, and eventually he does.

At this point, the two doors to the adjoining rooms have been opened, with the teachers from those two rooms standing in the doorway. My entire class (of 30) is speechless - staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the scene. One of the teachers (Smiley) takes RJ and puts him in his room for a minute before taking him down to the office, while I take care of BB.

The Big Baby proceeds to apologize for "fucking up your classroom" and calmly takes all the desks which had been moved around in the fracas and puts them back in their original spots. I walk him down to the office, and he repeatedly insists, "I'm cool, man. Whatever. No big deal."

Of course word of this fight spreads like wildfire throughout the school, and for the rest of the day, teachers and students were coming up to me and making comments.

Teacher: "Heard you had a little excitement this morning."

Student: "OK, Mr. Eyerman, tell me exactly what happened."
Me: "Did you hear the version of the story that involved the Uzi?"
Student: "What?!"
Me: "Yea, I brought out my gun to settle things down."

Female student (who was in the class): "I thought it was really funny, but I didn't want to laugh."
Me: "Funny?"
Another female student (also in the class): "Yea, I thought it was funny too..."
Me: "Sorry girls, I can't say I saw the humor in the situation." Except, of course, when the goof-ball Big Baby apologized for "fucking up the classroom" and calmly and neatly replaced all the desks.

Male student (who was in the class): "Mr. Eyerman, that was awesome!"
Me: "Yea?"
Student: "Yea, me and Chris were all about to jump in and help you, but we were all the way across the room..."
Me: "Uhh... k...."
I walked out of that last conversation chuckling to myself - man, I must have some serious street cred now.

On the serious side of this, a teacher told me that I shouldn't break up fights. I shouldn't "touch the student." When asked why, two reasons were given. For one, if I restrain one kid, and that gives the other a chance to wail on the one I've restrained, I could be held liable for either picking sides or "letting" one kid beat up the other. The other reason (equally dumb) is to protect myself from a kid saying, "Mr. Eyerman touched me..."
Apparently what I'm supposed to do is call the office or one of the designated members of the staff who has been trained in "Physical Restraint" so they can come in and break up the fight.
The reason I editorialize that the reasons are dumb is that if I do that, several bad things are bound to happen. One, the fight will continue, and one or both of the students involved, or even another student in the room, could get seriously hurt. Or school property (like the super-expensive heating system) damaged. Also, the school is pretty damn big. By the time I get the right phone number of someone on the list, call them, and they get to my room, plenty of time will have elapsed.
In addition, if I do nothing, how can I stand in front of the class the next day and have any sort of respect from the students? "Oh, Mr. Eyerman was there for us - he made a phone call." Puh-lease. Isn't it far better for my students to think, "Mr. Eyerman was there for us - he got involved and tried to break up a dangerous situation." Which do you think sounds better?
I understand the politics and the "cover-your-ass" spiel I've heard countless times by many veterans in education. But if I see a fight - particularly in a place I'm supposed to be managing - damn right I'm going to get involved to protect my students. Screw politics.

The two students were each suspended for a few days, and when they're back, of course they'll be sitting on opposite sides of the room, for the 18 or so days they have left in my classroom.

But I'm curious about tomorrow morning, when I have this class again. The fight happened right at the end of the period, so that class ended as I was escorting the Big Baby down to the office. Of course the students are going to make it a topic of conversation. I'm sure I will have to address it. I'm not really sure right now what I'm going to say. I know I will address it and have to put it to bed - I can't let the entire class get worked up over it again, and can't take the entire period tomorrow discussing the idiocy of two over-testosteroned 18-year olds.

Apparently the entire thing started because BB moved his desk and RJ's arm got pinched between two desks. Then a meathead conversation ensued. Something like:
"Hey, watch what you're doing!"
"Well, you shouldn't have your arm there."
"What the fuck? I'm sick of you."
"Yea? Well, what are you gonna do about it?"

Once again, yes, you can't make this stuff up.

"We work in a zoo."

Quipped the woman I share a classroom with.

There is a new "You can't make this shit up" story.

Here it is, as told to me by another member of my department, Mrs. Months.
"So this girl apparently used her phone to take a picture of her..." pause for effect, "...crotch and then proceeded to send it to 'a boy.' Now, we're not sure if this boy was her boyfriend or not, but it proceeded to spread like wildfire throughout the student body. There is a claim going around that it was her boyfriend, and one of his friends took his phone and sent it around before he could do anything. That part is unresolved."

I'm fortunate that I don't have this girl in class. I'm also fortunate I don't even know who this girl is. If that weren't the case, how could I possibly look at her in class and respond to her without this action coming to my mind? This is something most certainly that will follow her around for the rest of her high school career. Fast-forward two years to her senior prom.
Guy: "So you're taking her to the prom?"
Other guy: "Yea..."
Guy: "You know what she did?"

The above story exemplifies the insanity that has spread throughout the school in the past few weeks. There are countless more stories I could relate, but none of them compare to that one. No one is exempt - students or faculty - from the growing frustration and angst throughout the school. So I feel as if it's not my place to complain about students' erratic, lazy, or whiny behavior to my colleagues. However, someone said to me not too long ago - "Man, this is one of the worst years for student behavior that I can remember. And this must be doubly hard for you, having to still battle through your first year."

Earlier this week I decided to take a personal day on Friday. I was torn on this - I felt odd taking a day for myself. It felt so out of place to be that selfish, in a job where I'm responsible for 110 or so people. Where my absence, in a way, lets them down for a day. I'm not there for them. Granted, most of them upon walking in the door and seeing a sub, grin widely and let out a sigh of relief. Just as I did when I was in high school. It was nothing against my absent teacher, just that it meant a light period. Maybe there was some work to do, but there was no class lecture.

Still, it took me a while to accept the fact that it was in everyone's best interest for me to take that day to myself. It's easy to rationalize that if I'm not at my best, the problems will be magnified. Students will sense something is off, and when they act out, I will likely not respond in the most professional way. Or my lecture of new material will not be as clear as it would if I were fresh. But however it can be rationalized, the feeling of guilt that stems from putting my own wants before my students' (particularly for someone who has made a concerted effort, for years, to be more considerate of others' feelings, wants, needs...) is hard to shake.

Once that decision was made, I was hoping the week would be easier to deal with, because I knew that I was there only through Thursday. However...
Wednesday morning the bipolar head-case star athlete of the school, who I had issue with the first day of school, and who later transferred out of my class, transferred into my SAT Prep class.

I berated two of my classes Thursday morning because they have chosen the typical teenage path of whining and complaining over studying and earnest effort. I basically told them that although they think the end of the year is near, things are going to get harder. The math we're going to be working on is going to get more complicated, and the concepts I am going to take for granted they have mastered is going to continue to grow. Clearly that applies to me as well - the rest of my year is not going to get easier... nay, the challenges I will face will continue to grow and become more complex, building on the knowledge the first 7 months of this job have taught me.

In any case, the third term of the school year ended yesterday. 45 days left.

Whoops

We all know that we changed clocks a couple weeks ago. The week before we did, a couple of us at school had a conversation about what was going to happen with daylight. The confusion was over whether it was how changing the clocks was going to affect sunrise and sunset. After much discussion, we finally realized that the sun was going to rise later in the morning, and set later at night. Whoopie.

So on the day we changed the clocks, before I went to bed I made sure that my clock was right. Triple-checked it. Made sure the alarm was set right. I had adjusted my alarm the previous Friday because a student was meeting me early at school to make up a test. So I reset the alarm to 5:30, and went to bed, confident I'd be up at the proper hour.
Monday morning I woke up feeling quite refreshed. I got a good, long in-bed stretch, and thought, "Wow, I feel great! What a great night's sleep I had! AND I woke up before my alarm! What a great way to start the day, and the week!"
So I open my eyes, roll over, and then I realize that it's light out.

Waaaaiiit a minute here... I pull focus, and my brain realizes that no, I'm not dreaming. I quickly turn towards my alarm clock, and note the time: 6:55AM.
School starts at 7:30. It's 40 minutes away. And I'm in bed, unshowered and unclothed. The number of times I said "shit" in the next 30 seconds might have been a record.

I call my department chair, Mary. A raspy male voice picks up her cell. Odd, I thought. "Hi, can I speak to Mary?"
The raspy male voice responds, "Hi David, it's Mary."
"Holy crap Mary, you sound awful!"
"Yea, I'm out sick today."
I very quickly tell her the situation, and she recommends I call JT (who happens to have first period off). I do.
"Hey JT, you at work?"
"No man, I'm out today."
"FUCK!"
I tell him the story. It's now 7:02.
Hang up with him, and it took two more phone calls to get in touch with someone in my department who was actually going to work. I tell her there's a worksheet on my desk, already copied, to be done by my kids first period. OK, first problem solved.

I leap into the shower, get rid of bed hair and wash the important parts, and get out in record time (at most, 2 minutes). I get dressed by grabbing the first things my hands reach, not caring at all if I wear something completely clashing, and grab my briefcase (thankfully, I had packed it the night before) and run to my car. 7:08.

I FLY down the road. Seriously, once I hit the highway, I was doing 80-85 (90 at times) through morning rush hour. Not really the smartest move. As I was laughing at myself the whole way down, I did think that getting pulled over by the cops would not have been a good thing to add to my morning. Thankfully, they were all busy with something else, and I made it to school un-ticketed.

I finally pull in to school at 7:45, and rush though the building to get to my classroom. I walk in, adrenaline pumping, getting smirks from the couple teachers who knew what had happened, and see my first period class completely bored out of their minds.
Another math teacher, who also has first period off, was teaching my class. Apparently her lectures are dry and boring in general, and so first thing Monday morning, they're pure torture. So the scene was set: completely eyes-glazed-over students on a cloudy Monday morning with a super-adrenaline-amped teacher. The glazed-over looks gave way to looks of "WTF happened to you??" If only I could catch my breath to tell them.
I figured that during second period (when my students were taking a test), I'd be able to calm down, catch my breath, and go about my day as normal. However, I wasn't able to. I was pacing the entire class. Not really helping the test-taking environment.
As it turned out, I wasn't able to calm down until the end of the day, and so when I finally got home, I did a face-plant on my couch and laid motionless for a couple hours.

When I finally came to, I made my way to my bedroom to took a look at my alarm clock to see just what had happened.
Time set properly? Check.
Alarm set properly? Check.
So wtf happened? Then the light bulb goes on over my head - I never turned the damn alarm on.

What a way to start the week... and what week it turned out to be. (to be continued)

On Being Young

Being a young teacher is a dual-edged sword. There are several teachers under 30 on staff at my school, and I've spoken with most of them about the ups and downs of being young educators.

A vast majority of them, simply due to the fact that they are teenagers, want to be older than they are. That's completely natural and understandable, and I remember feeling that way when I was in elementary, middle and high school. But they are so overfed with the MTV definition of "older" and "cooler" - namely, drunk, naked and partying all the time, that they don't have adults who show them that, "Hey, you know what? You can be adult, and cool, and not have to be a wastoid." It's been remarkable to be of late how much they feed off my reaction to situations. The word "shit" slipped out of a student's mouth earlier this week, and I counted 5 heads (out of 8 in the room at the time) who immediately whipped their heads around to await my reaction.
It's beneficial to have strong familiarity with the internet, cell phones, and all the other techno-devices they seem to be handed the day after they come out of the womb. The kids know I'm good at picking out the ones who are texting in class, and daily I hear, "Oooooh! Sniped!" after I ask someone to put away their phone.

But being young also means that the kids don't necessarily give you the automatic respect they give my colleagues with gray hair and wrinkles. It means that some seniors, and even some juniors, who have been in the building for a longer time than I, feel they own the place, that they are the Big Men On Campus, and that they own the place more so than the rookie teacher. That has certainly caused some friction between me and several students throughout the year.

But that above paragraph relates to me, being a male. The junior and senior boys give me a whole lot different crap than they do the young women teachers. To me, they feel the need to testosterone-up, and show that they are tougher, meaner, and stronger. If they only knew what "strong" really means.
The girls, by contrast, really don't give me much sass. I think that the female equivalent of the male testoneroning-up is to be catty and bitchy. So that's the shit they give the young female teachers.

The young female teachers, unfortunately, get it from both genders. There are plenty of boys who make inappropriate and chauvinistic comments to them on top of the attitude they get from the girls. But there are certainly those boys who have crushes on these teachers, and the teacher can say, "Well, I'm really disappointed in you," which is far worse than anything I could ever say.

"Wait until your third year," a colleague advised me. He argued that at that point, I'll have been in the school as long as any of the students, and that I would have interacted with (either in class, in the hallways, or on the sports fields) with a vast majority of them. I'll have a reputation in the school, and while there will always be those boys who try to show me up with their excessive displays of testosterone, those numbers will most certainly decrease.

Overall, though, I'd say the pro's definitely outweigh the cons when it comes to being close to the age of my students. To be an adult figure in their life who they don't mentally clump together with their "out-of-touch" parents is of great benefit to getting them to succeed through the tumultuous years that are high school.

Weather Or Not

So it turns out there is a far better weather-detection system than if you were to put together all of the Dopplar 9000s in the world. It is the student body.

Even the most slightly aware person can vouch for the fact that their moods are affected by the weather. And that the average teenager experiences (and expresses!) their emotions very vividly. Put those two things together and voila! you have an amazing weather prediction system.

When it snows, students act as if they've never seen the stuff before. Clouds and rain bring out the moody, depressed sides of them all. And the couple days spring has shined its head through the winter doldrums, the kids have been off the friggin' wall.

I had a conversation with the principal today, and he mentioned that March is his least favorite month of the school year. He went on to say that most of the knuckleheads seem to pull all their stunts this time of year. That March is when all the idiots seem to shine, and make their worst decisions. Given that March has the nuttiest weather of the year (60 and sunny one day, 32 and snowing the next), that makes a lot of sense.

Everyone gets antsy for spring to arrive. February and March are long months as we await the warm spring weather, colors, and clothing. When the sun finds a moment to peak through the clouds, and tease us with the coming attractions of April and May, everyone (student or not) gets naturally excited. Put that in the mind and body of an emotional (and often unstably so) teenager, and that's when you get students damn near impossible to settle down, limit their jokes, pranks, and other wonderfully immature actions.

I feel for the principal, vice principal, and other administrators who have to deal with the mess left behind by the impending vernal equinox. Certainly I alone have given them several students to deal with - in the last week alone, I have sent 5 students to them for various offenses. I think in the 4 weeks prior, I had sent a total of 3 down.

Ahhh, March. Weather isn't the only thing that acts like a lion these days.

I must say that as crazy as the students are acting these days, I can't say I'm all that excited about when we're faced with beautiful weather in May, and the kids are restless, and mentally suction-cupped to the windows.

To React Or Not To React

So often things happen in school which require a teacher to step in and say, "Quit it." As a first-year teacher, I am often conflicted whether or not I should do that. In an attempt to be as honest and sincere with the kids as possible (and a most earnest attempt not to be the stereotypical out-of-touch old geezer of a teacher), I am often unsure whether a situation requires me to step in.

The things that transpire in school mimic those that happen in real life. If I am in the grocery store, and I hear someone curse, for instance, or get impatiently angry with the cashier, I can turn a deaf ear or a blind eye. In the case of cursing, I rarely even bat an eye, unless someone unleashes a litany of expletives. However, the school's rule prevents cursing, so I frequently find myself saying, "Watch your mouth," when someone lets slip a "shit" or a "fuck."

But I have yet to answer what the big deal is if they curse? They are expressing anger or frustration, or placing extra emphasis on their comments.

Of course there are degrees to this. If someone (and this happened twice to me last week), openly says to me, "That's fucking retarded," when asked to do some work, or stop tapping on their desk, their ass is getting sent down to the office. However, a more benign example is when a student asks a classmate, "Hey, when can I come over and grab my shit I left at your place?"

There's also the do-i-or-do-i-not-say-something dilemma when someone sleeps in class. Or is late to class. When someone comes late to my class, or decides to put his head down on his desk and not pay attention, who's really losing out? The student will miss any notes given, any test or quiz announcements, any homework announcements, or any of the other things which go on in the class. So if he chooses to ignore these things, it's his loss, right? And he'll pay the consequences later when it comes time to take the test, or hand in the assignment, or do any of the required classwork. So why should I say anything?

But there's a part of me which feels as if I'm supposed to say something when these things happen. Am I? What do you think?

The Story Everyone's Asked About

It seems that the idiocy of teenagers comes in waves. They seem to share an internal "let's be stupid" alarm that is very well synchronized. There may be weeks without much ado in the school, and then one week where their alarms all go off, and their collective stupidity, laying silently dormant, explodes onto the scene.

There was one such week in October. On one Friday, I gave a test to my Algebra II students. Some of them thought it was particularly hard, and a couple stayed after the period to finish it. One of them, the main character in this story, who has been dubbed Giggity by my friends, has his stupid alarm go off early, and he decides it's a good idea to speak on his cell phone. Everyone knows that cell phones are not allowed on a normal basis, but during a test, any cell phone use is immediately considered cheating. I say, "Giggity, what the hell are you doing?"
Giggity looks at me and has a mixed look of honest "What do you want?" and indignant "What's your problem?" I say, "You know that any cell phone use during a test makes the test a zero." He angrily replies, "You gotta be fucking kidding me!" Clearly I take his test and refer him to the office.

Upon coming into work the following Monday, I found out there was a fight at a party that Friday night between two students that landed one of them in the hospital.

Then during lunch on Monday, there was another fight, this time in school. This one occurred between the school's star athlete (a major headcase, and the same all-around prick who challenged me in class the first day of school) and a really good kid who suffered an amazing tragedy right before school started, when he witnessed his twin brother drowning. I know very little details on that fight, but certainly both kids don't need much to put them in a throwing-fists state of mind.

After school on Monday, Giggity stops into my room, and apologizes for his compound idiocy on Friday. He and I have a conversation about what it means to make good decisions, and I left feeling as if we had made some progress in his overall growth.

That was Monday.

Tuesday morning, there was an in-school student-to-student blowjob. This was not subtly done in a bathroom, instead this was performed in a small out-cove of a hallway. And they were caught by another student.
Now, having had such a (what I felt to be) productive conversation with Giggity the day before, I was surprised (but, in retrospect, not really) that Giggity was the recipient of the fellatio.
The fallout of the BJ produced two more fights over the next couple days. The first of which happened that afternoon, and was between the girl who found herself on her knees that Tuesday morning and the (very recent) ex-girlfriend of Giggity. That fight happened to be broken up by the same teacher who broke up the headcase fight the day before, and left all the teenage boys drooling over the idea of a cat-fight.

That was Tuesday.

Wednesday afternoon, I'm teaching my sixth period class and I see Giggity walk past my door. Nothing abnormal about that, but given the past couple days' of activity, my radar was up. All of 20 seconds later, I see him walk back in the other direction, and stop. Very shorty after that, I hear shouting in the hallway. I stop myself mid-sentence and rush out of my room, leaving my class alone, where I see Giggity and this girl (the one who caught him receiving the BJ) standing all of 5 inches from each other's face shouting at each other:
"What the fuck is your problem?"
"Why the fuck are you spreading rumors about me?"
"Rumors? You know what you did!"
"What the FUCK?!"
"What are you gonna do about it, pussy?"
"I want to punch you in the fucking face!"
Poetry. Pure poetry.

Apparently what happened was that Giggity, when walking back to his class, caught the eye of Queen Tell-All, who was sitting in her class. She made a gesture as if to say, "What are you gonna do?" to which he responded by flipping her off. She immediately got up and bolted out of her room and the shouting commenced. They were both suspended (since no teacher caught the act, he was punished for his language, and not for receiving the other tongue-lashing).

The aftermath of this among teachers I found pretty amusing. Everyone remembers the days of high school gossip and rumors and "What have you heard? I 'know' this..." It turns out that the teachers are as bad (and in often cases, much worse) than the students are when it comes to spreading gossip. I had several teachers come up to me and say, "So what do you know? Is it true?"
Waaaiiit a sec here... aren't we supposed to be the adults in this situation?

But of course, behind closed doors, the blowjob jokes amongst the teachers didn't end for weeks. A while after that week had ended, we were sitting at lunch and the music director was going through some scores as she was trying to pick some songs for the choir to sing. Reading the title of one, she chuckled and without saying anything, tossed it on the table for all of us to view. It was called, "Mouth Music."

As I mentioned before, high schoolers are a never-ended source of free entertainment.

Grading

I don't like grading. It's a pain in the ass.

I understand (as do most people) the point in doing homework, and taking tests. It is important to take time to reinforce new material. It is important to check-up that said material has been retained, particularly when dealing with a cumulative subject such as math.

However, it can appear that homework often doesn't accomplish all of its goals. If students are to do a set of problems to reinforce some mathematical concepts, naturally it would be beneficial for them to receive as detailed feedback as possible so they can learn from their mistakes. But when faced with a stack of 80 pages of collected homework, each with 20 questions on them (making 1600 problems to check, for you non-math people out there), the idea of giving quality feedback is amazingly daunting. And, for all practical purposes, impossible.

So what to do? Since I can't go through every single one of the 1600 problems which are done nightly, I check a few per page. If the student has done all the problems, they get a check mark (full credit) for the assignment. That seems to work pretty well, except when some of my conscience asks the obvious question of fairness: "How can I ask students to spend anywhere between 10-30 minutes on homework nightly, if I'm only going to spend a handful of seconds reviewing their work?" Being an engineer, I am convinced there has to be a better way.

I'm not a person focused solely on the ends. As I regularly remind my students, the process matters. In other words, I require them to show their work. If they have the wrong answer, but their work is spot-on (except for absent-mindedly changing a 2 to a 3, or a + sign to a - sign), they will get most credit. If their thought process is off, or I can't see their thought process on paper, they will lose most credit.
The way I have explained my reasoning for this to my students is to ask, "Who here has ever walked up a flight of stairs?" Naturally everyone has. "And who here has climbed a flight of stairs, but when you've gotten to the top step, you thought there was another step, so you half-trip on a step that isn't there? Which is immediately followed by the a quick look around to see if there was anyone who was looking?"

One nice thing about grading is that I can do it at my leisure. Which means while watching TV. Or drinking a beer. Or wine... which has caused more than one "Oh crap!" moment as my drink has been spilled on students' work. (see The Simpsons: "I got a 'B'!" "No, Ralph. That's an 'F'. I must have spilled some Kahlua.")

I've been asked whether I grade things differently depending on the student. While of course, the official answer is no, the more accurate response is that I try not to. But it's hard. Students who come for extra help, who work their asses off but still can only muster a 59 on a test - sure, I find a way to bump them up to a passing grade. And sure, if the smart-ass in the class ends up with a potentially explosive grade like, say... 69, I find another point to give or take away.

It's hard for me when I want so badly for my struggling students to succeed. I find myself over eager to grade their tests first. (And then sometimes feel really bad for the kids when they have failed to reach a half-decent grade.)
Naturally the converse is true too, so that there are times when I see other students' work on the top of the pile which I immediately put on the bottom, muttering to myself, "Yea, I don't have the patience to grade your work right now."

I find that I talk to my students when grading their tests.
"What the hell are you thinking?"
"Why, why, why did you do that?"
"Oh Jeebus, you too make that same mistake?"
It's often no wonder why I find myself heading into the kitchen for a glass of something alcoholic to wash down the horrid mistakes my students have made.

So all in all, grading is a pain. But fortunately this pain can be eased with TV, frequent breaks, food and drink.

Downtime

At night, and my internal daily news show is running, recapping the high- and low-lights of the day runs, I have found myself frustrated at what shows up.

The good kids - the ones who come in and do their work quietly and respectfully - rarely cross my mind. It's the pricks, the ones who felt it their duty to be obnoxious, disrespectful, and otherwise a pain in the ass whose antics are run over and over and over and over again in my head.

To be fair, I have a far more good kids than bad. And even the so-called "bad" ones really aren't bad. Generally kids who act up will have their good days, and things will be smoothed over, as we both get a broader picture of each other. However, there are a few kids I've had run-ins with who I don't have in class, and that's unfortunate, because we have limited interactions upon which to base our opinions of each other.

I really enjoy my job. I have great coworkers, and, contrary to some of the bitching I have done (and will continue to do) on here regarding some of the idiots which cross my path daily, I have great students. Out of the 120 or so students I have (and have had) in class, I have open issues with 3 of them. Not bad at all. So why do the conflicts stick out in my head, while the good kids are nowhere to be seen?

Free Entertainment

One of the best pieces of advice a teacher gave me after I was pretty angry with one particular moron was, "Look at the kids as a form of entertainment. Don't take what they do all that seriously, or personally." That was outstandingly helpful.

Some gems from my students:
Gumby: "Mr. Eyerman, can I have a band-aid?"
Me: "What happened?"
Gumby: "I punched a locker."

"I don't like that class because I'm getting a D."

Overachiever: "Is there anything I can do to get my grade to a passing level?"
Me: "Um, you have a C average."
Overachiever: "I know. That's not passing."

"We're not going to do anything hard today, right? Cause it's Monday, so we shouldn't have to do anything."

Me: "So you have to divide everything by 2."
(pause)
Repeat, as writing it on the board.
Me: "You have to divide EVERYTHING by 2." Write EVERYTHING using only capital letters.
(shorter pause)
Me: "EVERYTHING." Underline EVERYTHING.
(look to see if the students have finished copying this down. almost)
Me: "EV. RY. THING."
With each syllable, point to each part of the problem. Knock on the board with your knuckle to give another sensory emphasis.
Me: "Not just over here. Not just over here. Everything."
(pause, make sure they have the "yea, we get it. quit repeating yourself" eye-glaze)
Me: "OK, so Valley Girl, what do you get when you divide everything by 2?"
(long pause)
Valley Girl: "Wait." (short pause) "Everything?"

"Sam, put away your cell phone."
(immediately) "Yea, I know."
(giggles amongst classmates)
Sam: "That's what sucks about you being a young teacher. You know what we're doing. I mean, the older teachers don't even know what texting is."

"Do I get extra credit? I was on time to class."
"Uhh... no..."
"Oh, come on! You're killin' me, Mr. Eyerman!"

*tsk* "Aw man Mr. Eyerman, I got in trouble for skipping your class yesterday."
"So... don't skip my class."
(pause) "Oh."

Sports Hangover

It's been a great time to be Boston sports fan. The Red Sox won the World Series. The Patriots went undefeated (*cough* - almost). Boston College had a great football season. The Celtics are on a tear. Even the Revolution made it to the MLS Finals.

However, the late scheduling of games (so that all you west coasters can get home from work first) has reeked havoc on the students' sleep cycles (which, no doubt, they don't do much to take care of themselves). Having the Red Sox' season continue through two rounds of playoffs and then the World Series, saw my students with blearier-than-usual eyes for the month of October.

The Patriots' success this season put them in the primetime game (either Sunday night or Monday night) several times. Go to bed before its conclusion? Nonsense! Why ever would I do that, Mr. Eyerman?

But today marked the end of that. With the NHL and NBA playoffs not slated to start for a few months, with the baseball season 2 months away, and with the Super Bowl completing the wonderfully IMperfect season, my students finally have the opportunity to get a full night's rest. We'll see, though, since American Idol is back.

However, being a New York fan (yes, Jets and Mets) and a Patriots' anti-fan (I root for the Jets and whoever's playing the Pats), I've taken my fair share of crap since September. The Mets went on their historic collapse. The Jets bumbled their way to a 4-12 season, losing twice to the Pats.
There have been few mornings sweeter than today, going in to room after room of bewildered and bemoaning Pats' fans. I compiled a list of excuses for the Pats' loss.
"Boston already scheduled the victory parade."
"My sister walked in the room, and then they gave up a touchdown."
"The New York bookies got to Brady."
"Belichick didn't wear the gray hoody. He sold out by wearing red."

Just another day in the logic of teenagers.

A Fresh Start

Today marked the start of 3rd term. While I could remark on how it's amazing that the school year is more than half over at this point, and how involved and wild these past four-plus months have been, instead I want to talk about one particular opportunity the start of this new term brings me.

I teach SAT Prep, which is a semester-long class. Meaning that the students I've gotten to know over the first two terms of school in that class are no longer in my classroom. Which, on the one hand, sucks, because I've grown fond of them, and have enjoyed our class. And on the other hand, that rocks, because some of them are real pains in the ass, and I'm glad that from now on I only have to deal with them when I pass them in the hallway.

But what is greatest about starting with new students is that I have a chance to make up for the missteps I took with that SAT Prep class the first two terms. Today I had a group of students for the first time. I gave the opening day spiel I gave 6 times in 2 days back in September. This time, though, it was much different.

My nerves weren't present the way they were on Day 1. Having experienced the entirety of the SAT Prep course, I was able to give a far better, far more rooted-in-experience overview of the class rules, and my expectations of them. A lot less wingin' it, as the class rules and expectations I announced in September were based mainly on colleagues' recommendations. This time, having direct experience with what worked, and what didn't, I could choose my words more appropriately.

When playing a video game, it's really nice to know that if you die right away, or the Tetris pieces don't work out for you in the first 30 seconds, you can hit the magical "Reset" button and start again. Of course, life does not mimic that. However, being able to start fresh now, instead of having to wait until September 2008, is a similar feeling. I feel a lot more able to control the direction of the class now than I did in September.
It showed - the way one of my SAT classes went was clearly the result of my lack of force at the start. Without a strong lead right from the start, most any class will go haywire, with students thinking they run the show, and can do whatever they want, sans consequences. Trying to steer a class back under the "easy to control" umbrella after they've experienced freedom to jive with the teacher about South Park, for instance, is pretty damn hard if the initial power scales haven't been tipped in the teacher's direction.

So it's nice to have this opportunity now, without having to wait until September, to get off on the right foot with a new set of students.

Time will tell if the order of this class disintegrates, but I'm very happy with the improvements I've made to my first-day setup of a course.

Stay tuned...

Names

For anyone, it takes some getting used to hearing yourself called by a new name, even if it is your real name. I've been called "Mr. Eyerman" before, most often by phone solicitors who don't know that the only "Mr. Eyerman" I've heard of is my father, but it is has never been commonplace for me.

So when introducing myself to students, it has taken some time to get accustomed to saying, "Hi, I'm Mr. Eyerman," and not anything more informal. Even this week, four and a half months into school, I still used my first name when I introduced myself, only to soon thereafter back-track and say, "Ooh! So I'm not who I said I was. I'm Mr. Eyerman."

One piece of advice a former teacher of mine gave me right before this school year started was to learn my students' names as fast as possible. As that was something which I no one else had suggested to me, it stuck out in my head. I quickly found that the students' whose names I remembered the fastest were the ones who were either discipline issues or teacher's pets. The respectful, quiet ones who just came in and did their work - their names took a lot longer to learn. There was nothing in their personalities (not in the part they showed me) that distinguished one from another. Fortunately, I had them down by the time parent-teacher conferences rolled around.

In addition to my 110 or so students' names, I had to learn faculty members' full names as well. When students asked, "Can you tell me where Mr. Clark's room is?" it was frustrating (and a little embarrassing) to have to shrug and reply, "You got me, kid." And then even more so when the realization comes (of course, well after the kid walked away) that "Mr. Clark" is really the guy I know as Smiley, and his room is 5 feet away.

There's also the joy of the "What the hell do I call this person?" internal debate when referring to fellow teachers. Do I use the first name or the last? Quick, are there kids around? Is it bad to call a fellow teacher by their first name when there are kids within earshot? Will it lower (for better and for worse) the level of "adulthood" we possess in the kids of the eyes? Does it matter in the least?

Of course, there is also the confusion on the kids' faces when I mistakenly say, "Go and ask Maria about it." (pause to let that sink in. Think, Wait, this is longer than the usual "sink in" time. Hmmm... something's amiss...) "Err... I mean, 'Go ask Mrs. Greeks about it.'"

There are a lot of kids who like to drop the "Mr." when they call me. Just about every time someone does, there's the thought battle of: Do I need to correct the kid and tell him to call me Mr.? Was he being disrespectful by just calling me "Eyerman?" Again, does this matter in the least?

Although I've grown accustomed to the moniker, I still occasionally find it very odd to be called by my teacher name. As I grow more comfortable in this role, the more I relax (naturally) and the more sincere I am with the students. And when those heart-to-heart moments happen, it is odd to be called "Mr. Eyerman," because at those times, I don't feel like a teacher instructing a student, more like one person helping another.

"It's only cheating if you get caught..."

In October, I was grading a set of tests when I noticed two students had the exact same answer. Nothing too special about that, except the answer was wrong. Nothing too out of the ordinary about that either, except that the exact same error each student made was remarkably obscure.
My "teacher radar" (as my colleagues later called it) was up and running, and so the next day after class, I called up the two students in question for a little chat.
"OK guys, I'm going to ask you something. And your honesty in this matter will carry a lot of weight." (pause for effect) "Did you guys cheat on the test?"
Both of them: "No."
"Well, here's why I ask," I said, whipping out the tests. "That's pretty strange that the two of you made this same, rather obscure, error. So are you sure?"
The girl: "No."
The guy: "No." (pause) "Wellll....sometimes my eyes wander."
In my own head: "WTF does that mean?"
"So what, exactly, does that mean?" (nice job, inner censor)
Then he goes on some long excuseplanation about how he's under a lot of pressure from his folks to do well, and sob-story-this and sob-story-that. He eventually gets around to asking what the consequences are.
I said, "Well, I really don't know. There are many ways this can play out. The worst outcome for you would be that I'll call home, report this to the principal, and it'll go on your official record. Which will entail you, the principal, myself and your parents all sitting down and discussing this." At this point, he nearly peed on the floor. "So right now, I don't know. I'll have to think about it."
He's a good kid, and I certainly recognized the value in having him live with fear in order to keep him on the straight-and-narrow from that point on.
After letting him sweat it out for a day, I told him that I was going to give him an F on the test, and I made sure he recognized just how generous I was being. He knows I'm all over him now, as I've given him good stare-downs during the tests since. So that's worked out well.

Before that instance, I was under the impression that the students doing poorly, or those in lower-level classes, would be more likely to copy off another student. But that's not the case at all. The lower-level kids tend to either not give a rat's ass about their grade, so cheating is most certainly not worth the effort, or they have a lot more pride in their work - "I studied hard. I want to earn this. My work is my work." It's the upper-level kids, the honors kids, who tend to cheat more. They, as the eye-wanderer exemplified, are often under a lot of pressure - both from their folks and self-inflicted - to do well. Of course there is no always-true rule, but generally speaking, that's what I've found to be true.

Coming to Terms

Probably the most unexpected part of my first week was coming face-to-face with my high school self. Within the first three days of school I noticed that I reacted to the same groups of students as a teacher that I did when I was a student: the over-testosteroned football players, the know-it-all bookworms, the party-goers, the artsy-fartsy kids, the kids from rough backgrounds. I found my inner self cringing, flinching, resenting, fearing, or looking down on those groups just as I did when I was 16.

Of course it was easy to rationalize that I was no longer a high school student, that my last day of high school was over 10 years ago, and that I have had worlds of experience and growth since then. More importantly, I realized that if I expect to lead a classroom, or have any success as a leader of teenagers, I need to get over any personal issues I may have with each of those groups. If I were to let those issues remain inside me, they would grow, and would eventually cause real (likely irrevocable) damage to my teaching career. This was one snowball I absolutely needed to stop rolling down the mountain before it was even formed.

It's natural to draw on what experiences one has when entering a new environment. Being in a high school again, no matter how long it had been since I was last in that environment, and regardless of the new role I was in, I found myself mentally and emotionally brought back to that age.

Fortunately, it didn't take that long for me to get over myself, and come to terms with the gaping difference between the 2007 and the 1995 versions of me. It is very apparent, halfway into the school year, that I am able to reach out to all different groups of student, which I am very proud of.

But it added a depth of experience to all my teachers and what they very likely went through when they first entered that arena. I'm glad I'm past that, and although I still find I struggle at times to define myself as a teacher, a role model, and an adviser (and all those other roles I previously mentioned), I am happy to report that I am able to react evenly to all my students. It's been quite an internal (and sometimes, external) battle, and this is just the beginning of my education.

Snow Day

Under just about any circumstances, I despise being woken up by my phone ringing. Ending a peaceful slumber by the piercing and jarring noise of the telephone is often worse than waking to an alarm clock. Alarm clocks are usually within arm's length, and they have the magical Snooze button. The cell phone - which I keep in another room overnight - keeps on ringing until it kicks over to voicemail. And if I ever do get up to answer the phone, which requires getting my sluggish - and irritated - self up out of bed, and over to the other room, there's a chance it won't be important. If somehow I deem it important enough to pick up, I have to find the two or three brain cells which are functioning and find a way to make coherent sentences. So clearly, waking up to a ringing phone is not high on my list of favorites.

But not today.

When I woke up and realized my phone was ringing, I jumped out of bed, praying to get to it before it went to voicemail. I can't remember when I last moved that fast at 5:15 in the morning. And there it was - the caller ID reading my school. Putting the phone to my ear, my excitement increased when I recognized that I would not have to use any of my semi-conscious brain cells. There were three possible reasons for the phone call: a 60-minute delayed opening, a 90-minute delayed opening, or an all-out school closure. Which one was it going to be?
The recorded message of the principal of my school began. It took him seemingly hours to introduce himself. When at long last, he did announce that there was no school today, I was in such a state of disbelief, I let the message repeat itself so I could hear it again. I haven't heard sweeter words than that in a long time.

Just a couple weeks ago in December, we received 10 inches of snow, but school was still open (though we did have a 90-minute delayed opening, which I found out about after I was halfway on my way to work). I have heard stories about the north's "bring it on" response to snow, and how just about nothing closes unless it's 25 below and there is at least a foot on the ground.
Having lived as far north as Jersey (when living in America), I've gotten used to much wussier reactions to snow. Particularly (and laughingly so) in DC, where school was once canceled for Monday on Sunday night due to the threat of 3 inches of the white stuff, when there was not one flake already on the ground. As it turned out, it didn't start snowing until 3pm the following day, and at that, we only got a whopping total of 2 inches. (That night I saw people take full advantage of the onslaught of snow, cross-country skiing on my block.)

So as the disbelief settled, the excitement grew. So much so, it was pretty difficult to fall back asleep, thinking of all I was suddenly able to do today. Time will tell if I manage to get out of my robe and accomplish anything today, but for now, having yesterday finished all my "have to"s for the week, I am reveling in the stupidity of television and the fullness of my refrigerator.

Let it snow!

"I'm just kidding!"

This week was one that will stick out in my mind when I look back on my first year of teaching.

By Tuesday lunch I had thrown three kids out of my class. There was a fire alarm - interrupting a test I was giving - in the rain. Another student cut my class because he "wasn't prepared for the test" I gave. Yet another student told me "I don't go to this school" when I asked him why he was in the hallway and not at class.

Two of the kids I threw out of class stemmed from related incidents. I confiscated the cell phone of one kid, Smelly (no he doesn't really smell bad, but that's what I'm gonna call him here), because I caught him a second time sending text messages in class. A short while later, his classmate, Woody, decided it would be a good idea to sneak behind me after writing something on the board and take Smelly's phone and return it to him.

Upon seeing Smelly with his phone, and immediately realizing how he got it back, I sent Woody down to the office, over his protests that, "I was just kidding!" After Woody left, Smelly persisted with "That was stupid. He was just joking. Of course I was gonna give it back to you." After Smelly continued to go on about the stupidity of my decisions, he was sent down to join his classmate.

The student who told me he was not a student at the school (and then shortly thereafter changed his story to "I'm getting paid to pick up trash from the hallway," and then again changed his story to "I'm going to the bathroom" and then proceeded to walk away from me as I was talking to him), also fell back on the "I was just kidding!" excuse. Said to the tone of "Why are you all bent out of shape? Geeeeez!" I'm not exactly sure why the students chose that explanation.

I tried, with each "kidding" student individually, to explain that their actions and comments were most certainly not jokes. My guess is that theirs was a defensive move: "Maybe, if the teacher thinks it was just a joke, I won't get in trouble." But for the teacher to say, "Oh, you were just joking? In that case don't worry about it," would set a really lousy precedent as an authority.

In different ways, each of the three students was trying to gain a step of power over me. Each was trying to say, "I'm the one who runs things here. What you say / think / ask is second to me." They see a young teacher and think, "Oh, he's my pal. He's cool, he won't get me in trouble." Not so fast there, slick.

Yet what's amusing to me is that as big as they puff themselves up, it's remarkable how much the threat of a phone call to their parents will yank them back in line. The biggest ego of the three, the "I don't go to this school" student, maintained that he didn't care if I called home, and that even if I did, nothing would come of it. But talking with other teachers who know him well, that's probably the worst outcome for him - me informing his dad of his son's disrespect. Before I had the opportunity to call home, the student approached me and agreed to stay after for detention, saying he just wanted "to get it over and done with." Code for "if you call my folks, I'll be paying for this for a while."
The other two were given opportunities to speak to their folks before I called home. Neither did, and both phone calls were made. And wouldn't you know? There was absolutely no problem in that class the two other times since then.

Nicely, this week ended on a high note. I was walking down the hallway with Hoppie, a fellow teacher who's part of the completely school-inappropriate lunch crew. She was wearing her Casual Day outfit of a Patriots jersey. Knowing my loyalties to the 4-12 J-E-T-S from New York (Jersey), she joked that I'm a bad person because I'm rooting for the Pats to lose this weekend. She picked up a caulking gun lying on the ground and pointed it at me (there's a lot of construction going on in the school) and I said (not intending to be the least bit dirty), "Watch out what you do with that caulk." Immediately and independently, our impure minds changed the pronunciation of "caulk" and we ended up doubled over in laughter.

If there were any students around, I would have told them "You see? Now that's how you joke!"

"Teacher"

Something which hit me in the first day or two of my teaching life was just how broad the term "teacher" really is. The number of roles and intricately nuanced positions a "teacher" has to take is pretty astounding. Certainly teachers are far more than just lecturers, trying to pass on some curriculum to their students.

In addition to lecturers (which, incidentally, is most certainly not the majority of what I do), teachers are judges, motivators, parents, advisers, testers, leaders, role models, psychologists (both individual and group), lie detectors, entertainers, guides, and politicians (see: interacting with parents).
Teachers need to know when to smack a kid down hard, and when to be soft and give a little. We need to be able to talk to a kid like they're 2 (answering the "Wait, what page are we on?" question for the 8th time) and also like we expect them to be 25. We need to be able to be outstandingly blunt at times, and remarkably indirect at others.
We must know when to let things slide and when to make an issue. My students often think their teachers are oblivious because they don't react to certain comments, gestures or references. While sure, there can be a generation gap between some of the younger students and some of the older teachers, you'd be hard-pressed to find a seasoned teacher who was unaware that a comment was offensive or inappropriate. But the reason that seasoned teacher doesn't make an issue out of said comment is not because he or she didn't hear it or get it, but rather that he or she recognizes that it's not worth it to make a deal out of it.

I firmly believe that anyone with a few years under their belt as a teacher deserves an honorary degree in psychology.

The First Day

3:00 AM.   Wake up. Involuntarily. Peer over at alarm clock, set for 4:45. Am I really going to be a teacher? What the hell am I doing? Certainly not the last time I would ask myself the latter question. OK, take some deep breaths. Go back to sleep. I need to be well-rested for the first day.

4:45 AM.   Alarm goes off. This induces the odd thought combination of Thank god! and Holy shit! Naturally, not a wink of sleep occurred between initially waking up and when the alarm sounded.

Get up, shower, get dressed. Feeling awfully like a girl, I try to pick out the most appropriate shirt out of my collection. One that says, "Yes, I'm a teacher," but also one that doesn't pinhole me into "traditional, boring teacher" status. Here's to overthinking a (in retrospect) trivial part of my day.

Head out at about 5:15 to drive down to school to meet my mentor, JT, for a pre-school breakfast and (hopefully) nerve-calming pep-talk. A quick note on the mentoring program. For the first two years of my career at this school, JT will be my mentor, which means he is a confidential resource for me, there to answer any sort of question and generally act as a guide until I get my feet under me at the school.

5:30 AM.   Quite poetically, there is an absolutely gorgeous sunrise I get to witness during the drive in.

6:00 AM.   JT and his buddy (a teacher in a different district) join me for some breakfast. Nerves have removed all of our appetites. This is JT's 8th school year teaching, and his friend's 4th. Yet they claim they get nerves at the start of the first day too. I manage to squeeze down half a bagel with cream cheese. And I opt for coffee. Why I chose a cup of joe, I'm not quite sure. I've never been a coffee drinker - saving it only for pulling all-nighters in college and the occasional "I really need a caffeine kick in the butt." Certainly I was in no need of a jolt that day.

7:00 AM.   Arrive at school. I get there and ask JT, "OK, so now what do I do?" Basically just walk around and wait for the 7:30 bell. My department chair asks if I would like her to join my first class to help smooth over the inevitable bumps. I decline, reasoning that it'd be better to establish myself as the leader of the classroom than having to lean on her.

7:30 AM.   The bell rings. Of the 24 students in front of me, there isn't one smile. My nerves are in check. I can feel the anxiety, but it's far from overwhelming. For the moment. I begin my spiel welcoming them back to school and introducing myself.

7:32 AM.   Interrupted by the principal on the PA system asking all teachers to hold off starting class and to help lost students find their way from the hallways to their respective classrooms. I sigh, and exit the room to the hallway, meeting other teachers. They ask about my nerves. This pause in the action allows my nerves to ... I wouldn't say "settle", per se... more like the exact opposite. What the hell did I get myself into?

7:35 AM.   Return to class, and the daily announcements begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. Having been out of the country for two years, and out of public school since 1992, I feel awfully odd hearing the PoA. Not sure how comfortable I feel pledging along. But do I need to? Is it appropriate for me to do that? Is it wrong for me to just stand here silently? What kind of example am I setting? are the kinds of unanswerable questions which run through my head in a matter of seconds.

8:23 AM.   First period ends. Phew. Now I gotta go through that again.

8:27 AM.   Repeat the spiel from Period 1, with some slight modifications to my intro. Make the same jokes (hey, stick with what works): when trying to kill some time, ask the students what they did over the summer, and tell them their answers must be school-appropriate, not (changing voice into high school jock mimickery), "Dude, I got wasted everyday and it was awwwesome." That one got chuckles in each class.

9:19 AM.   Period 3 begins. My department chair walks in and introduces one student, let's call him Kieth, in particular. He looks - as most of them do - completely disinterested in school. Turns out Kieth is the school's star athlete, and a major head-case, with a penchant for giving a hard time to inexperienced male teachers (all this I find out afterwards).

9:34 AM.   Kieth stands up and starts to walk around. I approach him and ask him where he's going. He states he wants to sit somewhere else. I say, "No, stay there." Not that I really care where he sits, but I recognize that it's not a good idea to have a student think he can call the shots. I think. Am I sure this is what I should do? Nope. But gotta stick with this course of action now anyway...
"Why?"
"I'm asking you to sit down in your seat, please."
I see the thought process in his head: How far do I want to push it now? Am I going to listen or continue to do what I want? He chooses the former option, and says, "Fine, whatever. You're the teacher."
My heart is racing a thousand beats a minute.
"Thank you."
And I return to my introductory spiel. I wonder if the other students have any idea how hard and fast my heart is beating. (Still, to this day, I have no clue.)

10:11 AM.   Period 4. By now, having given my introduction 3 times, gone through my expectations for the class 3 times, asked students what they did over the summer 3 times, did my "wasted" mimickery 3 times, explained that I lived in Japan for the past year 3 times, proved it my speaking Japanese 3 times, my comfort level is back down to only slightly elevated (Homeland Security color code yellow).
I ask my fourth period class about their previous math teachers. Ask them what things made them - in their eyes - good math teachers or poor ones. One smart ass replies, "Oh, I really liked Ms. Soandso."
"Oh yea? Why?"
"Well, for one thing, she was really hot."
Still feeling a bit amped, I reply, "Oh well, I'm sorry I don't have that same effect on you." I paused. "Or maybe I do, and, y'know, that's cool too."
A fleeting thought crosses my mind wondering where the line of "appropriate" conversation is, and whether I just crossed it. Oh well, too late now. Just gotta keep on chuggin.

10:59 AM.   Lunch time. This break allows me a moment to catch my breath. Once I have caught it, and my adrenaline stops pumping furiously, I have a conversation with the principal. He asks how my first day is going. Clearly my facial expression and sigh prompt him to say, "You know, it's been my opinion for a long time that first-year teachers should have to work one day, then get a week off so they can recuperate before going back into the classroom." Amen.

11:25 AM.   I'm eating with JT and some other teachers and quickly realize that all of my teachers - no matter what face they put on in front of us students - say some seriously school-inappropriate things behind closed doors.
Exhibit A: One woman, who is in her mid-50s, is talking about how the sprinkler system set up outside has occasionally, throughout the morning, sprayed her in the face through the window. Another (also in her 50s) asks, "Wow, so it's the first day of school, and you're already getting wet?"
It's all downhill from there.

1:20 PM.   After another uneventful introduction to my 6th period class, my day is over. I have last period off, so I head back to my desk and crash. Emotionally, I am completely fried. I walk around the halls a bit, and a veteran teacher semi-rhetorically asks me, "So, are you coming back tomorrow?" I gasp. Wait, you mean I have to do this again??? Realizing that I have no real options, I smile and reply. "Yep!" Seriously though, what the hell did I get myself into?

2:00 PM.   The end-of-the-day bell rings, and the students file out. After a bit, I speak with JT and ask, "So what the hell am I supposed to do tomorrow?" (Clearly, I'm very prepared.) We walk through my lesson plans for each of my classes, and I eventually file out of school, completely exhausted, at 3:00.

4:10 PM.   Arrive home.

4:15 PM.   On my couch, unconscious. Dead to the world. A freight train could have come through my front door and I would have stayed asleep.

7:30 PM.   Make some dinner. All the while, repeating to myself, What the hell did I get myself into?

9:30 PM.   Out cold. No trouble sleeping this night. (Though I still wake up the next morning an hour before my alarm is to go off. I reason that I'll consider myself accustomed to the job once I wake up to the alarm and curse it, saying, "It's time to get up already??" That took a couple weeks.)

1 day down, 179 to go.

Welcome

After numerous requests from many loyal readers of the Prague Blog and the Tetsu no Otoko no Buroggu, I am hereby beginning my third entry in blogspace.

I am a first-year high school mathematics teacher in Massachusetts. Out of privacy concerns, I am obliged to omit some details from my posts. I don't want my tech-savvy students Googling themselves, or their teachers, and finding this space. Nevertheless, I intend to provide some insight into what goes on behind the scenes at a high school, from a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed first-year teacher.

Admittedly, I am starting this blog a bit late. Naturally, the school year started in September, and there is much to post on from the events of the past four months. I hope to get to the stories and epiphanies which stick out from that time, but if they were any indication, I won't be short on material to post. Life is stranger than fiction.

In the first four months, I have seen students go to rehab, parents ask me to change their child's grade, students ask me the unanswerable, "So are we going to do anything difficult today? It's Monday, and so therefore we shouldn't do anything hard. OK?", to an in-school blowjob (between students) and the wild fallout that ensued.

Yes, you can't make this shit up.

I hope you enjoy.