Disaster Zone Teacher
Note: Not all my classes are like this, just 4 or 5 in the week. Only the older ‘cool’ boys (go figure?) If they all were like this I’d be crazy for sure!
Let me walk you through a typical Grade 2 Boys Class (i.e. 14 year old boys). I’ve learned no matter where you go in the world Middle School kids suck. They’re all at the awkward looking phase in life. They look funny, act crazy, and the most obvious hate all authority and above all hate school.
Now imagine yourself in Middle School again, horrible isn’t it? Now times that by 12 hours a day of school. You leave public school at 4:30 and go to private school til 10pm at night. You don’t play on sports teams. You don’t run around acting immature with friends. You live in school.
& I get to teach them.
This is a typical class with these unruly boys. I stand at the front and casually dodge a few papers or ignore a few of the yellers in the back who forever shout every damn time I walk into the classroom, “HELLOOO TEACHAAA! HELOOOOO, I AM FINE, THANK YOU AND YOU! GOOD BYE!” Class beings after I fiddle with the computer for over 5 minutes to get it on, PowerPoint up, youtube video loaded (I have to walk classroom to classroom I don’t get my own). Then 40 minutes of misery begin. About 5 students are in the back in a drool state of sleep, my 10 favorite are listening and answering questions, 8 are in a heated game gambling away their parent’s money, 6 refuse to do anything but stare and pretend to be mute, 3 are playing rock, paper, scissors and flicking each other in the head, 4 are playing monkey in the middle with a crumbled piece of paper, and then there are the 4 class clowns/bullies/satan children. I think they vote on who will make the teacher miserable for that class. Thankfully for us, they only choose 1 to be the ring leader and the other 3 get to laugh, hoot, and stand up for him when he’s getting yelled at.
We have a routine. I start class, I ask for silence, my co-teacher flips her stick about (they still get to hit kids here), the satan child starts yelling at us, I ignore him and teach the 10 who want to know English, then satan child pushes it to the point where I can no longer talk over him & my co-teacher goes nuts. She slams his desk with her wooden rod, then raises it again, and he knows this time its going to be him that she hits, and starts sprinting for safety at the back of the classroom — she starts chasing him with her ‘magic stick’ and gets him nicely across the back. He stands in a crouched position at the back of the classroom looking like a cheetah ready to dart in any direction to avoid the MAGIC stick. All the kids think this is hilarious and are all laughing and cheering him on. And me? Well, I’m standing at the front still mid sentence, shaking my head at yet another Grade 2 boys class lost to mayhem.
-Nicky-
2 Nomads. 1 Narrative. 