Today was not so bad, after all.
First period had a demo lesson with one of those naïve souls who thinks it would actually be nice to work in a progressive environment like my school’s. Ha! The auditioning educator was chipper and inquisitive, and I casually “warned” her that the school was very, VERY structured. Don’t-get-caught-putting-on-chapstick-when-the-kids-are-independently-reading-
in-the-first-five-minutes-of-class structured. She said she appreciated the heads-up, but didn’t seem too put off. Then she mis-spelled the words “clever” and “sneaky” on a chart she made during the demo. Guys, she wrote “cleaver”! Was the word choice symbolic? Was she forfeiting? If not, I doubt she’d get the job anyway. The lesson involved Little Red Riding Hood, and that doesn’t fly with my principal. It might not fly in the (mad gangstas ridin’) hood, period.
I started laughing today when I was explaining why students can no longer use the classroom’s bean bag chairs to a seventh and eighth grade class. “Because…people were doing inappropriate things with the bean bag chairs,” I said. A plastic googly eye craft piece flew across the room. I raised my eyebrows. “People were throwing them and using two at a time and…” I trailed off, and started thinking about how funny it is to say, “doing inappropriate things with the bean bag chairs.” I laughed and a student argued, “Uh uh! We only do inappropriate things with the pillows!” That did it. My shoulders shook like something built along the San Andreas fault line for a few minutes.
As much as these kids get on my nerves, as glad as I will be to have an office job with grown-ups and projects and mo’ money, they’re just kids. And kids don’t have to make sense. Sometimes it’s more fun when they don’t, even if it messes up the bean bag chairs.
But that doesn’t mean I’ll be so forgiving of the little bastards tomorrow.
Seems a tough job
I’ll say. Some days are better than others.