Sorry I Drunk Texted You
How to measure how bad a week you’ve had – take the number of drunk dials and text messages you sent, and times that with how many days of the week there are. For instance a normal person’s might begin on let’s say – Thursday or even Friday, and then be drunk all weekend and that number would be three or four, but in my case they started Wednesday, and that day began with the carry over from Tuesday.
I went to a seminar that told me, “When students attack you verbally – don’t take it personal.” My co-worker has a large note in her office that reads, “Don’t take it personal.” Kristalyn said, “David, you take things too personally.” And I do – I can’t help it, but when multiple students start telling me that they hate me – it starts to compound on you on a personal level. One student came in late, and I refused to let him go to his other class and trying to tell a large black kid who’s spent most of his adolescence in a detention home is not easy, especially when you don’t come up to his shoulder. Then he whined and said he wanted change teachers, because he didn’t like me – fine, I can deal with that.
Then during my English class, which happens in a class outside of my normal classroom, three students decided to walk past my room and pound on the wall – two of them I sent back to their room by using the word suspension. One stepped outside the building and when I called for him, he continued and left – ignoring me. When he came back he and I had a talk about ignoring people. I said, “It’s not the fact that you left the building that irritates me, it’s the fact that you ignored me when we both know that you heard me. Now how would you feel if you needed help and then I just ignored you in the classroom? I’m a person about respect, and if you don’t show it – you in turn aren’t owed it. Do I make myself clear?” He and I are on better terms now. And that night was capped off with a Cavalier game. They played New Jersey that night.
The next day might not have been worse, but it felt worse. A student came in [he was one of the two that I sent back to the classroom] and began searching his body for something he had lost. This is inner-city Cleveland, the kid has to be looking for his stash, which was what it turned out to be. He tries to leave the building and again I call him back, and then during the break when I didn’t see him – I went to the bus stop and there he was. I called him back in and then he started to complain even more. Most people deal with students for 45 to 50 minutes and wash their hands of them, but I have him for 3 hours. Days like this make me think that murder is all right – it’s not that I don’t have patience, but it’s the fact that he has worn down all that I had left. He’s young, immature, and everything that he is does is unnerving. Is it wrong to want to give up on a person? Anyway, at this point I still haven’t raised my voice – then he decides to move to another desk even though we have a seating chart designed for the shear fact that he just won’t shut the fuck up. I tell him to move and this is the straw that broke the camel’s back – he decides to say, “Yo, why jocking me, are you a fucking faggott or something?!” And on that note he came out of the classroom with me, and he and I had some hard words – no swearing but direct understanding that I’m not one of his friends, his boys, or whoever in his life that supposedly cares for him. That I was his teacher and if he wants to proceed down this road, I can just easily wash my hands of him and let all the other teachers in the room handle his questions [all of which are already tired of his antics].
It’s not the word faggott that angered me. It’s not the inner-city that bothers me. It’s dealing with a generation that respects nothing. There isn’t a thing in this world that is sacred, and because of that everyday with them is a fight to make them a descent human being. Of course this isn’t a statement that condemns every young person – this is just me venting, this is me wondering how I can manage another few months of this emotional and mental beat down. One person said, “I can’t do what you do.” And I told her, not many people can – that’s why so many of us quit. But on the other hand – this is where the really good teachers should be. It’s where they’re needed. But it’s also a place that ages you years in a matter of months.
NOTE: The Good Girl, thanks for the comments but I was in the middle of revamping the post so it got deleted but it was emailed. If you want to repost that'd be great. And thanks for the empathy.
I went to a seminar that told me, “When students attack you verbally – don’t take it personal.” My co-worker has a large note in her office that reads, “Don’t take it personal.” Kristalyn said, “David, you take things too personally.” And I do – I can’t help it, but when multiple students start telling me that they hate me – it starts to compound on you on a personal level. One student came in late, and I refused to let him go to his other class and trying to tell a large black kid who’s spent most of his adolescence in a detention home is not easy, especially when you don’t come up to his shoulder. Then he whined and said he wanted change teachers, because he didn’t like me – fine, I can deal with that.
Then during my English class, which happens in a class outside of my normal classroom, three students decided to walk past my room and pound on the wall – two of them I sent back to their room by using the word suspension. One stepped outside the building and when I called for him, he continued and left – ignoring me. When he came back he and I had a talk about ignoring people. I said, “It’s not the fact that you left the building that irritates me, it’s the fact that you ignored me when we both know that you heard me. Now how would you feel if you needed help and then I just ignored you in the classroom? I’m a person about respect, and if you don’t show it – you in turn aren’t owed it. Do I make myself clear?” He and I are on better terms now. And that night was capped off with a Cavalier game. They played New Jersey that night.
The next day might not have been worse, but it felt worse. A student came in [he was one of the two that I sent back to the classroom] and began searching his body for something he had lost. This is inner-city Cleveland, the kid has to be looking for his stash, which was what it turned out to be. He tries to leave the building and again I call him back, and then during the break when I didn’t see him – I went to the bus stop and there he was. I called him back in and then he started to complain even more. Most people deal with students for 45 to 50 minutes and wash their hands of them, but I have him for 3 hours. Days like this make me think that murder is all right – it’s not that I don’t have patience, but it’s the fact that he has worn down all that I had left. He’s young, immature, and everything that he is does is unnerving. Is it wrong to want to give up on a person? Anyway, at this point I still haven’t raised my voice – then he decides to move to another desk even though we have a seating chart designed for the shear fact that he just won’t shut the fuck up. I tell him to move and this is the straw that broke the camel’s back – he decides to say, “Yo, why jocking me, are you a fucking faggott or something?!” And on that note he came out of the classroom with me, and he and I had some hard words – no swearing but direct understanding that I’m not one of his friends, his boys, or whoever in his life that supposedly cares for him. That I was his teacher and if he wants to proceed down this road, I can just easily wash my hands of him and let all the other teachers in the room handle his questions [all of which are already tired of his antics].
It’s not the word faggott that angered me. It’s not the inner-city that bothers me. It’s dealing with a generation that respects nothing. There isn’t a thing in this world that is sacred, and because of that everyday with them is a fight to make them a descent human being. Of course this isn’t a statement that condemns every young person – this is just me venting, this is me wondering how I can manage another few months of this emotional and mental beat down. One person said, “I can’t do what you do.” And I told her, not many people can – that’s why so many of us quit. But on the other hand – this is where the really good teachers should be. It’s where they’re needed. But it’s also a place that ages you years in a matter of months.
NOTE: The Good Girl, thanks for the comments but I was in the middle of revamping the post so it got deleted but it was emailed. If you want to repost that'd be great. And thanks for the empathy.
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on Sunday, February 5 at 12:55 PM.
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1:08 PMI worked for a year in a middle school classroom. Special Ed, Emotional & Behavioral Disabilities. Eight boys ages 13-14. A good day was when no one threw a desk.
Some days we had to call security (a man, a BIG man with a stick), other days the janitor (another BIG guy) stopped by the room when it got too loud. I appreciate the fact that there are male teachers in school. So many kids, especially boys, seem to respond much quicker to tough words spit out by a man than a woman.
But I did cross paths with one of the boys in my class about five years after the year ended and he was very polite, even called me Ms...., so I must have done something right.
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