#24

Lost my temper today last period. The 7th graders were driving me nuts! Simultaneously I had:

• a youngin' crack open a blue magic marker and start drawing on the table with it
• a child crawling on the floor under my desk
• a child drawing gang logos on my chalkboard
• a youngin' throwing books across the room
• a child sitting at my computer without permission
• a youngin' running around the room and pulling stuff off my shelves
• a child banging on the side of my desk with her boot

I started yelling. And then somebody tore a huge chunk out of a brand new billboard I had just put up at lunch time. And then a boy threw a girl to the floor so hard it made a sickening sound. And then another girl kicked my LCD projector plug, pulling it out of the wall. The red "bulb exploded" light went on and I lost it.*

I dropped a "G-D" on my classroom. This, of course, is a major no-no. The kids froze in the midst of their various atrocities and said "Ooooohhhhh! He said a bad word!" I mean, yeah, the kids use "fuck" as a preposition, a verb (both trans. and intrans.), a noun, an adverb, and an adjective. They eat "G-D" for breakfast, and "shit" and "bitch" ain't nothing to them either.

But for a teacher to say "goddam" in front of a class of middle schoolers is the equivalent of a police officer discharging his weapon. Reports will be filed. I will get a Performance Improvement Processing document. And I should. I let the little monsters get under my skin today with their shenanigans.

And I called more than 14 parents after school today. From ONE CLASS.

*Fortunately the bulb was ok--them bitches is $200 each! Oh, and the girl thrown to the floor was also ok.