Day 21

ROUND 1: First period, Shawanabee is on a conduct slip for previous bad behavior. I had just filled it out, noting how excellent her behavior was today and how her work was high-quality, when she jumped up, strode across the room and banged LucasFilm in the eyepiece. He grappled her and wrestled her to the ground. No sooner had I sent them off to the office with referrals and lined up my class to take them to second period when

ROUND 2: I found a 7th grader bloodied on the floor and holding his head. I had to disperse a crowd of kids who were kicking him and teasing him about his shoes and calling him "pussy," etc. Then I got him up and took him to the office. I found out who stomped him and filed a report and was walking back to class when

ROUND 3: One of the boys who stomped the 7th grader got in my face and said "You ratted me out" and I got right back in his face and said "My job is to rat you out." Of course the administrator on the 3rd floor is a lazy piece of shit so he was still roaming the halls all day after stomping somebody's head. When I got back to my room

ROUND 4: Sargeant Slaughter was in the hall. There were 6 kids around him. Five were egging another on: "Go on, man. Punch him in the face! He won't do nothing with all us here." So the kid punched Slaughter in the face, twice. I started running over as another couple of kids got in licks. Slaughter was bloody but he didn't say anything or fight back. I took him to the third floor administrator and she asked what happened. When I told her she called Slaughter a "chicken" and sent him back in the hallway, where the same boys were waiting. Then, in third period

ROUND 5: a bunch of screaming commenced in the 3rd-floor cafeteria and two of my girls ran out but I got the rest of my class bottled up before they could leave. I heard shouting, banging, and then a mass a kids poured out the cafeteria and they were screaming "gun! gun!" All I could do was lock and shut my door and file AWOL reports for the girls who got out. I heard there was a gigantic melee but reports of a gun were never verified. Ms. Jones burst into the room, hand on hip, one finger flailing: "Mr. G--some young B just came up in here and pushed me. Oh, no. They gonna take me out in cuffs. I filed a report and the girl is still here in the building. It's just like the boy who pushed the man you replaced. He never even got time off--they just called his parents or something. They gonna take me out in cuffs because I am gonna hit anybody who puts their hands on me with a desk or a chair. I ain't playing with these kids." And as I walked my third period class down to their lunch

ROUND 6: several boys started throwing punches and there was chaos. I felt like I was in a Borges story about an endless middle school with infinite corridors that eventually all lead to the same place due to the curvature of space/time. That terminal same place is nowhere good.