School Teachers: Modern-day Saints or Classic Fools??

There are great perks to my job: I get the summers off; I don't have to work weekends; I don't have to take work home; I get 2 weeks off for Christmas, a Fall break, a Spring break, Easter break, and various other days as well; during the school year, I get 10 days paid leave, 5 of which carry over (next year I'll have 15); I get pretty good benefits; and I really only work about 8.5 - 9 months out of the year. Pretty sweet deal, you might say. And generally, it is...but there are days....

Last year, I made the horrible mistake of letting all my students - all 650 of them - paint the same week. It was one of the biggest missteps of my entire life. And while I haven't made a mistake that huge this year, every once in a while, I'll have a moment where it all seems to just go to hell.

Last week was that moment. Now the whole week was bad, but the day that really, really set me off was Wednesday. I have my two "challenging" classes that day: 5D and KD. 5D started out unusually well, which should have made me raise an eyebrow, but I thought, "Maybe these kids have really reached a turning point."

Oh, Queen. You really are a fool.

Within the last 10 minutes of class these kids started acting like they were all retarded. Now, normally, it wouldn't be so bad. Okay, so you have a class of 5th graders who have a bad day and think for some reason that it's permissible to hang over your seat like you have no muscle control or jump out of your seat and start yelling at the girl across the class who blinked at you wrong or stick your own pencil up your nose or roll your eyes at the teacher. No big deal, right? It happens. They're children.

But these aren't just your ordinary children, oh no! They're gifted children who attend our Vanguard school on the 3rd floor.

About 5 minutes into their remarkable behavior, I really, really lose it. My mouth starts to move and it is like a freight train! Fortunately, I can't remember all the things I said/yelled, but I do remember using words like pathetic, sad excuse for, disappointed, will no longer be having fun in art, disgusting, rude awakening, and the like. They kept their mouths shut on the way out, probably because they were scared I was gonna pull out a shiv.

Then, 4th grade rolls around. Ay Carumba! Little Jeremy is scheduled to return to school today from the alternative school he had been attending for a couple of months. The kid's crazy and so's his daddy. Jeremy comes into my classroom and sits down well enough, but suddenly leaves class without permission. I go find him in the hallway and he refuses to come in. Finally, I convince him to come back inside, but on his way back in, he tries to knock a bunch of art off the art rack. I say, "Salvador, escort Jeremy to the office."

"I'm not goin'," Jeremy replies.

"You'll go know, or I'll send for the Assistant Principal to come and get you and that won't be pretty." He then complies. 2 seconds later, Salvador comes running back in:

"Miss Queen, Jeremy won't stop running around in circles outside!! I tried to catch him, but I couldn't!"

I step outside. "Jeremy, come in right now. Salvador will go get the Principal to come get you." With this, Jeremy decides to slowly walk to the office.

After class, I go to the office to write the referral and Jeremy is, of course, acting crazy, talkin' back to the secretary, so I say, "Jeremy this is no way to start your first day back. I know you know better!"

Jeremy mumbles with a scowl on his face, "Shut up with your big bushy head!"

(Now, my hair is pretty big, but Jeremy shouldn't have gone there.) I said, "Say that again to my face, Jeremy."

"I ain't scared of you!!!"

Well, this got me all kinds of bent out of shape, so before I knocked that little brat upside the head, I thought that I would instead go eat my lunch and write the referral away from the devil-child who was pushing all my buttons. I turn to leave and Jeremy gets up and blocks the doorway. About this time, the Assistant Principal walks up and nearly loses it when she sees Jeremy, freshly out of alternative school, acting as though his two months in kiddie lock-down taught him nothing. He got suspended for 3 days.

Then, after lunch there was KD - the Kindergarten class from hell. Hsunta had a breakdown and tried to beat up Ruby who wouldn't stop crossing her eyes at Hsunta. Jeremiah also had a breakdown and refused to come out of the corner. Arthur was crying and so was Annienell, both apparently for no reason. Reynoldo decided that it would be funny if he just yelled out, "No!" every time I asked him to do something. And Ernest was, as always, incredibly earnest. There was one point in this class where I thought they would actually take me over, and honestly, defeat was nearer than I would like to admit, but somehow I triumphed and we were able to paint some post-modernist masterpieces.

After school, at rehearsal for our end-of-the-year play, I left the auditorium to run to the office. When I came back, a fellow teacher told me that the kids were acting all kinds of crazy. So, I yelled at them and told them how disappointed I was, etc. And two 5th graders started crying. One almost hyperventilated.

Now, if all that won't drive you to drinking, I don't know what will. So, this summer, when I write about how I'm lying around in my underwear, watching TV and you all are like, "Queen, I hate you with all your time off (and your big bushy head)!!!" Remember this post. Remember. My time off is not for me, it is for the children. Because if I had to spend 12 months of the year with those kids, they'd probably all have to be hospitalized...for severe bruising upside the head.