Made…. It ….. through… another……. Tuesday…..(cough) Staggers through door, reaching for a chair but misses and lands in a shower of dust on the floor. His eyes are open…. Then…. Nothing.
Tuesdays are my ‘I quit’ days. These start innocently enough with my Year Sevens. This morning I was a tad late and they were already in tearing up the place. There were a couple of girls running around the room, another couple were up at the whiteboard trying to write with a bloodied finger (I think) and then a bunch of guys were fighting over the furniture. It was chaos. I yelled at them like a drill sergeant and threw them all out of the room. Except the throwing was relatively short lived because yet another bunch of guys thought it would be hilarious to stop everyone from leaving the room. So, instead of stopping the mass continued to move forward, creating a tangle of humanity that continued to mount up around the door until the little one’s bones began to snap and the screaming began. This is the point at which I want to use expletives – to really let rip and say awful, awful things about people’s mothers and the holes in their donkeys.
This was the first minute and a half of class. I turned to find the deputy principal standing there. This is where you want to point out to her that, “actually this is part of my lesson plan, it’s a community project which allows for individual expression as part of…..
(I reassess)
….Actually, this is the result of a crap classroom which is too narrow and entirely made of metal which I suspect has magnetic properties because the TV ends up with purple in one corner and is almost unwatchable and the whole shebang sounds a lot louder than it actually is, the room, not the TV, and it makes me sound like a crap teacher. Loud classes = useless teacher. I’m not complaining, because I know in some countries these kids would be employed as child soldiers…
3 minutes of class have gone by as I stare at the Deputy as her lips move in slow motion. She wants me to grab a particular student out of the mash of humanity building up behind me.
I get everyone in and they’re seated. Then I threaten to kill them. Like, dead. Someone puts up their hand and asks why the Palestinians and the Israelis can’t just be friends. I explain. The lesson is a success.
Next lesson. Year Eights. Same again, but this time with attitude. We talk about communication skills. I do this particular lesson a total of three times, three different classes. Each class progressively worse as I get more and more worn out.
I stop for lunch then address a Year Nine assembly about why calling each others hoes and other terms of address isn’t really great. I get to say crap and hoe. I finish the day with my last group of eights and we talk about the most horrific accidents we’ve witnessed.
Then we wash the rest of the day away with a staff meeting where the Principal announces that as part of the end of year staff event we will go Lawn Bowling. Lawn …. Bowling. An alarming number of staff turn to see my reaction. I mime blowing my brains out.
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