laughter

I know I complain a lot in my posts about bratty kids and the woes of being a junior high teacher. But truly, I am blessed. Blessed to have this job, blessed to have a place to live, clothes to wear, money to spend on things like random pedicures, movie rentals, and cheap pizza. God has placed me here for a reason, though I can't see it because I am a tiny ant in this universe. Some days it's hard for me to not to question why I am here in X, Texas, teaching this exact group of kids, this exact year. I dunno. I probably won't ever.

But I do know that sometimes God lights up my day when he let's laughter into my classroom. Usually in the form of me laughing at my kids, not with them. I crack myself up a lot. It's nice having that ability when you are the only adult you see for the majority of the day.

Like for instance, 7:50am. Standing in the hall greeting my babies as they walk through the door while simultaneously yelling at kids to take their hats off, get out of the bathroom, and pull their pants up, I look across the hall into Mrs. T's room and see two of my girls practicing their dance routine. One of their friends (a complete sweetheart who greets me every morning with a "How you doin Ms. Angry Teacher having a nice day?" all in one breath with this crazy accent) is dancing with them but obviously not in the routine with them. She is waving her arms and gyrating while the other two girls are badly dancing next to her, swaying their hips and rotating in a circle. They look absolutely ridiculous but don't know it. They think they are awesome...remember this is not even 8 in the morning. I started laughing and they saw me, I hope their feelings weren't hurt, but wow, it was definitely a sight to see.

Or my Trouble Maker # 2 acting like an old man. I am so thankful that a coworker pointed this out to me or I probably wouldn't be able to deal with the little turd. The kid sleeps in class, can't wake up, is always complaining about something, is super gripey,  and always has to pee. Just like my grandpa. Ha.

In our tutorial period, one of my kids who refuses to read his book or do homework is usually a pain in the ass, but last week he saw a spray bottle full of cleaner and paper towels at the front of the room. For some reason he started cleaning ALL the desks and chairs, the board, the cabinets, and the windows. He is this tiny little boy and he enlisted the help of the tallest, most mature boy in the classroom to help him. They were racing around the room spraying cleaner on other students' desks (while they were still seated in them) and just being plain silly. I don't know why it made me laugh so much, but I couldn't keep a huge grin off my face. Then the little cleaner asked for a tip so I gave him a penny. ha. cheap labor. mwhahaha

I know I know, these aren't that funny to you dear reader, but I work with what I got, and my students are all I have during the work week. But then, I also find the podcasts Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me and CarTalk absolutely hilarious. 

There are jokers in almost all my classes, so I am usually entertained throughout the day when I'm not busy chastising them about homework or being tardy or trying to yell over the din of 20 fourteen year olds.

besides, I have only 32.5 days till this year is over and I plan to at least enjoy most of it. Why spend my work week waiting till the weekend to have fun when I could just decide to be happy and joyful at every moment?

-tha angry teacher

Never Have I Ever: 8th Grade Edition

This week, after tedious state testing (THANKS IGNORANT POLICY MAKERS) my group of testing kids had to spend the rest of the day with me on Tuesday and Wednesday. After cards, Scrabble (surprisingly popular among 14 year old ESL boys), and facing the next two hours cell phone and mp3 playerless, a group of the kids decided to play Never Have I Ever.

For all you oldies out there, Never Have I Ever is actually a drinking game in which you hold up five fingers and the group goes around the [beer soaked]table starting sentences off with "Never have I ever..." The point is to find out as much embarrassing stuff about your friends as possible.  If you have done that thing, then you put down one of your fingers and take a chug. The first person with all five fingers down, meaning that they have done at least 5 of the activities the other people have said that they have never participated in, has to chug an entire drink.

Of course my students wanted to play so that they looked the most bad ass and whoever wins was the first person with all 10 fingers down (they used both hands the lil daredevils)

It was highly amusing at first because the "cool" kids kicked out the "goody-goody" kids into their own circle. Then the whispering began. I pretended to read The Knife of Never Letting Go by Ness but kept my ears trained in the two circles' direction.

Started off innocently enough

"Never have I ever been out of Texas."

"Never have I ever cheated on a test."

"Never have I ever drank a sip of alcohol."

woah, wait, things are getting progressively raunchier

"Never have I ever been drunk."

"Never have I ever smoked [pot]."

"Never have I ever had a fantasy about Jessi."

ooo, yuck vomit gag

I never want to imagine one of my students jacking off. Please stab my eyes out.


 Only FORTY more school days!


have a peaceful weekend,
-thaangryteacher

Guide to Teenage Slang

Guide to Teenage Slang:

Cool is out. Clean is in.

Except you pronounce it [CLANG] not [CLEAN].

Example: Dude your “Sexy and I know It” shirt is clean[CLANG].

That bacon maple doughnut is clean[CLANG]!

Beast.

Same use as “Clean”. An adjective that describes something or someone who is awesome.

Example: I’m a beast!

Last night we watched Paranormal Activity and it was beast yo!

Wey.

This is Spanish for dude, man, brother.

Often used in conjunction with a cuss word.

Example: Pinch* wey! Get outta my way!

Nasty.

An adjective to describe something completely utterly disgusting. Also references sex.

Example: This homework is nasty!

They did the nasty last night!

Friday!!!

For some reason, this week has been really short feeling and flew by. Even though I've been sick with a cold/flu that morphed into the beginnings of bronchitis, this week hasn't been terrible. But maybe it's because of the drama of last week with the kids-I'll explain in a minute-and run down with this sickness, I am SO happy today is Friday. I can't even imagine having to come to work one more day this week.

About the sexual harrassment last week. 13 year old boys were whistling at me when I walked down the hall. It wasn't the first time, it happened twice before.
If you are a woman who's been whistled at on the street or in the mall or Wal-Mart, you know the feeling of shame and disgust that accompanies the catcall. There's absolutely no compliment in catcalling or whistling at a strange woman. OK if you are in a relationship with her and it is between the two of you-like she is ready for a date with you and she looks amazing, whatever, you can whistle at her. But NOT a stranger walking by.

Therefore, being whistled at by pubescent boys while at work while I'm wearing dumpy clothing was too much. I haven't been that angry in awhile, so that's why I cried. I cry when I'm pissed, usually not when I'm sad. In addition to being pissed, I was also upset because I know that I can't control what the boys do. I can send them to ISS or even suspend them for harrassment, but it doesn't change their behaviors.

I stopped wearing makeup for the week because I'm suddenly hyper-aware of my appearence and I'm afraid that I'm the one who is at fault for looking too cute while at school.

I now cannot walk into the ISS room for fear that comments will be made by the boys in there.

I now peak around the corner of the hallway to make sure there are no boys at the end of the hall waiting to get themselves in trouble.

It pisses me off that their actions have affected me so much and that I have to watch my back constantly.

So yep, I am absolutely positively excited that tomorrow is Saturday. I do have to run 6.5 miles in my half marathon training plan and I am nervous...wish me luck!

-tha angry teacher

sexual harassment in the workplace

This is what I am experiencing this week. Except that it is coming from 13 year and 14 year old boys which means...

a) this is disgusting, ack ack ack yuck yuck yuck
b) I am emotionally unstable right now. I mean, I cried this morning over this...and I don't cry often. I think the last time I cried...I seriously can't remember.
c) a person can be totally surprised at juveniles' behavior even after working with them for 1.5 years. It is still a shock to me. You would think by now I wouldn't even bat an eyelash.
d)I am considering wearing a head to toe cloak to school the rest of the year. Or go shopping at Goodwill and buy the ugliest dresses and pants I can find.


-thaangryteacher

tardy reasons.

my favorite might just be "hair"

Things I’ve Learned To Deal With

1.      Students, with 7 years of education under their belts, still don’t know the difference between “their”, “they’re” and, “there”. They also don’t know what “don’t” stands for.

2.      Constantly being outsmarted by 13 year olds. Yesterday I found out that 3 of my girls have been skipping my UIL class for the past two months. I felt about as smart as an earthworm knowing that children out maneuvered me for so long.

3.      Kids don’t do their homework. Never. Oh yeah, there are those 2 or 3 that have it everyday, but the majority “are too busy” watching TV and eating supper. Because eating dinner usually takes 5 hours.

4.      Laziness.

5.      Tardies. These used to not bother me at all, but this year I have a first period class and I have 4 students who are consistently tardy. It is annoying. They don’t usually disrupt anyone, it is the principle of the matter though.

Sorry I haven't blogged in a month. I have to post entries from work because my home internet is SO SLOW that it can't run blogger. How sad.

I had a great break, and guess what? I'm running a half marathon in May! So excited!

-thaangryteacher

where've you been?

I've been busy..ish
Mostly I haven't blogged in 15 days because the internet at my house is so slow that it won't upload the blogger site! So I have to blog from other places, like work...;)

Lately I've turned into a mean teacher. Like, making-kids-cry-mean-teacher. The first time it happened, about 2 weeks ago, omg that sounds so awful to say "first" time and it is, it was unintentional, and the boy took a flippant comment from me and turned it around to where I was insulting his family. It didn't help that he is having family problems. I apologized to the best that I could knowing that I had done wrong but not intentionally.

But yesterday, oh yesterday, I snapped at a girl for talking during a debate. The reason I was so mean to her was because during her debate, she barely said anything because she is extremely shy.

This was the comment I made to her: "Look Sally, you can't talk because you didn't talk during your turn, so you definitely don't get to talk now!"
Imagine that half-yelled in your face....it was bad. Technically she didn't cry, but omg I felt(and rightly so) like a complete bitch for saying that to her. I mean, I am a shy person myself!!In front of a class, I can talk all day, but around a group of peers, I barely make a peep.

So today I am going to beg her forgiveness and I pray pray pray she doesn't hate me all year.

No justification at all.

Right after that happened, I was walking to the restroom when a lovely group of 7 or 8 boys saw me and when I walked back down my hall (so my ass was towards them), they whistled. OH BOY. I was pissed. Seriously?Seriously? 13 year old children whistling at a grown woman?
I wasn't going to say anything until they whistled about 5 times (and the hall is looong, so I was a good 50 yards from them) and I turned around and marched all the way down that hall (I even heard a panicked whisper, "oh she's turning around!") and gave those fools a piece of my mind about treating ladies correctly and harassment. oh, sometimes, it's OK to be mean. Like then, well, they needed to be yelled at. That was stress relief!

tomorrow, book suggestions

-thaangryteacher

I've got a problem...three actually

I haven’t written in a week + because well, I don’t know, but I’m going to make up for it by posting every day this week! What-what??

 Like most teachers, I have a few problem children. And like most teachers, they are in the same class period together. That makes for a long 55 minutes.

But, compared to last year, I still consider myself blessed with my students. Even those three boys have something I like about them, even if I dislike most of their antics. I have the feeling that outside of the classroom, they wouldn’t be completely awful teenagers to be around.

The main problem is that none of the Trio like to work. They sit, they talk, they eat candy, they stare at the ceiling, they giggle across the room at each other, they do ANYTHING they can to not work in class. I’m not offended because I know this happens in other teacher’s rooms as well with them. The members of the Trio are prone to ISS(in school suspension), going to the principal’s office, or being yelled at by teachers.

It’s actually sort of amusing to see how thirteen year old boys can get under grown women and mens’ skins. Sorta. Like when it’s not my classroom that they are being brats in.

I didn’t mention, but these boys aren’t really even friends. They don’t hang out together or seem to be anything other than acquaintances outside the classroom. But man, when you get them together in a 40 sq foot area, hell breaks loose.

I’m more worried about them than I am angry. I’m frustrated that they just don’t give a shit about anything. When I pulled Troublemaker # 1 into the hall yesterday to ask him why he wasn’t working, the only response I received was: “Meh” “grunt” *shoulder shrug* *lip smack* 

What is going to happen to these boys if they can’t find life interesting or open up with what they are struggling with? I’m super concerned about them, and it feels like there’s nothing I can do.

-tha angry teacher

"Facebook"

I love my little darlings, especially when they do things like this.

 <---- I love that they even added a "Chat" log...how cute

Thoreau Thursday # 6

"The evil that men do lives after them."
-Henry David Thoreau

Every Thursday I give my kids a journal entry in which they have to respond to a quote by Thoreau. Mostly they are baffled (poor illiterate souls, God bless 'em) but today they had some good ideas to respnd with.

For instance, most kdis agreed but a few disagreed and here's why: If you tell a lie it won't affect people who live after you. If you smoke a cigarette once (as I'm typing this, two boys are going to jail for smoking pot in the bleachers today...how cliche) nothing will happen to other people because of it.

One of  the "agree" kids said that "people don't often realize what they say affects others so much"

Words of wisdom if I've ever heard any.

-tha angry teacher