Fire Drill

I've written before about my terror class, yes? The class that movies could be made about? My sixth grade monsters?

I teach twenty-one classes. Guess which one I was in this week when we had a fire drill? Just guess. What are the chances? If you answered 1 in 21, you would be correct. I had a less than 5% chance that the fire drill would happen during my class from hell. You know, when you have to get your kids in order and down from the third floor quickly and safely and out the door two by two, marching right past the principal? Yeah, that kind of fire drill. It was super.

Let me take it back.

Immediately before the class began, I spoke with the "form teacher" (a homeroom teacher of sorts) about the misbehavior of her class. I asked her to come in and speak to the students- I finally caved in and realized that I needed some backup. Friends, I am not joking when I tell you that she literally ran from the room about 2 minutes later with her hands over her ears and tears pouring from her eyes. Like a scene from a movie, she came in to start yelling at the students for me when a little loaf of bread came whizzing across the room and smacked her right in the face. Her head snapped backward and then she got really upset (who wouldn't?) but before she could even react, there was bread flying at her from all over the room. Seriously, I think she got smacked by about 12 loaves of bread and many many screams before she covered her ears, started crying, and ran. I was huddled in a corner behind the desk, vaguely traumatized and shaking with laughter. Hmm... okay. Fire drill.

This all strangely made me feel better- I'm kind of off the hook for the behavior of this class, as it were. We got back inside after the fire drill (what a clusterf**k that was) and I just didn't even attempt to teach. I wrote the assignment on the board, EXACTLY what I would have said if they had been able to hear over the sounds of death coming from their own mouths, and sat in the chair. It is terrible to say, but I have completely given up with this class. I'll still work with individual students, sure. But the odds are stacked against me here... and it isn't worth my sanity.

This is the part of the movie where I creep home and have a class of wine and sappy music plays as I collapse on the couch and decide that I will OVERCOME this challenge... so you think. But this movie has a surprise ending. I'll just keep working on the other 600 students in the 20 classes I teach.