Would you like to know how to make a regular kindly, fun-loving teacher turn into your favorite head-spinning horror flick character?
It's simple really, all you need is the following equation:
-One classroom full of roughly thirty, 12-13 year-old, hormone-filled students
-Add candy
-Make it a holiday based solely on the acquisition of more candy, other sugar-filled sweets and romance.
-Add cards, stuffed animals and balloons arriving in your classroom all day.
-Make it the day AFTER a dance.
-Make it Friday; the 13th.
-Make it the last day of school before a week-long vacation.
With these ingredients, you have yourself a recipe for complete teacher melt-down:
After spending most of the day trying in vain to still TEACH them SOMETHING, you finally acquiesce the last 30 minutes of the day and say "to heck with it!"
You let the students open their gifts and eat their treats, as long as they SIT IN A CHAIR. You really don't care which chair, as long as they are sitting.
This works for the first 10-15 minutes, but then you notice some kids are starting to toss chips at one another like monkeys and now two of the male students in your class are shoving full fist loads of sweet hearts in their mouths at once (apparently they are having a contest to see who can fit as many in their mouths as possible.)
You sternly tell them to go spit it all out, and they, on the way to the trash can, inadvertently knock over a cup full of orange soda, which you NEVER allow in your room, but another teacher HAS allowed them to have, so you are trying to go with the flow and not be a complete and total hard ass.
Now there is sticky orange soda spill on the floor, and you notice, while you demand the spill be wiped, that there are chips crumbs ground into the carpet, at which point you become your mother and declare:
"OKAY, THAT IS IT! everybody STOP what you are doing and start CLEANING UP!!!" You then stomp around the room like a wild maniac, pointing out all the spills, ground food particles and candy wrappers on the floor, demanding the children clean them up immediately.
Other students who were sitting and talking quietly are looking at you like you've lost your mind; some are laughing, some are rolling their eyes, and comments are being made about how the fun is now all ruined.
You then say, "Your RIGHT, the fun IS being ruined by people who cannot handle the privilege of food in the room! This is precisely WHY I don't let you have parties! "
Ahhh yes. You can see the eyes rolling now. I'm rolling my eyes myself.
But it was said today, and there is no taking it back now. The children were being wild sugar-loaded monkeys and I could see things were only headed to utter disaster, and so I, the big bad teacher, turned into Attila the Hun (or Dr. Kill Joy) and I ruined their good time.
Bring on the vacation.
Like a waterfall in slow motion, Part One
3 years ago
