Anatomy of a Monday

In a year or two when I am pursuing another avenue in my life, I will never complain about Mondays. Being a teacher prepares you to expect the unexpected and plan ahead in your mind to know how you will react. Some days, however, are beyond anticipation. Given, not everything happens specifically to me on these crazy days, but they always prompt me to ask myself, "Where am I?"

The tricky thing is that these days totally sneak up on you. 1st period will go all according to plan, and then little by little things fall apart. Today in 2nd period we had a lockdown - not too odd of an occurrence, but it was the first domino in a long line. The lockdown was through the end of the period, so the transition from one class to the next was pretty chaotic. Two of my students never did settle down and got sent to the office for yelling obscenities at each other. Lunch is always crazy, with the occasional condom on the doorknob like today, and 5th period always needs some cool down time at the beginning of the period. But this is my best freshman class, and I can't believe how quickly these kids can go from happy to practically foaming at the lips. Tempers are so short at this school, and almost always, it is because of a joke taken the wrong way. In the same period I had to call a site supervisor to confiscate a phone from a girl that would not hand it over, and then the supervisor proceeded to undermine me and make a fool out of himself in front of the class just because he heard students giggling on his way out. I believe it is totally unnecessary for a grown man to call a class-full of 15 year-olds "sissies." Even after that I had to deal with one of my students that doesn't understand the disrespect that goes along with calling someone a "faggot." By this time in the day I could have accumulated quite the list of name-calling. Even so, this does not compare to the class across the hall, whose door flung open in the middle of 5th period to have a student sprint down the hall away from a furious teacher. I found out later that he was drinking alcohol in class from a Coke bottle. In the end, as per our no-tolerance policy, an ambulance was called, and he had to get on the gurney and take a ride to the hospital to teach him a lesson. Then in 6th period, one of my students stole a consequence referral sheet from my desk and under "reason for sending the student to the office:" she wrote "for being gay" and passed it as a note to another student. And then on top of that, while I was laying on desks in another teacher's classroom seeking therapy, I could hear a fight breaking out in the commons area. At this point in the day, with those kinds of student actions, I usually take a step back in my mind and ask myself, "What am I doing with my life?"

I wish I could say that was it, but then we had to start soccer practice late because the lights weren't turned on, which translates to less sleep for me, and when I finally got home, I checked my email to see this article that my roommate sent me: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/31/BA4U1HGRJC.DTL This school is literally next door to our apartment! Instead of feeling unsafe, my instant reaction is that it just figures. Mondays are killer.