Truly I haven’t really decided if I’m going to break down some of my experiences in great detail or tell you all some of the horror stories I experienced during my career. One thing about parents is they may not hold their own kids accountable for the egregious things they do; but they’ll absolutely crucify the teacher. So in today’s post I think I’ll just do a general summary of some of the fun things I experienced during my time teaching public school. I think it’s important before I get into all the wild details that I remind you of the fact that I loved my job. I loved the students regardless of the things they did. I just needed to take the time to focus on my own family and ultimately had to make a hard decision to leave the profession. None of these experiences I’m about to write about are the reasons I quit. As a reminder, I worked in low socioeconomic areas with students that were experiencing homelessness, mental health issues, trauma, gang affiliation and some had arrest records already a mile long. Keep that in mind while you read.
Year 1: In all honesty my first year teaching feels like a fever dream. I was at a Title I middle school teaching seventh grade English Language Arts. For those of you that don’t know what Title I is, these are schools that are in low economic areas where a majority (if not all) of the students are on free and reduced lunch. They receive funding for school supplies and other aid. I was hired after the first quarter of the school year so my classes had substitute teachers for the first nine weeks… and it showed. The reason they had substitute teachers is because the teacher initially hired to teach the class was an alcoholic that couldn’t be bothered to show up to work. It took them more than 60 days to officially fire him because you can’t get fired for being a drunk. Hence, the subs. If anyone reading this is a substitute teacher, you know what sub days typically consist of. So imagine almost 60 consecutive days of no real rigidity, no routine, and if I’m being honest no real rules and expectations. That’s what I came into. I was so excited and green and smiley and those kids zeroed in on me like I was a target. Think Hillary Swank in Freedom Writers but not nearly as inspiring. It was a long year, and it was my only year at this particular school. I separated fights in my classroom, confiscated scissors from a student who was chasing another student with them while his Dad yelled, “Get him ___!”, and witnessed a student pretend to shoot my entire class (including me) with an imaginary machine gun. This same student jumped on the back of our assistant principal and attacked her and his mother still continued to blame us for his outbursts. I’m not sure where that student is these days but I really hope he turned it around for the better.
Years 2-5: These four years were spent at a different Title I middle school. I had some of my all time favorite students during this time. Especially my fifth year, I’d say 85% of those kids are going places in life and I can’t wait to see what they make of themselves. Anyways let’s get back on track, my first year here I got prank called from the Dean’s office on my desk phone, I answered and it was a student telling me how ugly I was… rude within the same class period I had a trash can (one of the large plastic gray ones) thrown into my classroom while my students were up and moving around. My second year I tried separating a fight between two giant eighth grade boys and got tossed around like a rag doll. This is also the time that COVID happened. The shut down affected all of my students’ differently and it was really sad not being able to say good-bye to a lot of my eighth graders. The entire shift to a digital platform was a complete disaster; students had to check in with their advisory teachers in order to get attendance and news flash: they didn’t check in. I spent half the day posting assignments that I knew students either wouldn’t do or would half ass and the other half of the day tracking students down so I could give them the correct attendance. My third and fourth years at this school were relatively mellow. There were still fights, including a student trying to get tough with a 22 year old female teacher, but for the most part these were probably the calmest years in my career which is to say not calm but not chaotic.
Years 6 & 7: I moved to a new school and honestly I don’t regret it because I think everything happens for a reason and I ended up leveling up my career for sure but I did immediately miss the smaller population from my previous school. These two years were by far the scariest in my career. We had gang affiliated 12 year olds that brought weapons on campus, code yellows out the wazoo and during all of this, a suicide. The first year I was there I was baffled at the audacity of some of these students. One kid threw up “4’s” in my face while his friends laughed. On another occasion two students tried to fight in my classroom. That first year was when we had two sixth graders get suspended for bring literal guns on campus. The guns were brought on campus during a weekend and the students posted pictures on their social media with them. These students weren’t even expelled, they got to come back the following year. Now, year two was when I really got a taste of just how scary it was. I was out of the classroom for the most part at this point. I was an instructional coach and interim dean so I dealt with the behaviors much more on a day to day basis. I spent time chasing eloping students around the campus, separating fights, and calling home for suspensions. It was all very negative for my psyche, especially because I hold rapport at such a high value. Having to balance rapport and discipline at this level was very difficult for me. We had a literal brawl once between two groups of girl friends, I think it ended up totaling like 12-14 girls involved in the fight, I was busy holding one of those girls back for the entire ordeal. There were at least seven staff members in the middle of that fight and several of them got hurt. I separated another girl fight that became dangerous when about a hundred other students surrounded the fight, one of these students was even caught on camera trying to push me into the fight. We had rival gangs that typically, but not always, left their beef off campus, however it still ended up impeding the day to day flow that should be occurring in school.
Alright, I think that pretty much sums up my “teacher highlights”. I could go into detail about any of those stories. I could get on my soapbox about how it is not the children’s fault; that they are just doing what they know, what they’ve learned from home. But I won’t. I don’t tell all of these stories purely for entertainment and shock value, I tell them so that you understand my experience. So that when you read my highly positive posts about how to engage students and build relationships with them you don’t assume I’m some naïve teacher that doesn’t have real experience. If I can stay positive through all of that? You can too my friends. Till next time.
The Bad Teacher 