A side note before I begin: Right now I'm sitting in my soft teacher chair watching my class silently take a quiz, and I'm typing these words between glances at their sweet, studious faces. Second side note: I'm not by any means trying to flaunt my ability to manage a classroom, as the reality is that I kinda can't. It's just that these students are my best damn group of kids, and as they are my first class of the day, I consider this calm the blissful tranquility before the shit-storm that will inevitably follow.
Okay, now that you know where I'm sitting, I want to reveal some of the conversations I've had with other teachers. You see, it's a funny thing to be a teacher, and here's why: When I was a student I viewed teachers as non-humans; in middle school, I never once considered that teachers could string together a barrage of profanities that would break my naive heart, or that they viewed particular students with a genuine disdain, or that they had sex.
But I couldn't have been more wrong. Teachers do dislike some students, and they do cuss, and they do have sex, and sometimes all at once...
But I'm getting off topic. The point is that I've been involved in conversations during my short time as a teacher that would flip a middle school student's world upside down, so much so that I sometimes feel wary of even discussing these topics on school grounds. So much so that I worry about keeping my job after publishing these scandalous accounts of behind-closed-doors teacher-speak. So much so that I might just delete this and start over with a cleaner, less risky topic.
Nah, I'll go for it. Here are the things I've heard that no student should overhear. In no way do these snippets necessarily pertain to my current place of work. They may have come during my Teach for America training, where I met hundreds of budding teachers from different regions of the U.S. So basically I'm hoping that disclosure provides me some sort of insurance for publishing the following:
Teacher-Speak
1. That last class was shittier than diarrhea.
2. If she so much as sneezes wrong, I'll come down so hard on her ****. (Hint, it rhymes with Dominic, and a person by that name likely has one.)
3. Kid needs a good slappin'. Coupla whacks and I'd get him to come 'round.
4. She's so darn smart. Why is she with that boy? He'll just bring her down. She needs a new boyfriend. And he better use condoms.
5. I hate my job. Sometimes when I'm driving over the _______ bridge, I picture myself cranking the wheel to the right and lettin' her fly.
6. Sometimes, when I run out of things to do, I'll just demand that they sit silently for two minutes, knowing full well that they won't be able to do it. So we'll just waste the rest of class working on that.
7. They go buck wild on Thursdays. Buck-****ing wild.
8. He was hanging on the basketball hoop? And you told him to get down? And instead he fell and hurt himself?
Good.
9. Sometimes, in the middle of class, I daydream about quitting. But then I remember I'm getting paid about thirty bucks per period, so I change my mind. But then I proceed to remember that that's, like, only one dollar a student, so I go back to daydreaming about quitting.
10. I've thought about showing that video to them, but I think they'd like it too much.
11. **** 'em. (See also **** it, **** this, **** me, and ****.)
12. When that last bell rings, and the students leave my room, I get this indescribable high. It's like an orgasm, only better, knowing they'll be out of my life for at least twelve hours. And Fridays? Like ecstasy.
13. I see other people on the street, and I want to be them. And I'm talking about unhappy looking ****ing people.
14. I'm turning twenty-three. Six months ago I was studying Journalism. I never wanted to teach.
(Oops, those are things I've said.)
15. I heard this one from a teacher-friend. She was in her classroom with three other students when Phillip, another teacher, popped his head in the doorway. The students were sitting in the back of the room, entirely concealed from the visitor by some tall cabinets. Thus Phillip, thinking he was alone with my teacher-friend, thought it safe to tell her how he was feeling:
They’re so fucking annoying on Fridays!
So in this situation, three students actually did overhear teacher-speak, and my friend described their faces in the aftermath as stone-like, stunned into silence and paralyzed with petrification.
They're probably scarred for life, as I would have been had I overheard something from this list in my youth. But teachers are just normal people, who need to vulgarly complain about their job every now and then. But unlike with other jobs, teachers have the added pressure of the potential for impressionable minds eavesdropping on a conversation that is thought to be private, and this is frightening, though understandably not enough to alter basic human nature (that is, to speak uncensored). So keep on keepin' on, all you teacher-speakers, just do so sneakily and preferably with me around because I'm really enjoying listening and laughing, and writing about it later.
Okay, now that you know where I'm sitting, I want to reveal some of the conversations I've had with other teachers. You see, it's a funny thing to be a teacher, and here's why: When I was a student I viewed teachers as non-humans; in middle school, I never once considered that teachers could string together a barrage of profanities that would break my naive heart, or that they viewed particular students with a genuine disdain, or that they had sex.
But I couldn't have been more wrong. Teachers do dislike some students, and they do cuss, and they do have sex, and sometimes all at once...
But I'm getting off topic. The point is that I've been involved in conversations during my short time as a teacher that would flip a middle school student's world upside down, so much so that I sometimes feel wary of even discussing these topics on school grounds. So much so that I worry about keeping my job after publishing these scandalous accounts of behind-closed-doors teacher-speak. So much so that I might just delete this and start over with a cleaner, less risky topic.
Nah, I'll go for it. Here are the things I've heard that no student should overhear. In no way do these snippets necessarily pertain to my current place of work. They may have come during my Teach for America training, where I met hundreds of budding teachers from different regions of the U.S. So basically I'm hoping that disclosure provides me some sort of insurance for publishing the following:
Teacher-Speak
1. That last class was shittier than diarrhea.
2. If she so much as sneezes wrong, I'll come down so hard on her ****. (Hint, it rhymes with Dominic, and a person by that name likely has one.)
3. Kid needs a good slappin'. Coupla whacks and I'd get him to come 'round.
4. She's so darn smart. Why is she with that boy? He'll just bring her down. She needs a new boyfriend. And he better use condoms.
5. I hate my job. Sometimes when I'm driving over the _______ bridge, I picture myself cranking the wheel to the right and lettin' her fly.
6. Sometimes, when I run out of things to do, I'll just demand that they sit silently for two minutes, knowing full well that they won't be able to do it. So we'll just waste the rest of class working on that.
7. They go buck wild on Thursdays. Buck-****ing wild.
8. He was hanging on the basketball hoop? And you told him to get down? And instead he fell and hurt himself?
Good.
9. Sometimes, in the middle of class, I daydream about quitting. But then I remember I'm getting paid about thirty bucks per period, so I change my mind. But then I proceed to remember that that's, like, only one dollar a student, so I go back to daydreaming about quitting.
10. I've thought about showing that video to them, but I think they'd like it too much.
11. **** 'em. (See also **** it, **** this, **** me, and ****.)
12. When that last bell rings, and the students leave my room, I get this indescribable high. It's like an orgasm, only better, knowing they'll be out of my life for at least twelve hours. And Fridays? Like ecstasy.
13. I see other people on the street, and I want to be them. And I'm talking about unhappy looking ****ing people.
14. I'm turning twenty-three. Six months ago I was studying Journalism. I never wanted to teach.
(Oops, those are things I've said.)
15. I heard this one from a teacher-friend. She was in her classroom with three other students when Phillip, another teacher, popped his head in the doorway. The students were sitting in the back of the room, entirely concealed from the visitor by some tall cabinets. Thus Phillip, thinking he was alone with my teacher-friend, thought it safe to tell her how he was feeling:
They’re so fucking annoying on Fridays!
So in this situation, three students actually did overhear teacher-speak, and my friend described their faces in the aftermath as stone-like, stunned into silence and paralyzed with petrification.
They're probably scarred for life, as I would have been had I overheard something from this list in my youth. But teachers are just normal people, who need to vulgarly complain about their job every now and then. But unlike with other jobs, teachers have the added pressure of the potential for impressionable minds eavesdropping on a conversation that is thought to be private, and this is frightening, though understandably not enough to alter basic human nature (that is, to speak uncensored). So keep on keepin' on, all you teacher-speakers, just do so sneakily and preferably with me around because I'm really enjoying listening and laughing, and writing about it later.