I woke up this morning in tears because it was Monday morning, and that means off to school. Off to school can mean so much to so many people. Off to school, however, brings me to tears. I couldn’t stop thinking about Friday afternoon, and the repercussions it would have on today. My second thought was then,” I hope ‘Mr. obnoxious’ or ‘Mr. bad attitude’ is absent today”. This may sound awful, but it is so true. My school operates on an ‘A Day’- ‘B Day’ schedule. Every Monday it’s the same group of kids, with the same type of greetings. So as soon as I woke up, I knew what was to come. I knew that when second period arrived they would be screaming explitives about fu*king each others’ mothers. And as soon as fifth period came into my room they would throw chairs and call me a fu*king b*tch for asking them to clean up the mess they just made. The grand finale would then be fifth period threatening me, and asking me to hold my hands up so they could punch me in the stomach. This would be an average day in my work week. But today was the day. Today was the day where I couldn’t take it any longer and just started to sob. I called my vice principal and explained the situation. I needed a mental health day. How can this be? How can you take a mental health day on a Monday? The week hasn’t even started yet! But all weekend long I kept playing back the scenario over and over again. Fourth period had gotten the best of me. At least that is what I’m thinking now. ” Kate wake up! They’re winning! You’re not even going to be there today! They’ve got you right where they want you!”. Now this may be my screwed up ego and pride, but as soon as I hung up the phone to announce my mental health day this is exactly what was playing through my head.
Had fourth period gotten the best of me? It was an average day for my fourth period class until I asked them to clean up. As usual, to show my class that it is a team effort, I started to clean myself. But I lost it as soon as a student came up to me patronizing and threatening me. ” You clean those dishes woman!”, he exclaimed. As a woman I could not and would not stand for that. I dropped what I was doing and told the class they were to clean their own mess that day. Anything and everything that they took out or spilled paint on they were to clean. This seems pretty basic, and does not seem like a punishment to most kids, but for my kids it is torcher. They refused. Instead of cleaning they: horseplayed, sang, beat on tables, yelled, and said they weren’t cleaning sh*t. When the bell rang they quickly ran for the door. I knew that this was to come as soon as they refused to clean the room. So I stood in front of the door. They threatened to hit me, push me, and pick me up and move me. I calmly said that they still needed to clean their mess to leave the room. The teenage boys were now enraged. They threw chairs, cursed me and screamed that, ” This is the teacher’s job. This is the janitor’s job. It is not MY job”. After throwing their tantrums, they cleaned their mess. It was not a quiet cleaning session however. They complained and I had gotten cursed out several times before the day had ended.
When the final bell rang to signal the end of they day, I dragged myself into the office. I explained to administration why I had referral forms, and retrieved several parents’ phone numbers. However, when I go back to school tomorrow I know nothing will have been done.
As I hold my head up to write this blog, I feel like a nail being hammered into the ground. The rest of today it may look like I’m lying around the house avoiding going to work. In actuality I know I will replay Friday over and over again until I figure out what I will do tomorrow. I’m putting in a pretty personal blog today because I wanted to ask, how far is too far? What would you change jobs over? And yes, I said change jobs. How far is too far?
