My first cry

Back to school night went well. I didn't know what to say, but the parents didn't ask any crazy questions. Next year will be better I think. I'm going to take more time and really explain the details of my curriculum. It was actually kind of nice to meet some of the parents in an informal setting and just talk to them like people. I don't know when parent conferences are coming up, but I think those will be kind of yucky since you have to tell parents what is up with their kids. Nobody likes to hear their kid is a jerk or something. Hopefully my slackers can get their acts together before parent conferences. We'll see.

Speaking of which, last Friday I had my first cry. On Wednesday, during advisory, five kids got detention. I had them come on Friday because Thursday was curriculum night and I had to prepare for it. So, on Friday, two boys showed up S and R. I wanted them to clean out the desks since I didn't feel like making an assignment for them and the room was pretty disgusting. Middle school kids are very messy and sloppy. Disgusting. Anyhow, these two boys started kind of freaking out. One boy, S, started shoving the desks and the chairs around the room, causing one chair to topple over. I asked him to clean less violently and he started yelling at me. He went back to cleaning, but still shoving desks and chairs around very violently. I told him to stop cleaning and to come and sit down and calm down. He started yelling at me saying I'm pissed off at you!

The whole time the other boy, R, is yelling at me as well and talking on his cell phone to his mom because he had gotten another day of detention for complaining. He puts me on the phone with his mom and she doesn't speak any English so she's asking me to explain what's going on and as I explain to her, her son R is yelling at me, disagreeing with everything I'm saying. So S is still yelling at me and I tell him S, you can't have detention today because you're too angry and you can't calm down. He refuses! He yells, "I'M NOT LEAVING" and I started getting really stressed at this point. R is still yelling at me trying to say S shouldn't have to leave and other things. I kept telling him to leave but nothing. I called the AP and principal's office but they weren't there since it was after school and they do crowd control. So I called another teacher's room who seems to do really well with the kids and she came. He refused to come with her, she was trying really hard to calm him down. Nothing.

So that teacher wrote me a note saying I'm sorry I couldn't help, do you want me to get Ms. Assistant Principal? I said yes thank you and assistant principal came and got S. I still had R to deal with so I worked on Spanish stuff with him and he calmed down a little bit. He hates life and school and many things, so it's not exactly fun to work with him. Assistant principal said that S wanted to talk to me, but I was still working with R so I said we'd have to do it another day. Once R left, I jut broke down. I cried a bit in the corner, until assistant principal came in to check on me and cheered me up.

I wasn't sad because S and R didn't like me, but I was so frustrated that the situation got so out of control and I couldn't figure out how to diffuse it. I want to do really well and when I screw up I get upset. It's kind of hard being at my school because all of the other teachers are totally amazing, and it's easy to feel inadequate. Whenever people would say don't take it personally, I never really knew what they were talking about. I figured they meant don't be upset because kids don't like you or don't respect you, but after this whole ordeal I think it means don't let bad days make you think you are failing as a teacher. Everyone has bad days and nobody knows what to do all the time, but that's ok. You can still be an amazing teacher who doesn't know what to do sometimes.

After the whole ordeal we had a staff party which was awesome because there was free food and booze. I showed up late and tossed back many vodka tonics and I felt so much happier. It's nice to have colleagues who are young and don't think you're inappropriate if you get a little drunk. After the party we actually went out to a bar and then I went to a burlesque show with one of the teachers. It was such a good end to a bad day. Just the thing I needed.

I've got many many things to do now. I would really like to be better about posting, but I've been so busy with work. Hopefully things will calm down soon. Does that happen? Who knows.