7:45am Bathroom Duty- 15 minutes of running boys out of the bathroom as all they want to do is hang out, eat breakfast (Gross) and vape.
7:55am- Bell Rings- Run to my door to greet the students and watch them as they enter the room and start to gather. Bam, a chair hits the floor, “Sorry Coach”. Two other boys are basically wrestling each other “stop”, Sorry Coach.
8:00am Class Starts- Trying to do attendance and here comes three kids without a tardy between 2-5 minutes late. Mark them as Tardy and move on. One says, Sorry my mom got me here late.
8:05-9:30am- 1st block class. I tell the kids we have 8 days to go and to stay focused. We briefly talk about job expectations (I teach Business Classes) and how they must adhere to policies when they have a job. After getting my spill in they go to work on assignments. Suddenly, I hear a video being played of Lebron James, “Headphones or cut it off”. Lebron video continues, second request more firm, “cut it off or the phone is mine”. Silence and we are good. Five minutes later one of the boys farts out loud. Every teenager boy in the room suddenly are involved in comments and noises since the fart set them off. A student says, “that was nasty man, you need to check your pants”.
I call them down and we get back to work. Then I hear a car horn, another video this time on Tiktok. I call it down and they stop. One of the boys then says “stop touching me, I do not want to be raped”. I stand up, call the kid over and handle it. Another kid starts making a “moaning noise”. I stop that and the rest of class is pretty average.
9:40-10:10- A time for students to do makeup work, go to clubs, etc. My group of kids come in and gather around the corner and talk and do some work.
10:15-11:50- 2nd Block is a bigger class with 22 kids in it. Mostly a quiet bunch with exception of 3 very silly teenage boys that think any and everything is a funny. 10 minutes in and I see a kid on a video game, “cut the game off and do your work”. “Coach I am done”. Me, no way your done with everything. I go check the system and he has completed ZERO work. Yes, they will lie to you in a heart beat. A few minutes later a girl asks, “Can I go to the bathroom”. Yes, hurry back the clock is running. This girl likes to meet up with her boyfriend during the day and make-out. She is gone 8 minutes to Pee, so I give her detention since this is her third warning for doing this. She says, “I am sorry Coach, just bored and wanted to talk to R***”.
Five minutes later another girl wants to go to the office and call home. Then another bathroom request. Then a boy wants to go to the bathroom. More noises, computer games and hardly any work. Overall, a quiet day for this group and pretty productive.
11:50-12:20- Lunch time, no kids, no noises, no non sense. My Time! Two male students come in and put their bookbags on the chair and walk back out. I hear them in the bathroom slamming stall doors five minutes later (My nice quiet time is now screwed up). I have to discipline them and make sure they go back to the cafeteria (where they are supposedly watched and are not allowed to leave until 12:15.
12:20-1:55- 3rd and final block and this class s the biggest. Has 23 kids and twenty boys. They are jacked up from lunch and hanging with their buddies. Two students who currently have a 9 Average do their typical come in and go to sleep routine. They have chosen to fail no matter what we say or do, they give ZERO effort and just sleep. Not long into class I hear, “stop touching me” and a video playing or the Simpsons. A boy says “this is hard coach”. Well, as I said we have 20 boys so now they are all laughing and making comments about “things being hard”. I call them down and we get back on task. Five minutes later, a paper ball goes flying across the room. Then a paper plane goes flying across the room. I call it down and we get back to work. We finish the class and right at the end I hear “penis”, stop touching my “penis”. I get the kid and warn him about appropriate language and the bell rings and I am free.
2:00-3:30 Planning Period (my time)- Not today, I have some students that cannot get work done in another class so they come to my room during my planning period. These kids are generally really good students with some bad home lives and they like the comfort of an adult that will help them. I spend most of my planning doing work for other classes with about 5-6 kids and the bell rings. Kids clutter the hallway laughing, hollering, making noises and heading home.
I am tired and my nerves are shot. I walk down to the teacher workroom to check my box and there is a handwritten note, “Thanks Coach, I love your class and you always help me”. Big smile and I forget about the farting, noises, language, and silliness of the day as I head to football practice for another 3 hours of hard work coaching. I get home at 8:15pm, eat, hang with the wife and go to bed. All to get back up and do it again tomorrow. Same crew, same noises, same issues, same kids.
Teaching is a calling and you have to love them, help them, discipline them, coach them, mentor them and not expect much in return. So for all of you folks that had a bad day, go be a teacher for a day and see how that goes. If you are looking for a job be a substitute and get some of that. Just know, things have changed. These kids are addicted to Tik Tok, video games and being silly. Everything is funny and they love to try and troll you. They do not care if mom or dad get called, because mom and dad are their best friends instead of parents.
Seriously, the biggest change over the last twenty years is the distractions that computers and phones create. What appears to be cool on social must be cool at school. I was once a teenager and know how boys can be boys. Only difference is, if I got called down I stopped. These kids do not have the social skills we had back in the day. They have learned them on Tik Tok and other socials.
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