Day 1
I’m a new teacher at this place that shouldn’t even be called a school. It should be called an asylum. And I’m not even their teacher—I’m their babysitter. I’ve seen actual kindergartners behave better than this. Right away I can tell that I’m not going to like this job, and that I should quit, but it’s too late for that now. I have to get through the semester. If I make it out alive, I’ll look for a job as a college professor, but for now…
First day of school. When I walk in, I hear chatter from the students. That’s fine. The bell hasn’t rung yet, so I’ll let them catch up. As I put my briefcase and folder down and sit at my desk, a boy turns around and asks, “Are you a new teacher?”
That’s it. No “Hi, nice to meet you.” No simple “Hello.” No smile. Not even a “Nice to meet you” after the “Are you a new teacher?” These kids don’t have manners! What have I got-ten myself into?
“Yes, I am,” I say politely.
“What happened to the old one?” someone asks.
“She quit her job to go back to Vermont to stay with her family,” says someone else.
“Another teacher quitting?” says another voice. “Geez, they must really not like us.”
Gee, I wonder why, I feel like saying, but I hold my tongue.
The bell rings. “Good morning, students,” I say, rising from my desk, but immediately after I finish that sentence, there’s chatter.
“EXCUSE ME!” I bang my hand on the podium.
The students laugh.
How rude.
“My God, my first day and I’m already being disrespected,” I mutter.
“We’re sorry,” says the same boy who “greeted” me. He has a teasing smile on his any-thing-but-handsome face.
“Could’ve fooled me,” I tell him. That earns an “Ohhhh!” from the class. Oops. What have I done?
“I like this teacher,” says another guy’s voice.
No, you don’t. This time I know better. “My name is Mrs. Boltes, and I will be your English teacher.”
“Like that character from High School Musical,” says another voice, and the entire class—except for one student, a brunette young lady in a pink dress who looks like she’d rather be anywhere else on this Earth—starts to butcher (incorrectly sing) various songs from the classic movie of my childhood, essentially ruining it.
“All right, that’s enough,” I say nicely, even throwing in an air of teasing with a smile.
But something tells me that they’re not going to stop until they’ve finished the entire song.
“ENOUGH!” I yell. My voice is already giving out. Maybe it’s the unholy hour of 9:00 a.m. Maybe it’s the juvenile delinquent behavior of these Neanderthals who clearly have untreated ADHD and parents that don’t care. Maybe both.
A sprinkle of giggles later, and the “music” stops. “My name is Bolt-EZ,” I clarify. “And as you already saw, I will NOT tolerate any kind of disrespectful behavior like I just saw.”
The brunette in the pink dress rolls her eyes. Not at me, thank God. It looks like she’s trying to convey the message of “What is wrong with these people?”
I don’t agree that they’re “people,” but I agree with her on everything else.
“Anyway, I have a syllabus right here, and your job is to take it home to your parents and have them sign it, then bring it back to me tomorrow.”
Someone rips off the front page of their syllabus, then balls it up and throws it across the room. It slam-dunks into the garbage can.
“You have to read it first,” I tell them, though I’m not sure who it was.
“You didn’t say that,” says a voice.
“I don’t think I have to.” I guess I should’ve known that these assholes were too stupid to realize that they had to read the syllabus to know what was going on in the class. “Now, go get that paper and un-crumple it.”
“Dig in the garbage can?” The student sounds bewildered and amused at the same time. More laughter.
“Yes,” I growl through clenched teeth, which is a pretty sizable mistake, as that only makes them laugh even more. “Go get it.”
“Why can’t you get it? You’re standing right there.”
Even more laughter. Except the brunette in the pink dress, who has now buried her face in her hands. I don’t blame her one bit.
“Because it’s not my paper to get.”
“But I’m too lazy to get up and get—”
“Would you like me to call the principal?”
“Ohhhhh!” the class choruses again. Once again, the brunette in the pink dress is not a part of it. I think she’s going to be my favorite student, not that anybody needs to know that.
“Calling the principal on the first day?” she mutters. “I like this woman.”
I’m more than ready for a little kindness. “Thank you, young lady,” I tell her. “Your name?”
“Emily.”
“Emily.”
“Emily, I noticed you weren’t acting like an utter Neanderthal like these people here, so thank you. I appreciate that.”
“Teacher’s pet,” says someone.
“Show-off,” I shoot back. Over the chorus of “Ohhhhhs,” I turn around and write on the board “ISS POTENTIALS.” ISS means “In-School Suspension.” Then I turn back around. “I’ve been briefed on how punishments work around here. I don’t know what your last teacher did, so—”
I’m interrupted by overlapping voices of “She did this” and “She did that.” I bang my hand on the board to silence them. “Yeesh,” mutters someone.
I ignore that. “I don’t recall asking. But whatever she did, I’m not gonna do that. I’m gonna be no-nonsense. No funny business. I already said before, I don’t tolerate rude behavior. That includes the ‘ohhhh’ that you guys’ve been doing, that includes improper singing, that includes laughing at times when you shouldn’t, that includes throwing things across the room—” I pause to sear everybody with my eyeballs, skipping over Pink Dress Girl—sorry, Emily. “You are expected to act polite and respectful. To me, to each other, to the principal, to everybody in this school. So here’s the deal. Forget about the name on the board.” I turn around and erase ISS POTENTIALS. “Forget about the time-put chair. Obviously treating you like kindergartners isn’t enough to prevent you from acting like kindergartners. The first time you mess up, I’m sending you straight to ISS. I don’t care what the crime is. I mean business.”
“She said business,” whispers a guy’s voice, and giggles ripple through the crowd.
“See? Like that.” This time I can locate who the culprit was because of his teasing smile. Turns out it was the same guy who “greeted” me. “What’s your name, young man?”
“Jim-Bob,” says the guy, and he and the guys sitting around him laugh.
“Your real name.”
“Devon,” the guy laughs.
“Devon,” I repeat. More like Demon, I think to myself. “Would you like a detention?”
“On the first day?” Devon asks in utter disbelief.
“Well, you brought it on yourself.”
“How?”
“Well, you greeted me rudely. That’s nt how you greet a new teacher. ‘Hey, you’re new here?’ That’s not how a boss greets a new employee. That’s not how the judge greets a juror. That’s not how the manager of a restaurant greets customers. That’s not how…you get the idea. You greet people with a smile and a ‘Hello,’ not an obnoxious ’You’re new here?’”
Devon retains the teasing smile. “Why is this funny?” I demand.
“Because you don’t scare me.”
“Do I scare you now?” I head over to the intercom and press the button. Principal Tutron answers right away.
“Yes?”
“I’d like to send Devon down to your office because he was being disrespectful.”
“All right, send him on down.”
When you send a student down to the principal’s office on your first day, that’s a red flag.
I glance at the clock. The class is almost half over already, and I haven’t even started to teach. “All right. Now that that’s out of the way, I’d like to go over a get-to-know-you activity.”
“Those are so corny,” someone whines.
I ignore it. “On a piece of loose-leaf paper, I’d like you to write your name, your age, your family—meaning who you live with—and something you like to do. Your hobbies, essentially.” Besides being assholes, I think to myself. I think I had to define “family” for them be-cause of how stupid they are.
“Would you like our social security numbers while we’re at it?” says another voice. Everyone laughs. There’s no denying that the intention was mean teasing.
I ignore that comment too. “When you’re done, I’ll collect them.”
The class gets to work. A boy in the middle row reads aloud—obnoxiously—as he writes. “MY NAME IS LEON,” he practically yells as he writes. “I AM SIXTEEN YEARS OLD. I LIVE WITH MY MAMA AND PAPA AND SISTER, AND THEY ARE ALL ANNOYING.” All this earns scattered giggles from the class. “MY FAVORITE HOBBIES ARE PLAYING XBOX WITH MY SISTER, EVEN THOUGH SHE ALWAYS WINS, EATING, SLEEPING, AND RIDING MY BIKE.” More giggles.
“Keep it quiet to yourself, please,” I tell him politely.
I form a parody in my brain that goes like this: My name is Leon. I am three years old. I live with my lazy parents who don’t give a shit about my severe ADHD. My favorite hobbies are pissing off anybody by being obnoxious at every turn.
It’s not totally silent as these wild apes fill out their info. There are giggles, whispers, snickers, and occasional snorts, but at least nobody is reading theirs loud enough for the entire world to hear. I come around and take the papers from them, one by one. “All right. Now I’m going to tell you a little bit about myself.”
“You already did,” says Leon. “Your name was ripped off from High School Musical and you don’t tolerate any behavior.”
“Getcha-getcha-getcha-getcha head in the game,” butchers someone in the back row. It spreads like a virus. I bang my hand on the board to silence them—again. After a tornado of laughter, they settle down. “I don’t tolerate kindergarten behavior, which I’ve already seen more than plenty of today. And if you would like to join Devon in Principal Tutron’s office, keep this up. Anyway, I’m married and we have two little daughters, Samantha and Addison. Samantha is seven and Addison is five. I’ve been teaching for ten years—”
“Clearly not long enough to know how to teach,” says Leon.
Without a word, I fetch a detention slip from my desk, fill it out, and hand it to him. This earns an “Ohhh,” from the class.
“—as I was saying, before I was beyond rudely interrupted, in my whole decade of teaching, I have never encountered such disrespectful behavior and attitude as this.” Scattered giggles. So, they think this is funny. Maybe I should slap them upside the head with a dictionary and make them look up the word respect. “Anyway, enough about me. I’m going to read these during the break and get to know about you a little better.”
“My name is Jordan and I am sixteen,” says a boy in the back row. Turns out it was the same boy who started the butchering virus just minutes ago.
“Okay, that’s enough for now,” I say politely. “So now for this class. This is an English class—”
“But we already know how to speak English,” a voice interrupts, earning more laughter.
“I mean grammar. And writing,” I clarify through gritted teeth. Then I relax. “And all that fun stuff. But since you decided to waste this precious time…” I glance at the clock.
“We wasted this time?” a girl’s voice protests.
“Yeah, you didn’t teach us anything,” another voice cuts in.
“You were too busy babysitting us,” says Jordan, the Butcher Virus kid. Or should I say douche-bag.
“No, you wasted this time. You were too busy acting like juvenile delinquents, which is why I had to quote-unquote ‘babysit’ you. Since we have only ten minutes left of class, I’d like to go over the parameters.”
“I thought you said perimeter,” says a girl’s voice.
“Yeah, perimeter is a math term,” says a guy’s voice.
“You’re definitely in the wrong place.” This comment is from Leon, who has a teasing smile on his face.
Surprisingly, I agree with him. I am in the wrong place. But I can’t get out of this quick-sand. I have a few painfully long months to get through before I can take my “job” somewhere else and never look back. “Anyway, you’ll have a few essays to write on certain stories in your textbook, but we’ll talk more about those later in the semester. You’ll have one big project that’s due in the last week of class.” I pause, wishing I could fast forward to that very moment. “And if you have any trash, here’s the place to put it.” I hold up the garbage can.
“Dude, your syllabus is in there,” somebody says.
“Mm-hmm, your syllabus is in there, when it should be in your hand.” I pause. “Anyway, I don’t allow food and drinks in here without permission, so if you want to have a snack, run it by me first.”
Jordan stands up, holds a bag of hot Cheetos over his head like an Olympic torch, and runs across the room with it, brushing by my desk. I glare at him.
“You said to run it by you,” he says.
“That’s not what I meant,” I say through gritted teeth. The third time I’ve had to grit my teeth today. I think I’m going to eventually lose all my grown-up teeth if I don’t ease up. The bell rings. “Oh, look, see? You brought this on yourselves.”
The class eagerly scoops up their shit and crowds out of the classroom with as much enthusiasm as if they were at Disney World. Emily, in her neon pink dress and messy-chic brown French braid, is the last to go. “I’m sorry about them,” she says to me. “I had no idea they’d be this rowdy.”
“That’s an understatement,” I tell her.
“Tell me about it.” Emily leaves promptly.
I sigh and collapse in my desk chair. My phone buzzes with a text from my husband. It says:
How did it go?
It sucked, needless to say. I could go on forever.
Awful.
Enough said. For now, at least.
