My kids behaved terribly this evening. Out of a class of sixteen, only ten were actually present, but they might as well have been forty rabid monkeys. The guy who normally teaches with me was not able to be there tonight, which generally would not have been a problem, except that the children had all consumed massive quantities of cocaine before class. There was not a single moment all night in which the class was actually in any semblance of order. We made it through only one out of the five readings that were scheduled on the lesson plan, and while that is generally of no concern to me, it made the evening go painfully slowly. At one point, Dylan, my most obnoxiously disobedient little monkey, hid behind a shelf when my back was turned and had the entire class giggling hysterically because I was not aware of this. (What the little fuckers did not know was that I was secretly thrilled that he was missing, and would not have been the least bit upset to learn that he was accidentally trapped in the paper shredder.)
I just don’t understand the eighth grade mentality. When I volunteered to teach this religion class (no, I am not the least bit religious), I mistakenly presumed that by the eighth grade, kids would be so concerned about looking cool in front of their peers that they would sit in resolute, pained silence while attempting to mate with the nearest individual of the opposite sex. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that these prepubescent children would spend every class talking incessantly, asking personal questions, throwing things around the room, and climbing under the furniture.
Don’t get me wrong – there are times when I really like these kids, and they certainly inspire me to laugh at both them and my own ridiculous attempts at teaching. It just gets frustrating when they are all talking simultaneously and refusing to sit still and shut the hell up, despite the fact that I am practically screaming at them. We ended up playing Heads Up, Seven Up for the majority of the night (yes, I played too) and I let them ask any questions they had for me, which ultimately included “is your hair really blonde?” (like, totally!), “do you want to have kids?” (after this, HELL NO), and “did you get your ankle tattoo removed?” (not yet). I was also informed that I would be great at teaching their Family Life Education (read: Sex Ed) class at school. I don’t even know what to make of that.
They did, however, win the Junior High Gameshow this year, which will forever redeem them in my book.