11.17.2008

The third graders came back today. They haven't been around since one of the third grade teachers came in and caught them talking to me instead of cleaning whatever it was they were supposed to be cleaning and positively wigged out on them. They were led by My Friend, who showed me a bandaged finger and asked me to blow on it (which I did not) and then moon walked around the classroom, before pulling out a chair, straddling it and giving an enchanting performance of Patsy Cline's "Crazy". Apparently he was on tv or something. I would believe it. The kid's got flair. It's a damn shame I didn't get this all on video, mind you.

One of my coteachers isn't showing up to class anymore, so I have at least one class a day by myself. It's going alright. You can definitely notice a difference in the level of overall pandemonium, but not by too much. Today we were doing, "How much is....?" and I wasted a good fifteen minutes of every class writing numbers on the board and challenging the boys to read them out loud. Start with 156. Then, 156,829. Then, 156,829,204. 156,829,204,311. This was great fun, apparently.

My second least favorite coteacher usurped my authority in a really shitty way today. We had finished five minutes early and I wasn't really holding the boys attention much to be able to continue with anything else (this was right before lunch), so I just thanked them for their time and told them we had five minutes left -- they could talk to their friends or work on homework for other classes. The coteacher, however, interjected and told them to close their eyes and put their heads down. Then she whacked the shit out of two boys for opening their eyes. They hadn't done anything wrong -- the class, I mean. So I don't know what was wrong with giving them five minutes of free time.

Mr. Wan told me he had to teach seven -- fucking seven -- classes today, and that he has a lot of paperwork to do because of a fight that happened a week or so ago in one of his classes, so he will probably be at the school until ten, which means he won't be home until 11:30. He leaves his house at six every morning to be to work early for all the other work he has to do. Do that math, why don't you. I'm thinking about taking him up some food or coffee or something later in the evening, just because that sucks so much, but I also don't want it to seem like some kind of forward gesture or something. I'm an asshole. But my coworkers have got me so nervous about everything I do being viewed through the lens of me being a woman, that I feel the need to act carefully. Isn't that a shame?

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