Funny (or not so funny) stories from my first year of teaching

I'm going to keep updating this post with more stories as the year goes on.  Keep checking in periodically!  And yes, that is me in the picture above.

1.  I found out the day before I started school that my choir class has three kids in it.  Three.

2.  There are only stairs leading up to my music room...no ramps or elevators.  So I guess the message is: no music for crippled people.  Yeah, pretty sure that's illegal.  And just messed up.  Oh, I'm teaching in 3 different classrooms and was planning on using a moving cart to move around all my stuff...guess not.  I needed a TV last week, so the janitor helped me lift a TV on a cart up the stairs.  Fun.

3.  It is now 3 weeks into the school year and my school has no band teacher.  The poor kids have been sitting there basically doing nothing all this time.  I feel so bad for them!

4.  Me in class on Monday:  You must choose a song that is appropriate.
     Me in class on Tuesday:  You must choose a song that is appropriate.
     Me in class on Wednesday:  You must choose a song that is appropriate.
     Me in class on Thursday:  You must choose a song that is appropriate.

     Me and a student in class on Friday:

          Me:  What artist are you researching for your project?
          Student:  Lil Wayne.
          Me:  And what song are you doing by him?
          Student: Gonorrhea
          Me:  Really?  Come on (student name)!  Pick a different song!
          Student:  What?  *completely serious face*
          Me, in my head:  Oh my god he has no idea....

5.  This was my very first parent phone.  What an awkward way to start the year.

     Me:  Hello, is this Mrs. so-and-so?
     Parent:  Yes.
     Me:  Hi my name is Mr. Jarema and I'm a teacher at the middle school.  Your daughter
     hasn't turned in the back page of the student handbook.  It is late now.  We need your
     signature on the back and then we need for her to turn it in on Monday.
     Parent:  Oh, you mean the handbook you gave her that is all in Spanish?  (90% of the
     kids at school are Hispanic.  She is literally the only white kid in my class and I gave
     her a Spanish handbook)
     Me:  D'oh!

6.  My two favorite quotes from today:

     "This student has been suspended a total of 62 times from school."
     "The technology teacher was kind of upset last year.  They took away her computer lab,
      so she had to teach technology class in the cafeteria."

7.  A student turned in a project in to me twice.  I'm sitting here grading projects and all the sudden I go, "Wait...am I crazy?  I thought I saw her project already."  Sure enough, she turned in the same exact project twice (once on time, once late).  I think I'm going to nickname her 'goldfish' in class tomorrow.

8.  Two hilarious responses on a project where students research their favorite artists.

-One student put down that Green Day formed in England.  Yeah no.  Under my question "where did you get this information from (write down your sources)", he wrote "my own head".  Your head is wrong, sir.

-For one fact about the rapper Wiz Khalifa, a student put "he smokes that good stuff".  Before the teacher-side of me kicked in, I busted out laughing when I read that.

9.  A student played a song by Prince Royce today (he is a Latin American Pop/R&B singer).  She played a cover version of the classic "Stand By Me".  It is a really great version...you can hear it here.  Two students started dancing with each other.  Before long, I had 4 couples slow dancing in the middle of class.  Seeing an impromptu 7th grade dance in the middle of my classroom was the most adorable thing I have seen in a long time.

10.  We were doing a "sound composition" activity in class.  One of the sounds we were using was "boom" and I told them they could make that sound however they wanted.  One kid threw his textbook (from another class) down so hard that it split in two.

11.  I saw some very creative dancing to some music.  One student did a jellyfish dance flat on his back on the floor.  Another student did some damn good robot dancing for the class.

12.  One of my 6th graders was out for a day because he was at his grandmother's funeral.  We talked about it and I told him about my grandpa recently passing away.  In the middle of class he said (kind of to himself): "Man this is a tough week.  First, I had to go to that funeral.  And now, music class is going to be over after this week and I'm not going to have it again."  Instantaneous heart melting.

13.  My students keep talking about this DJ named Bass Hunter...except they pronounce it "Bah-ss" instead of "Bay-ss".  I constantly have to remind them "Bass Hunter" is in fact a DJ, not a fisherman.

14.  Oh my god this could be my most ridiculous story yet.  I told my students they needed to get a journal and a folder for my class.  I told them, "If you can't get one for whatever reason, come see me about it.  I understand that some of your parents work and don't have time to go to the store in the next 2 days.  I also understand if you can't afford it..."  I regretted these words as soon as they came out of my mouth.  Stupid me, of course everyone can afford a folder for 25 cents and a journal  for 1 buck.  Without a moment's hesitation, an African-American boy in the front row loudly proclaimed, "Yup!  That's for all the black kids in here!"

15.  A kid in class today:  "Like...Mr. Jarema, it's just how I am!  I'm just...CRAZY!  Like...there's like the mental institution kind of crazy...and then there's just the crazy kind of crazy...and then there is me right in the middle.  That's just how I roll."  This is the same kid who the other day in the middle of class randomly picked up his desk off its legs, tilted it 90 degrees towards him so the legs were parallel with the ground and the flat surface was at his stomach, and said, "Whatsup?  I be rollin' in my Escalade".

16.  Imagine this scene:  I am in a meeting with my 2 principals and 3 other teachers (one of which is an idiot and went behind mine and another teacher's back over a contractual issue...LONG story).  My principal is trying to explain to this teacher (a burned out, 50 or 60-something year old) why what he did was contractually correct, but unprofessional to me and the other teacher.  He was being so obstinate that the principal (a petite, feisty, Puerto Rican woman) LITERALLY had to stand up, get a marker, and DRAW HIM A PICTURE illustrating why what he did was wrong.  I'm talking stick figures.  My body goes into laughing spasms every time I picture this again.

17.  An 8th grade boy grabbed a novelty oversized pencil from the teacher's desk (I teach in other classrooms in the building) and put it near his private parts.  He began making gestures with the pencil that simulated masturbating.  Holy Hormones Batman!

18.  Students will appear and disappear in my classes all the time due to schedule changes.  I won't even be given advance notice this is happening either.  I will show up to my class and...surprise!  One time I had 2 students who were in my class for only a day then got switched out. I've had a student join my class 3 weeks before the grading quarter ended too.

19.  This story is officially known as the "pee pee incident" amongst my fellow teachers.  Two of my 6th grade boys were suspended last week and I had no idea why.  Turns out the two boys were flashing each other their private parts.  Here is the worst part: it happened in my classroom.  I didn't even see it happen.  I'm guessing they must have done it under their desks.  Apparently some other students were eye witnesses and rolled on them to the principal.  This kind of story has to be the stuff of legends.

20.  Both a student in my choir and her parent were concerned about singing the song "What'd I Say" by Ray Charles.  The worst lyrics in the song are "baby shake that thing" and "come and love your daddy all night long".  I think Ray would be proud that 52 years later his songs are still drumming up controversy.  Luckily the parent was really understanding and agreed that we will simply have her daughter not sing the song.  Imminent crisis averted!

21.  We have a program called "Check In, Check Out" in my school.  A kid who is on this program brings a slip of paper to every class and gives it to their teacher when they walk in.  At the end of the class period, the teacher fills out the slip and gives it back to the student.  The slip is meant to give feedback to the student and help them track their behavior in their classes throughout the day.  In one particular class I have, there was only one student who was on this system.  One day I come into class and I have 7 kids mobbing me with slips.  Apparently they were magically added to the program over night.  How the hell am I supposed to fill out 8 slips per day in the middle of my class?  By the way, that makes 8 out of 21 students in my class who are on that program.  What the hell.

22.  A poem written in one of my 8th grade girl's journal:

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
This poem makes no sense.
Boobs.

23.  Transient.  Ephemeral.  Impermanent.  These are all great adjectives to describe a middle schooler.  Case in point:

Yesterday in class:  "Mr. Jarema, why do I have to move my seat?  You are a really mean teacher.  You are the meanest teacher ever!"

Today in class, same student:  "Mr. Jarema, I drew this picture just for you.  Could you hang it up in your music room?"

Go figure.

24.  I was demonstrating how to rap a section from a song by Jurassic 5 for some of my students.  As soon as I finished, an African-American in the front row shouted, "Mr. J, you should be black!"  I started snickering uncontrollably and despite my best efforts to hide it, I couldn't.  I didn't know what to say, so I bent down and whispered in his ear, "I gotta admit, that was pretty funny.  But that's a warning and I never want to hear that again".  If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

25.  My students are doing presentations in front of the class.  "Why do we have to do this?" they ask.  So I explain: "This isn't something for just my classroom...this is something for life.  When I interviewed for this teaching job, I had to basically give a presentation to the principal and vice principal.  Do you think I talked really softly and looked down at my feet the whole time?  Do you think they would have hired me if I did that?"  A student sarcastically replied, "In this district?"  Ouch.

26.  A student tripped another student in my class.  I didn't see it happen, so I interrogated the guilty student in question.  I asked, "Did you try to trip him?"  The student replied, "I didn't try.  I succeeded."  My reaction was something like this:

27.  Today was a terrible day.  A laughably terrible day.  A lot of my students were horrific today, but one in particular was just an idiot.  Here is a new thing for my record books.  The student opened the window (I teach one of my classes on the 3rd floor) and placed his binder 6 feet out on the ledge.  He already wouldn't listen to a damn thing I told him, so I sent him to the office.  A teacher came into the classroom after class and handed me a notebook.  "Is this from your class?" he asked.  Without me seeing, the kid f-ing threw a notebook out the window and it landed on the ground next to this teacher's window.  

28.  A sentence from one of my 6th grade student's journal:  "Some teachers listens to rape".  Spelling changes everything, my dear children.  

29.  Oh my god am I embarrassed.  I was taking a picture on my iPod today at home.  I then went into my iPod's photo album and saw a bunch of new pictures.  I had no idea where they came from since I never take photos with my iPod.  I clicked on one of the pictures and my heart dropped.  One of my students took my iPod in class and took pictures of herself, the blackboard, and of me teaching.  The worst part is that I did not notice this.  Way to show my incompetency as a teacher, student.

29 1/2.  We have to buy all of our own paper for the copy machine.  Ok, I'm not being entirely fair...the school provided us ONE REAM PER MONTH.  Guess how fast that went?  One teacher joked that she would get a case of paper for her Christmas present.  Turns out she wasn't joking...she came back after break with it.  Oh, and we have 2 copy machines at our school.  I think there was one short period of time where both were working throughout the entire school year.  At least we had one for 40 teachers, right?  Oh, did I mention we had to buy all of our own paper?  When your school has crappy resources (I had an old, shitty music textbook that I never used), this problem is compounded since you are supplementing all the worksheets yourself.  Goddamn.

30.  Perspective.  It is so hard to keep it sometimes.  Here is the bottom line: the grass is always greener.  I thought I had it rough, but I have been fortunate to not have a fight in my classroom yet.  I have never felt threatened for my physical well being.  I have not been yelled at by a parent.  I have never seen the symbols of local gangs on my students' papers.  I only had 7 out of 17 of my choir students show up to my concert last night, but at least they did not get into a fight 5 minutes before the concert started.  I have never had my lunch poisoned by a student.  I have never had a student let off a stink bomb in class.  And most importantly, I have never had a student say they were going to rape me because they were going to join a gang and they said they had to.  I am not trying to be sarcastic or funny about this like my other posts...I truly do mean that I am thankful these things have not happened to me yet.  These are all true teaching stories from 2 teachers in my district...some of these stories come from my district and some do not.  Perspective.

31.  Top three reasons you know it's Friday in an urban middle school.  Reason #1:  A 7th grade boy wants to play one of the female characters we are reading in a story.  He says, "Oh come on, I can totally play a girl.  Just look at this tushie!" as he smacks his ass.  Reason #2:  I subbed in a classroom and overhead this from a 6th grader's mouth: "I swear I did not kiss a black girl.  I only gently hugged her."  Reason #3:  During my last class of the day, half of my class walked out of my classroom.  Apparently two students in my class had just broken up and there was big fallout.  The students went to console each other.  10 minutes later, all the kids come back into the classroom and LITERALLY 10 kids are crying their eyes out.  W.  T.  F.

32.  I did a project where my students had to write their own rap songs.  Here are some highlights from some of the lyrics.  I am presenting them in 2 categories: the heavy and the hilarious:

Heavy lyrics:

"I got the devil on my shoulder/he sits there as I get older/so the angel flew away/he said sorry but he couldn't stay"

"Look at me I'm dead inside/I look ahead and see no light/this depression taking flight/don't care if I die tonight"

"I write sins not tragedies/and it's kinda sad to me/when I break down/everyone just wears a fake frown"

"I'm the man/y'all can't rap like I can/killing flows/call me Rambo/never out of lyrical ammo"

"Why you trippin girl?/tie your shoe lace/I killed this beat and beat the murder case/I'm a rabbit but this a turtle race"

Hilarious lyrics:

"Santa's gonna ball/presents are tall/this ain't Paul Bunyon"

"Reindeers playin games/Rudolph goin' hate/rip off the red nose and go get some pound cake"

"[Santa's] belly is fatter than your mom in the kitchen"

"You slower than that one snail Gary/faker than the tooth fairy"

"I'll cut ya like a lawn/yup, Mexi-caun"

"People say I'm weird but I am regularly irregular/"Rawr", that means I love you in dinosaur"

33.  Ahhh...a new quarter with a new batch of students.  I handed out surveys on the first day of class.  One of the surveys came back to me with "Fuck Off" written where the name should go.  Lovely bunch of kids I have.

34.  The scheduling is messed up at my school.  Here is an example from one of my classes.  First day I had 16 students.  The second day all of the orchestra students were thrown into my general music class (for whatever reason), making for 24 students.  The third day I show up and there is ONE student in my class (you read that right).  What happened to my other 15 students you ask?  8 of them had music removed from their schedule.  And the other 7?  Oh, well they just had to be shoved into my last class of the day...which already had 24 students in it...making a whopping grand total of 31 students.  Things have since evened out...I now have 5 students in one class and 28 in the other.  Even my ass.

35.  A kid raised her hand.  "Mr. Jarema, can I sit here?"  She is sitting on the end of an aisle, and she is pointing to the seat right next to her.  "What's the difference?  You would be moving one seat over." I ask.  "I don't like this seat," she says, "I don't like sitting on the corner...it makes me feel like a hooker".

36.  I played Reveille on my trumpet for my students today.  I told them to think about where they have heard this song and what it is used for.  The standard response of the day had to do with waking Army soldiers up in the morning, blah blah blah.  In one of my classes, I stop playing and a kid immediately blurts out "Barney!" I'm still not sure how Reveille and Barney go together, but apparently he thought they did.

37.  One of my 8th grade girls has a tramp stamp tattoo.  Got parents?

38.  Totally showed off in front of my students yesterday.  I was walking out to my car and one of my students was skateboarding with his friends.  I had already talked to him in class about skateboarding...[flashback]...he wanted to sit by his friends in class one day and I said no, but I knew from the survey he filled out in class earlier that he liked skateboarding.  I made him a bet that if he landed a tre flip (a very difficult trick) he could sit wherever he wanted (he gave me a look like "Mr. Jarema, how do you know what that is?")...[flashforward]...so this kid already knew I could skateboard.  So I'm standing outside and he asks me to do a trick.  I get on one of the kid's board and bust out an old school trick called the "Chicago flip".  They were floored.  Today in school, I had no less than 3 kids come up to me and say, "Mr. Jarema, is it true you landed the Chicago flip?"  I was like:

39.  Had my very first fist fight in class today.  Do I get a gold star now?  Membership into a secret society?  Anything?  This has got to be a milestone.

40.  Things have been quiet recently in terms of ridiculousness.  Either I'm getting desensitized to the craziness or something major is about to happen.  I did see a student get DRAGGED into a classroom last week though.  The student was in the hallway.  She was lying flat on the ground and clawing at the tile while the teacher grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her into class.  It was like those scenes from scary movies where a character gets sucked into a room by some paranormal being and the door slams shut behind them.

41.  Decided to have a little fun with a student's quiz:

















42.  6:50 am last Thursday.  I saw no less than 3 cop cars zoom past the windows of our school.  Apparently some guy (already cornered by 2 cop cars) pulled a gun.  He was no more than 70 feet away from the school.  The scariest part is that kids were lining up outside when this happened.  I don't think he had any intentions to hurt children, but still.

43.  My art teacher caught 2 of my rude, mouthy, drama-filled 7th grade girls goofing around during an assembly.  She had them sit right next to her for the whole thing.  A conversation ensued:

Art teacher: "Wait, don't you have Mr. Jarema for music?"
Student:  "Yeah."
Art teacher:  "Man, Mr. Jarema tells me about all the stuff you guys do.  You need to cut it out.  If I were him, I would turn off all of the lights, sit you in opposite corners of the room, and have you fill out music worksheets all day."
Student:  "Yeah but he's young.  He doesn't know any better."

You should have heard the thud the stack of worksheets made when I dropped them on their desks the next day.

44.   I made this fancy worksheet that cost me two hours of my weekend to make.  It was about backwards Satanic lyrics in Led Zeppelin's music.  Some of my kids were assholes today though.  There's no better term to describe them: assholes.  Just horrible, rotten behavior.  I was so pissed off at the end of the class period.  But one kid came up to me after class.  "Mr. Jarema, that was so cool.  I loved all that stuff."  Isn't it amazing how one thing like that makes it all worth it?

45.  A student broke my door last week.  Real mature for an 8th grader.  We were singing the song "Can't Fight This Feeling" by REO Speedwagon in choir class and there is a line that goes 'come crushing through your door'.  Some students said it would be funny to act it out on stage at the concert.  We had a good laugh with this, but then one of my students was walking towards the door.

Me:  "What are you doing off the choir risers?"  No response.
Me:  "Get back to your spot on the riser please."  No response.
Me:  "Do not leave my classroom without my permission."  No response.
Me:  "Do not throw open my door."  No response.
Me:  "DO NOT THROW OPEN MY DOOR."

She throws the door open.  The next period I find that the door is off its hinges and won't shut properly.  I confront her about it the next day and her friends come to her rescue.  "No, she didn't break it!  It was already broken!  Look we can fix it!"  She got super defensive and threw a temper tantrum at me.  For breaking MY door.  After she cooled off (30 minutes later...talk about anger management issues) I told her she would spend her lunch with me so she could write an apology note to the janitor who would be fixing the door.  All that she could muster in her letter was "I'm sorry I broke the door.  I will be more responsible next time."  That's it.  She even muttered under her breath something to the effect of "whatever, I'm not being honest anyways".

Let this point in my blog be duly noted as the point where I am officially burned out and want to get the fuck out of this school.  And no, I can't tell if I'm being funny about this or not.

46.  At a staff meeting today, my principal SCREAMED at a teacher in front of everybody.  It was ridiculous and surreal to see that happen.  She sends out an email an hour later to the entire staff.  The email doesn't say "I'm sorry for acting unprofessional".  The email says "my sincerest apologies for exposing you to my exchange with a fellow staff member; such interactions should take place behind close doors."  I thought this type of interaction shouldn't happen, period?  It gets better.  I went out with some teachers afterwards to eat. The teacher who got yelled at shows up and tells us more.  Apparently, the principal told him after the meeting (and I quote), "you've really screwed yourself now".

The irony?  My principal has been promoting the idea of a "professional learning community" amongst the staff at our school.  About a month ago, we even had a 2 hour meeting after school where the sole topic was "positive interactions between faculty members".

47.  A student told me he has a drum set at home.  "Really?" I said, "I didn't know you played drums?"  "Oh yeah man," he responds (at this point, I already know he is going to try and bullshit me), "it's like an original.  It was signed by......uh......Beethoven and everything.  Original 1977 drum set.  Yeah."  The conversation continued on for 3 more minutes.  You can only imagine what else a middle school mind could come up with.

48.  Forgot about this gem of a story.  My sister and her friend came to observe me while I taught one day.  They sat on the side of the room in decently dressed clothes.  For one of my out-of-control classes, I introduced the two as "behavioral experts".  I told the class that, "They are here to observe one of you.  By law, I am not allowed to tell you who it is."  One of my students in particular (the one with the most behavioral issues) just about shit his pants.  Kids are gullible, heh heh.

49.  A group of 4 students did their rap song presentation last week in class.  The quartet called themselves "Sporks" because I guess there are 4 teeth on a spork.  They also came up with the following individual pseudonyms: Crispy Tacito (the Mexican student), Albino Rhino (the Caucasian student), Noodle Eyes (the Asian student), and Half Court (the vertically challenged student).  My, my, it is lovely to teach in a district with a diverse student population!

50.  Post number 50!  Saved a good story for this one.  So I had my first major beef with a parent today.  Here is the back story.  I gave this student a lunch detention.  Since I am teaching during his lunch, I had him come into my class and eat his lunch in the back while I taught.  With this particular class I was teaching a lesson about hidden backwards messages in "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin.  The lyrics APPARENTLY say things like "my sweet Satan" and "666", but the whole point of my lesson is that it's bogus and you can hear whatever you want to hear.  The kid who was serving the detention got really into the lesson and was looking over another student's shoulder at the worksheet (and of course, since he wasn't really paying attention to me, he didn't hear the part where I proved the lyrics are fake).  The next day, the student does something idiotic in the class I have him in.  I walk up to him and sarcastically say, "Oh, so we apparently have to do another detention.  And maybe at this detention I will play some more devil music for you".  He didn't get my sarcasm.  The kid flipped out and left my room.  The next day I'm sitting down in a meeting with the kid, his mom, and an administrator about how she is concerned what I am teaching her child.  Apparently the family is very religious and the kid told his mom what I was teaching.  The mom was concerned and wanted to make sure I wasn't teaching her child how to worship the devil.

51.  I was casually talking to one of my students before class.  I hear some commotion and look to my right.  One girl shoved another girl off of the 2nd level choir risers (a good 2 foot drop) and said "Get out of my face!"  The girl on the ground also received a huge, bleeding gash in her arm because the other girl clawed her arm.  My technology teacher said I should have had the choir sing "Cat Scratch Fever" by Ted Nugent the next day in class.

52.  I have a hard time understanding some of my kids.  What makes it easier is if I picture them as elementary schoolers inside of middle school bodies.   Case in point:  one of my 8th graders busts into my room and shouts out "I'm not a boy, I'm a man" and proceeds to beat his chest and flash his muscles at me.

53.  There are some moments that make me want to teach forever.  One of my favorite students came to school 50 minutes early to learn piano from me (she beat me to school).  On top of that, she gave a letter to all of her teachers thanking them for all they have done for her (she transferred from a catholic school to my school at the beginning of the year and initially had a rough time).  The letter is pinned on my fridge.  What a great kid.

What is even cooler is that this girl was one of the first students in my choir (remember from post #1 that I started with only 3.  One girl moved out of the district, one girl caused the incident I mentioned above in post #51).

54.  Student comes up to me in class:  "I'm half chicken"

55.  God knows what would compel a 7th grader to dance around the class and rub his nipples at 7:50 in the morning.

56.  A student in detention with me today: "OMG I forgot tomorrow is 4/20.  And you know what that means I will be doing?"  Student looks up and smirks at me.  "I'm going to come to school and learn tomorrow."

57.  Student:  "Is it weird if somebody really likes blood?"

58.  We had a field trip for my choir students.  They rehearsed all day with a guest conductor who was awesome.  On the bus ride back I asked the students how they thought the day went.  One student shouted from the back of the bus, "I really liked that teacher.  She was really good.  It shows how Mr. Jarema is such a bad teacher".  I was about to say this back to the student, "The conductor was great, wasn't she?  I learned a lot too.  But while I don't take what you said personally, I think there is a more appropriate way to say what you did...and probably a better time to say it too."  Before I could say this, another student shot back, "NO!  You do not say something like that to Mr. Jarema.  That was so rude."  Boom, truth bomb!

59.  Substitute teachers suck.  The day after the field trip, I was out of school to help out another field trip.  My choir stayed behind with a sub.  4 of my choir students (one of them was from the post above) demolished my room.  They took bits of paper, shredded it up, and threw it all over the room.  They even went into my 'extra copies' folder, dumped it out, and threw that everywhere too.  It was so bad that I had the other music teachers, the security guards, and the custodians at my school ask me about what happened.  What was the sub doing?  When I got back from my field trip during another class, I saw him sitting at the front of the room reading a book.  Regardless, it will be fun to see those 4 girls cleaning the ENTIRE school for me next week.

60.  I brought in my electric piano and played a really sad piece by Chopin for my 6th grade class.  Before I played, I asked them to imagine in their head "someone they have loved and lost".  I had them write down their thoughts as I played.  My responses ranged from this:

"I was think of my aunt, and my 2 cosins they did when their house got on fire my aunts and I of my cousins was only their bones. And my uncle is still in the hospital it happen in spring break"

To this:

"I was thinking of my baby turtle I was remembering when he died and I felt sad. kinda."

61.  There is this psycho 6th grader at our school.  He is this ridiculously tiny, cute, soft spoken boy.  But he is evil.  Teachers have described him as having "his eyes rolling around in his head".  He has these ghastly knitted eye brows and this constant, dirty smirk on his face.  Case in point: the boy is supposed to write a reflecting essay for the Dean of Discipline at our school (yes, that is the title of one of our administrators).  The mother is with the student in the Dean's office.  Here is the exchange:

Dean:  "Where is your reflection essay?"
Student:  "You lost it you stupid.  forgetful.  motherfucker."  (you have to read it with the pauses in there)

62.  First of all, student, his name is Rick Astley.  Not "Rick Rolled".  Also:

63.  Conversation after school with a student:

Me:  "You are quite weird"
Student:  "Well you are weird too.  You were probably that little nerdy kid who sat in the back of the bus and got beat up by other kids."
Me:  "Touche.  But you know I meant that as a compliment.  Being weird is a good thing."
Student:  "No it's not.  I don't want doctors and lawyers to be weird pedophiles."
Me:  "What?"

64.  I swear some of my students have tourettes syndrome.  With just me in the room, one of my students walks in the room and shouts "cheese grits" in a deep, booming voice.  I skipped the obvious question of "what the hell did you say that for" and went to "so, you like eating cheese grits?"  The student responded, "wait, those are real?  I thought I made that word up."

65.  I gave two of my students detentions for being super unfocused in my class.  They are 8th graders and graduating soon, so I sat them down and had a heart to heart talk with them.  I asked them what the issue was in my class.  After 10 minutes of discussion we finally pinned down the cause: girls.  They talked for another 15 minutes about all these girls and how they have been checking them out.  My favorite quote: "Mr. Jarema, you know, we both have this major problem.  You see, we are just too good looking.  I mean, look at our faces."

66.  Just had my last music concert of the year.  My "faculty band" played instruments (flute, trumpets, hand drums) and sang with the students in my choir.  The song (I did the arrangement) was "Take Care" by Drake.  Overall a good night, but a few snafus.  While the orchestra students were playing, 2 band students  (for the record, they were not my students) were sitting on the top bleachers.  They dropped their instruments straight through the bleachers and all the way to the floor.  Also during the performance, 2 band students thundered up and down the risers  in the middle of the song.  I confronted one of the students about making all the racket while another group was performing and he blankly looked at me.  His only response, three times in a row: "But I have to go to the bathroom".

The worst was when my choir was about to go on.  I told them to walk on from the front of the stage.  All of the sudden, 4-5 girls go the opposite direction like they are going on from the back of the stage.  I look at the other students and say, "Was I unclear?"  They responded, "Oh, there is just some drama going on and they needed to take care of it".  Who the fuck lets drama issues flair up 2 seconds before you are taking the stage?  What the hell...

67.  I asked students to write an answer to this in their journal: "What musician will lose popularity in 10 years?".  A 6th grade student shared his answer for the class.  He started off by talking about Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne, etc.  But then he went on a bizarre tangent:  "I also think Easy-E is overrated.  Oh wait, I forgot he died in the year 1995.  But wait, if he is popular right now, that means I must be in the year 1995.  It appears my time travel machine worked".  He then looked up at the class with wide eyes.

68.  We took our 8th grade students on a field trip to a Holocaust museum and they acted like dicks.  One student had the audacity to put up bunny ears behind our tour guide as she was talking.  THEN, we actually got to hear a 40 minute lecture from a living Holocaust survivor IN PERSON.  She was 17 when she went to the concentration camps, so she remembered everything in detail.  She was lucid, sharp, quite funny, and a great speaker for her age.  Sadly, half of the kids fell asleep.  Even worse, one girl was slumped over in her chair with a nasty look on her face.  One of the museum staff politely asked her to sit up since, you know, there is a fucking Holocaust survivor standing right in front of your face.  The girl flipped out on her and started giving her attitude.  When you have the balls to give attitude to an adult that you don't even know.....I don't even know what to say about that.

69.  "Mr. Jarema, my ex-girlfriend is a prostitute"

Well then.

70.  An adorable little 6th grade girl wanted to take my passes that I write for students to go out into the hallway.  I asked her why and she said that she likes to "play teacher" with her little sisters.  SO FREAKING CUTE!

71.  I went out with some teachers to Olive Garden after our 8th grade graduation ceremony.  The place was packed since there were multiple school graduations happening that night.  As me and the other teachers were exiting the restaurant, the hostess was saying "Thank you for coming".  She looking directly at me and said "Congratulations".  Son of a bitch.  She thought I was a student.  8th grade class of 2012, baby.

71 (and a half).  I couldn't resist sneaking in one more story that has been bouncing around in my head.  This one didn't even happen to me, and it wasn't even from this year.  But I did have this student in my class this year (the "cheese grits" kid from number 64) and it is too good not to share.

So one of the math teachers was teaching class one day and there was a sign language interpreter in the room.  Normally the interpreters sit there and don't really interfere with anything (their only job is to sign to the deaf/hard of hearing students...contractually they aren't really allowed to get involved with much else).  But she came up to the math teacher and said, "I need to talk to you outside right now".  He said, "Can't it wait until I'm done teaching this one thing?" and she responded, "No".  So they step outside and says, "It has to do with Johnny (name changed for identity purposes).  Johnny is...well...you know".  The math teacher responds, "No, I don't know".  She says, "Johnny is pleasuring himself in class".  The teacher glances through the window into the classroom and sure enough, there is Johnny sitting in his desk.  Face beat red and a gym shirt over his nether regions.

I don't know what happened immediately after this, but it gets better.  2 months go by and Johnny is not doing well in school.  His mother is called in to an intervention meeting with the dean of discipline, the math teacher, and a few other teachers (Note that the dean of discipline and the math teacher are the only males in the room).  After discussion grades and behavior, someone brings up the incident where Johnny pleasured himself in class.  The mother says, "It's normal for Johnny to walk around the house with his hands in his pants.  He does it all the time.  I mean, that's a normal thing for guys to do right?"  She turns towards the dean and the math teacher, "We have two guys in the room here.  What do you guys think?"  The math teacher doesn't hesistate, "Ummmm......" *quickly turns to the dean of discipline* "I'm going to let the dean of discipline handle this question".  Nice move.

72.  June 4th, 2012:  The last day of school.  So this means these will be the last words of this blog post!

This year was fucking hard and I am relieved it's over.  Looking back, I had to put up with a roller coaster of stressful things this year.  But the only thing on my mind right now is goodbyes.  Last Friday it was very hard to say goodbye to my absolute favorite student of mine (the one that came in 40 minutes before school everyday to learn piano from me).  It was also hard today since the teachers had a party after school and I said my goodbyes to them.  I had a lot harder time saying goodbye to my "encore team" (the art teacher and the tech teacher) than I thought I would...and so did they.  It was a very unexpected emotional moment.

I think these two hard goodbyes demonstrate two reasons why I got into teaching: to make a small (almost invisible) impact on students and to connect with other amazing, passionate teachers.  Against a vast landscape of frustration, it is small glimpses like these that make me want to do it all over again.  Here's to next year.

AJ

P.S.

I CANNOT wait to read this shit in 10 years and laugh my ass off.



UPDATE, 9/21/12

It has been 1 month since school started at my old school (they start a little bit early).  The band director at the school (we were very close buddies) sent me a text.  They have not found a teacher to replace my position yet.  I started laughing uncontrollably when I read it.  I mean stupidly uncontrollably.  I had a surreal moment where I couldn't believe I used to teach there.  Anyways, here is the timeline that will illustrate how shockingly incompetent my old school district is:

-April:  I tell my principals I am not returning the following year.  I put in an official resignation.
-May:  My position is filled internally with another teacher within the school
-July:  The teacher is moved to another building to teach band  (which is what he wanted...good for him!)
-August:  My position is still open.  The subs begin.
-Early September:  Get a text from my teacher buddy.  "Good news:  they finally found someone to replace you today.  The bad news:  he quit at the end of today."
-A few days ago:  Get another text.  "Another one bites the dust.  Another one bits the dust.  Teacher #2 lasts 6 days."