Memos from the command post.

Substitute teacher by day,
Kohl's associate by night,
nerd by trade, sardonic by choice.
Education, Simpsons, Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, history, menswear, cute girls, food love, beards, and incessant rants.

  1. So a student handed me this today when I was collecting their work at the end of the period. I had students try to talk and sleep through the class period, give me all kinds of attitude, not do their work, throw things at each other, hit and shove each other, curse like I wasn’t going to hear them, and I even ended up with a note a girl was passing about her wanting to cut herself but her parents took her knives. But the artwork pictured above is the worst thing I’ve dealt with possibly ever as a substitute.  I taught several classes of what I call the Future Criminals of America. These students do not care.  At all.  About anything.  They act as if there is no teacher in the room: cursing, goofing off, and doing whatever they want.  Detention, a write up, a trip to the principal’s office, expulsion.  None of these students would flinch at any of that.  The school and their teachers have given up and I don’t blame them.  I would have failed them out of my class by now.  I do not care how unteacherly that sounds because it is the truth.  How? What do I do to get these creatures to not be a group of savages for the 40 minutes I deal with them a day?

    So a student handed me this today when I was collecting their work at the end of the period.

    I had students try to talk and sleep through the class period, give me all kinds of attitude, not do their work, throw things at each other, hit and shove each other, curse like I wasn’t going to hear them, and I even ended up with a note a girl was passing about her wanting to cut herself but her parents took her knives. But the artwork pictured above is the worst thing I’ve dealt with possibly ever as a substitute. 

    I taught several classes of what I call the Future Criminals of America.

    These students do not care.  At all.  About anything.  They act as if there is no teacher in the room: cursing, goofing off, and doing whatever they want.  Detention, a write up, a trip to the principal’s office, expulsion.  None of these students would flinch at any of that.  The school and their teachers have given up and I don’t blame them.  I would have failed them out of my class by now.  I do not care how unteacherly that sounds because it is the truth. 

    How? What do I do to get these creatures to not be a group of savages for the 40 minutes I deal with them a day?