Yo Teach

I started a new teaching job last week, and it's been rough.

Not just The Kids Like Klimt Better Than Ernst, How Do I Get Them Interested In Ernst rough. The Kids Have Never Had An Art Class in their Lives rough. The Kids Are Sick of Being In School With No Breaks Except for A Half Hour Feeding Period rough. The Kids Think They're Stupid and So Does Everyone Outside of Their Immediate Neighborhood rough. The...the emphatically capitalized letters could go on.

There's only so much taking shit from 7th graders on the chin you can do without feeling something internal start to twist or crack. Today and last week have been a test, of what I am not sure. I knew this would be an "intense" bunch but didn't realize how much threatening, promising, cajoling and handclapping would have to be done to gain even the most pathetic purchase on the 7th/8th grade psychological stomping ground. I'm not a teacher. I'm a candy-briber. Detention-taunter. Square.

It's a wholly bizarre experience to be the authority figure to a group of people who were born when you were in 6th grade. Also: to help said people with math. I'm very far from them in age and maturity, but not so far that the girls shy away from touching my clothes and snatching my tattooed wrists, asqueal with delight at the fashion options available to them once they get out of junior high. The boys ask if I'm romantically involved with virtually any male teacher over the age of 35 (the mean age of most of them), which actually isn't as outlandish as it seems in the moment.

Still, my name gets forgotten. I'm not one of them, not in age or race or style. I'm called Miss...Miss...Mrs...Uh....or Teacher. I had to swallow my giggles when I heard my first Yo Teach, and my bile when called Mrs Lady Person.

Not all of this is completely new, but this time I'm catching a whole new group and dynamic at a time when they would rather do anything but stumble through the next set of algebra problems or Outsiders chapter. They're tired, they're annoyed, they're disheartened, and the scary part is they have every reason to be. These are the kids my friends are afraid of, even though they're sweethearts and nerds and goofs. These are the kids that will grow up hard, either slow or all of a sudden.

These are the kids it's EASY to call stupid, mean, jerks, little shits.

They're not, and I know they're not, but in the middle of getting conspired against and lied to and tricked and begged for candy and sneered at for ruling with a soft lead fist the stuff you know darkens in the bright light of the swift, mean, blinding part of you. Because it's easy then. Because fates were already sealed, far before you arrived on the scene.

So I buy the candy and I do the work and I calm the shrill in my voice. Smooth the hipster librarian sweater out and focus on three things:

1)The good true part
2)What I can do
3)the compliment Juan gave me on my brooch.