Nine

I'm too nice to be a teacher. That's the consensus of my classes. I need to be more strict.
One of my students has told me that I need to be more strict with him or else he doesn't learn. He recognises that he loses focus on his learning and, rather than use this self-acknowledgement as a tool for becoming greater than he is, he turns it around and claims I'm not strict enough with him.

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In one of my classes I have a group of students that live in Camp Learning Difficulty. Lovely kids, when treated as individuals and disassociated with the classroom. Together, their group focus floats on the breeze like a damaged autumnal leaf, ready to dip and fall at the slightest trembling of thunder.

Thunder storms often.

Five times out of eight I have this class in Period 5 or 6, after lunch in a six period day. Five times out of eight at least one of the kids has gotten into trouble earlier on in the day and causes havoc in this class. Dealing with shit I didn't cause? Love it!

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"Sir! Sir! He's got my pen!"
- So?

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One of the girls in one of my classes gets terribly upset when she forces me to tell her that she's done something completely wrong because she jumps into the 'assume' basket. Chances are if I give you a project full of activities to complete, and three weeks to complete them, I'm going to explain the requirements of each and we're going to work through it as a class, over the next three weeks, so that you can give me something worthwhile. Telling me that you're going to finish it by the weekend doesn't endear you.

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A (hopefully) small part of my brain still functions like a giggling moron. When kids walk into the class and, rather than get books out, ask, "What are we doing today?", I silently answer, "Your mum."

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I regularly rearrange my classroom because I get bored. Every time I do it, kids wander in groaning, "Sir!? Did you change the desks around?"
Every single time, I answer, "No, it was like this when I got here. No idea why, but we don't have time to change it back. Books out!"

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Every time I teach a kid named Josh, I tell them that every Josh I've ever known has been a troublemaker. It gives them all such glee to point out that I'm also a Josh, thus I must be a troublemaker. Clearly. Then everyone thinks about it and realises that every Josh they have ever met has been a troublemaker.

I could probably do it with a name I picked out of a hat and kids would find some way to agree with me.

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I miss having intelligent conversations with others at school. Maternity leave positions are awful. Other teachers see you as a gypsy, students are mortified to learn you'll be leaving at some point and they get the other teacher back. The other teacher who turned into a monster in the process of giving birth.

You never get the good classes, with the good kids, because you'll be leaving anyway and they don't want the smart ones to be 'messed up' by a tinker.

I still have teachers I have never spoken a word to because every time I see them they blinker up and walk right past. Classy.

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I still wake up every morning wondering why we left a permanent position at a fantastic school (with creative foibles) to move back to bloody-hell-everything's-bloody-expensive-and-all-the-people-are-frazzled-jerks-Sydney, but then I see my five-and-a-half month old daughter playing with her cousins and realise that things could be worse.