12 Times It's Been Worse

The saddest toddler in the world.

I am in my fifth year of teaching middle school English at a Title I school, and, for the most part, the skies are sunny. I have classroom management in the bag. Lesson planning is almost second nature. I can write a test in 30 minutes that is better and harder than the one that the state gives. It's the 7th week of school and I haven't had to refill my pencil cup yet. Things are pretty boss.

That being said, I still have days that make me want to sit under my desk and weep and never come out (it's usually during DEVOLSON).

When those days happen, I usually resort to thumbing through my Happy Binder where I keep old letters/drawings from students, putting "Chocolate" by The 1975 on Pandora, or getting a s'mores cupcake from a local bakery on my way home from work and eating it in about 2.43 bites.

But when that doesn't work, I think about the 12 Times It's Been Worse.

12 Times It's Been Worse

1) The time I was talking to my appraiser and a huge, flaky booger floated out of my nose like an autumn leaf and landed on my shoulder. I was wearing a dark turtleneck. He definitely noticed and stared at it for the rest of our conversation.

2) The time I had a student vomit in the doorway right before my students were dismissed for a pep rally. I had to spot thirty middle schoolers as they long-jumped over a pile of barf.

3) The time I bought a new shirt, wore it to school on Monday, dripped pizza sauce on it at lunch, then applied a Tide To-Go pen to it. Except it wasn't a Tide To-Go pen. It was White Out. And it never came out.

4)  The time my former principal made me write her essays for her to get into an Ivy League principal's institute and I did it because I was too afraid to tell her no. (She got in.)

5) The time during my first year when I took two students in the hall to talk about respect and they laughed at me, so I cried RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM. (They kept laughing.)

6) The time I thought I had just had a breakthrough with a student just before he flipped over his desk and stormed out of the room.

7) The time I was teaching and hundreds of termites started flying out of a hole in the wall.

8) The times (plural) I had a substitute show up who was clearly hung over.

9) The time my students duct-taped each other to chairs when my substitute didn't show up.

10) The time a hot, boiled roach floated to the top of my cup of coffee from my school Keurig. (I noticed this before taking a sip, ergo, God exists and He loves me.)

11) The time my phone went off during an observation from my supervisor while I was student teaching. It was my mom calling. And I'd set her ringtone to "99 Problems." Because there was/is something wrong with my head.

12) 95% of my first year. And 75% of my second.

But you know something? As bad as my bad days have been, I've still never had a kid poop on my desk. That happened to someone I know in Washington D.C.

He teaches high school.

Bye now.

Love,

Teach