A Veritable Wasteland...

The title of this post refers to my school at 3:20. Teachers can leave then, and most do. Other than the cheerleaders that have practice right after school, the only sounds are the soft sweeping noise of the friendly custodian sweeping the monumental amounts of crumpled paper off of the floor and the metallic noise of teachers locking their doors. I have no idea when these teachers do the work they need to do to get prepared for the next day. I want to assume that being an experienced teacher makes it easy to have stuff ready to go, but my gut tells me otherwise.

Today also had the dubious distinction of being the first day of school where there was a fight. All of the students are held in the gym before school starts, and at about 7:20 I noticed to 7th graders "slap boxing" up in the corner of the gym. The cooled down quickly when they saw me and another teacher looking up there, but by 7:35 those same two students had ahold of each other's shirt collars and were wrestling up on the bleachers. Of course, this had to take place in front of the entire school. The gym erupted, prompting the two to keep up the fight as to not lose face in front of everyone. I have to admith that I froze. I saw the entire school stand up in the bleachers and start screaming. I was befuddled at the response that the kids gave to one fight between two junior high boys. Luckily, two of the football coaches sprung into action and quelled the insurgency.

Speaking of football coaches, they have been my life-savers so far. I had a discipline problem with one student, a 9th grader that will be the starting running back for the varsity football team this year. He flat-out refused to take a quiz on Wednesday. He wouldn't even take out a sheet of paper to write on. I finally coerced him to open up his notebook, but when I was grading the quizzes, his was blank except for his name. After school, I spoke with the Offensive Coordinator for the football team and explained the situation. I was a little worried because I know how big football is in the Delta, and I was a little worried that they expected me to pull some strings for their star player. But to the contrary, he was more than helpful and said he'll talk to the Head Coach and the player. Today in class, Mr. Stud 9th Grade Running Back was the first one to raise his hand to answer questions, and even volunteered to pick up everybody's journals. Apparently the way to an athlete's brain is through the tough discipline of the football coach!