What Was I Thinking?

I knew that I shouldn’t have posted the last entry. What the hell was I thinking? Today, I endured my worst lesson to date and I’m still smarting about it seven hours later.

I was teaching another Year 9 class. They came in and I had their attention for once. I started another lesson on databases (we are a week ahead of the other class) but there was one girl who was continually turning her screen on, despite my requests that all attention be focussed on the board – and VDU’s be switched off.

I told her to turn it off. Once. Twice. Three times. I even turned it off, but she kept on switching it on, thereby distracting others who were looking at her and the screen, as opposed to me. In the end, I’d had enough of being ignored, so I got her to stand outside the door, whilst I sent a student to get another teacher to remove her from the lesson.

The girl decided that she was going to do her best to screw up the lesson for everyone else and stood in the doorway, ceaselessly switching the classroom light on and off. She refused to move, to the extent that she wouldn’t even remove her hand from the panel and allowing me access to the switches. I had no choice but to leave the class and get help – which is not something I wanted to do.

I returned with another member of staff and she was removed, but by that time, the class was disrupted so severely that I spent the next hour trying to regain order. It was a bloody nightmare. The difficult students took advantage of the situation and acted even more obnoxiously than usual, resulting in my throwing some out. In short, that bitch – and I use the term deliberately – selfishly f****** up the lesson for every other student, so that she could get herself sent out.

I have rarely experienced such selfishness in my life and I’m furious because I know that next week, I’ll have to take her back. My mistake was that I sent her out in the first place. What I should have done was to get a teacher to remove her before she got anywhere near the door. I guess that’s what teaching experience is all about.

I’ve come home in a foul mood. To be honest, if I didn’t see another child for the next ten years, I wouldn’t mind. My poor girls have been shuffled off to bed having endured my shouting and short-temperedness. I feel bad but this evening, I am definitely anti anyone who is younger than 25.

Tomorrow, I’ll be the same old teacher – I’ll get over it. But tonight, it’s definitely a different matter.

Grrrr.