today

Ah, the joys of teaching. I teach in a portable, which isn't really that bad. I get to control the temperature in the room and we have windows, which isn't a luxury that every class in the building has. You can feel a little closed off from the rest of the staff and the copy room is about a million miles away, but other than that, it's not that bad. The worst part is that my room is right next door to my co-workers; a door separates them so we can visit each other if we need to. The walls are not that thick, so if one of our classes gets rowdy, the other class can hear it. This usually isn't a problem because even when I have a super rowdy class, hers are equally so and they block out each other.

Today, my co-worker had a sub. The day went fine until the last period of the day. My class was behaving very well (one of my favorite classes) and trying to work. The class next door kept banging on the wall, making all sorts of noise. They were also yelling and evidently not doing their work. My class was so frustrated that a couple of the boys got up to go over to the door to go into the class to say something. I had to threaten them with detention to divert them, even though I secretly would have loved to see it. I handed out a quiz and my students were having great difficulty concentrating because of all the noise. Finally, I opened the door and told the other class that their behavior was unacceptable and that their teacher would hear about it. I shut the door and as I did so, one of the students yelled "f* you!" at me. I'm used to the cursing by now, but this is the first time that someone has so openly directed at me. Legally, I can even press charges and the punk will have to pay a $175 fine. I'm thinking about doing it...Anyways, my class continued to get upset by the other class' behavior, making comments like, "Miss K, you're getting punked by that class!" and "I'm going to turn hulk on that class!" I felt bad for them but at the same time it made me feel really good because my kids didn't like that fact that I was getting treated badly. They love me:)!

I can't wait to talk to their teacher tomorrow...