Currently I am at work. I have three seventh graders and one high school senior today in ISS. For those of you who are not up on educational jargon ISS is an acronym for In School Suspension. ISS is for students who commit minor offenses…school-type misdemeanors and are sent to a study-hall for an entire day. Technically they are not supposed to do anything but school-work. That’s the theory at any rate. Since most of the kids that come my way tend to be emotionally and mentally damaged sorts I often bend the rules and allow for limited conversation at irregular intervals. (It saves me from having to scrape the hyper ones off the walls by seventh period.)
Right now I am writing this in a desperate bid to maintain a calm demeanor. Inside I am a seething mass of annoyed.
My seventh graders are the three most challenged kids I have met in a while. (And for those of you who know about where I used to work that’s saying a lot!) One is a very angry, cross-eyed young man who cannot sit still and wants to argue about the color of the sky. The other is a tow-headed, smart-as-a-tack fella who also is constantly stoned at school. In all my years working with kids I have NEVER met a kid who was so burned out at such a young age.
Tow-head came in today yelling, “I’m ready to party like a rock star!”
The third middle-schooler breathes through his mouth, stares at me, talks in a whisper, doesn’t smell so fresh, and often says things that really do not make a heckuva lot of sense. I hate to admit it, but he scares me a little bit.
A moment ago mouth-breather, looked up and said to me, “Pirates of the Caribbean!” (The last time I checked he was working on math so that didn’t make much sense.)
“Pardon?”
“Pirates of the Carribean movies he says, ‘No fair’.”
Huh, Who says what now? “You must like those movies.”
“Yes Orlando Bloom was in it and Lord of the Rings.”
“That’s true. He’s a good actor.
“I need to see my teacher. I need to leave. I need to get a drink.”
I have since told him he is not allowed to leave the room. He is now writing frantically. At least I think he is writing…he may just be slashing the paper with his pen-tip. Wow. This kid is about four inches taller and about fifty pounds heavier than me. Pray that I make it.
Gotta go the cross-eyed one (who refuses to say my name because as he admitted to me hours ago he just doesn’t feel like it) just bellowed, “Hey ISS Lady!”
I love my job. I love my job. I love my job.
Only one hour and ten minutes to go.
I love it! If it makes you feel better, there was one day that I was subbing, and inadvertently answered to, “Hey, Baby.” I turned beet red when that male student said he couldn’t believe that I had just responded to “Hey, Baby.” After that day the kid hit on my constantly saying he was my new man and stalked me throughout the classroom. I wish I would have been hearing, “Hey ISS lady!”
Well, it still sounds like a day being ISS Lady beats wrestling yowling cats trying to claw their way up your head on the way to the treatment room for a blood draw or crouching behind dogs on a -30 day to get a urine sample that freezes before you get to the back door.
You forgot bottling fecal samples that look and smell like egg foo young. Ah the vet clinic life…I still contend…one of the few jobs I ever had (out of a long list of possible career-types) that it was permissible to discuss feces ad infinitum & ad nauseum. Love it!