Nothing gets me more excited than looking back at the first couple of years in my school. I was so full of optimism and hope. It was kinda cute. Much like any other teacher, the years have beat me down and made me much less optimistic. Hell, if I still had any optimism in me, I wouldn’t be writing this.

When I first started teaching, I arrived at my school as a permanent sub. I had a full roster of kids, my own classes and everything else a regular teacher would have. But what I didn’t have was a full time salary or full time benefits and come to look back, I didn’t have the full time respect either.

I found myself at one point being put into science classes as the special ed teacher because that’s where the only position was that needed to be filled. That one semester taught me a lot about teaching. I was split up between 3 biology classes and 2 earth science classes.

I’ll keep my story about the biology classes short. I could probably write about that on its own. That teacher could command the fuck out of that room. Did the kids like the class? Fuck no. Did the kids have the fear of God placed in them? More than I have ever seen before. I’ll never forget, only three students ever disrespected her. One wound up in jail, no shock. Another went out of state because he became a giant asshole and his mom was ready to beat the taste out of his mouth. The other? Well I never really found out what happened to him. I’m glad about that, he was the worst student I ever encountered. But that teacher had more classroom management than any other person in that building. She was like Mussolini making sure the trains ran on time.

Once my three classes of bio were over, my day would get incrementally worse. Down the hallway, I’d go worry about Earth Science.

Listen, it’s a boring subject of you’re not interested in science. But this teacher made a tough class even worse. She was the opposite of Mussolini, she had absolutely no classroom management skills. She had no idea what was going on because she’s blind and deaf. Her eyes are as milky as a used bowl of cereal. She’s like a blind dog that runs into walls and barks at the floor. As far as her hearing is concerned, you don’t have to worry about talking about her when she’s in earshot. She ain’t hearing you unless you’re one of the many voices in her head.

I knew the moment I introduced myself to her, that she had no use for me. As far as I was concerned, I had to use for her either. I was there to make sure the students learned. I was there to help and she was going to make that insanely difficult.

On the first day of classes, she explained that the class was Earth Science and then she began teaching. She was so hard to follow that it was halfway through the period before anyone realized that she was even teaching. She prided herself on getting through the entire curriculum by the end of the year. She was not about to let the students get in her way. If a student didn’t understand it? Tough shit, next time don’t be so stupid.

I will admit, that I was new to the world of teaching and definitely didn’t know a whole lot. But I knew what I wanted to bring to the classroom and make sure that these students got as much out of the curriculum as this blind bat gave. She was immediately dismissive of everything that I would suggest. One day, there was a topic that was taught so poorly that no one, including me, understood. I suggested that we circle back the following day and make sure that everyone understands. She tore into me so bad, you would have thought I just told her that her mother enjoyed anal. I quickly realized that I was not going to get through and dropped the subject. She continued yelling at me and I hopped the elevator and went to find my friends. When I got in the elevator, she was still yelling.

Her interpretation of classroom management was yelling non-stop, which did more harm than good. Most students had been yelled at so much that they simply tuned out. Others stopped showing up entirely. One day I saw half the class in the halls throughout the school day, but they didn’t make it to class. I quietly excused myself and walked down to the cafeteria. They were all sitting in the corner, hoping to not be seen. I corralled them together like cattle and brought them back to class. What I explained to them was that if I had to be there, so did they. They sheepishly went back to class and sulked I. The chair upon arrival.

Our broken marriage came to a halt when she told me that I should just let her run the classroom. I should just work with “my students” and let her be the boss. What she meant was that I should only work with the special ed students and leave everyone else to her. That’s where Job be damned, I wasn’t letting no Ghost of Christmas Past tell me what to do. If this was it took to stay at this school, I didn’t want the job. I explained her her that she can’t talk to me like that and the class was our students. I told her that the best way to run this ass backwards classroom was to have us be equals, which she quickly shot down. She started yelling at me again and I had already had enough. I barked back that not everyone reacts to be being yelled at and that I sure as shit wasn’t and stormed out. I saw several important people in my path and quickly stated that I won’t take her yelling at me like I’m her child. Long story short, we were hauled into the union chapter leader’s office and told to get over it and finish the year.

This is a teacher that has marked students absent because they have been tying their shoes and were bent over. She’s outwardly admitted that she “has too many students to learn everyone’s names.” She has been known to put all the students of color at the same table. She continually loses the work of students and makes up grades on the fly.

Another one of my favorite yarn’s from this idiot was when she explained that she used to be a systems analyst for a bank. What bank would hire her, I have no idea. But something tells me she was lying because any systems analyst from any decade would be able to use a laptop or at least Microsoft Word. When I walked in to her classroom, she was using a laptop from 2002. I’m. Not. Kidding. She wanted to know how to defragment the hard drive on her computer. That’s fair, it should be done every so often. But instead of asking for help, she began lecturing me on how hard drive’s work. By the time she explained what a hard drive was, not only was I done finding where the setting was, but the computer had finished the process.

This living fossil just has a knack of talking down to everyone and everything. Now that I know longer work with her, I wish her nothing but misery. I‘m convinced that she died 8 years ago and no one has had the decency to tell her. When it finally catches up with her and they put her 6 feet under, I’ll be there with balloons and a smile.