A long, long time ago (okay, not so long ago. honestly, it was about a year ago), I was an elementary school teacher in a far away land known as the South Bronx. In a moment of rash, mid-twenties angst, I had enlisted in a program designed to pluck lily-white college grads from cushy entry-level corporate jobs and plop them down in some of the worst schools in the worst neighborhoods in New York City. We were equipped with some basic tools during a quickie 6-week prep course, then cut loose to inflict our new "teaching" skills upon thousands of unsuspecting NYC school children. For me, what ensued was two consecutive years of hell, from which I only received brief moments of respite. I wrote a blog about one of these moments shortly after it happened:
I'm on a sweet 11 day Spring Break. My plans include lowering the bar of slothfulness, and... yeah, right now that's my only plan. When I go back to P.S. 666, I'll only have 2 months left in my sentence, er, contract. That's pretty frickin' awesome. So, here's the latest updates from the trenches:
* The Slap Heard Round the Classroom: There's this terrible kindergarten class. And by terrible, I mean if Satan himself walked into the classroom as a sub, he'd be all like, "Oh, f*ck this" in like five minutes. You have to see them in action to fully appreciate it. One incident from this class I can put into words. There was this one kid (who's since been removed from the school) who was one of the ringleaders. He cursed like a sailor, defied all authority, and basically had the run of the classroom. I was in the room one day, reading the class a story. Little Future Inmate was doing his usual routine - running laps around the room, occassionally stopping to strike another kid. Finally, I got sick of it. I caught him, carried his naughty little butt to a wee chair (remember how wee all the furniture was in kindergarten?), plopped it down, and began to tear him a new one. Somewhere in the middle of my detailed explanation of what he could expect from prison life, I saw the little hand. Before I knew what was happening, I felt the slap. The little sh!t had smacked me across the mouth! I was stunned. I sat gaping like a fish for a couple of seconds, trying to comprehend what had just happened. I looked at him. He looked back at me. Then he took off running. I regained my senses enough to shout after him, "That right! You better run! And you had better PRAY TO GOD that I never catch you because when I do, I will be on you like white on rice! Do you understand me? Like WHITE ON RICE!"
* The kids aren't all bad all the time. Sometimes they're pretty funny. In addition to routinely mispronouncing (the whole one syllable of) my last name, or calling me Miss White because...I'm white, they say some pretty funny stuff. My recent favorite was when I had some kindergarteners painting. I went over to one kid, looked at his painting, and (realizing that it was a person) said, "That's nice! Who is that a picture of?" He looked up at me and said, "It's you, Miss S! You're Jackie Chan!" Awwwwesome.
The weather's getting warmer, so the kids will be nuts for the next two months. I'm in the process of looking for a job for next year, so if anyone knows of a school that's hiring an art and/or theater teacher (and/or Jackie Chan look-alike), drop me a line! Over and out.
So there you have it - one of the few shining moments I experienced during 2 years of misery, and the genesis for my title. And if you don't like it, take this:
