The Worst of the Worst: High School

Now that I'm quasi-full-time at this one school, I wanted to look back at all the classes that I've had the misfortune of teaching over the past 2.5 years. These are the stories of the worst classes I've had to deal with and how I dealt with them. There's a series with 2 in each grade level (high school, junior high, elementary). Enjoy the high school edition!

Welcome to Hell High

Once upon a time, there was a high school math teacher that was getting ready to retire. He had decided that in his last semester teaching, he would use up all of his vacation days. So every other Friday, his classes would have a substitute.
One of those Fridays, they had me. He had left busy work for the kids, a tactic that I hate which I have seen many teachers use.
When I passed out the busy work, nobody did it. They didn't even pretend. They just sat and chatted as if they had a free period. They even had their phones out. One student told me, "He let's us use our phones as calculators. He knows we're texting, but he doesn't care." So that told me what I was dealing with.
The real kicker for this day was my last hour. There was a student in this class period who was in an earlier class as an aide. It's funny, because aide is a synonym for help. This girl was the least helpful aide I have ever encountered in my life. Usually, when I have an aide and don't really have anything for them to do, they play on their phones or do homework or something that doesn't distract other students. This girl sat and talked with other students the whole hour. As an aide. And now, the last hour of the day, she came back.
And ya know what? She wanted to do the same thing. I told her that she needed to stop talking and go to her seat (which was on the complete opposite side of the room than where she was). After I told her several times, she sighed heavily and said, very loudly, "F--- my life!" I was very happy to send her out of the room.
Later, as I tried in vain to get people to work, one student pulls out his phone and starts playing music. Twice. There was zero accountability for anybody in this class, and when the final bell rang, I was so ready to be done with this class. I'm glad that that teacher retired and no more kids have to "suffer" through that.

Second Chance

I remember my pastor once saying that Christians get it wrong when we say that God gives us a second chance. That's because it's human nature for us to take our second chance and screw it up as we did our first. This class reminded me of that.
This particular school is what I call a Second Chance School, for the kids who dropped out/were kicked out of their old schools. And it was evident. One of my best students of the day came in late because he was taking care of his child. Noble.
Other students... not so much. Everything in this school was done on the computer. And it was self-paced. So very few student actually did any of their work. The pace that they chose for themselves was to circumvent the filter and watch youtube videos of people fighting in the streets. And there was nothing I could do about anything. I couldn't even send kids to another room or to the office. I was essentially in the class because a certified adult legally had to be there.
Legality only mattered to the school, however, considering that one of my student was mad at me because I was waking her up. It was insensitive of me to expect her to stay awake when she had a hangover to recover from. I'm such a jerk.
This school actually has the distinction of scaring me away not only from the class, but the school altogether. Good job class!

Class soooooooo dismissed!