The Worst of the Worst: Junior High

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 junior high edition!

3 Strikes. You're Out!

There used to be a junior high in my district that had such a rough student body that if a substitute sent a student to the office, it was an automatic suspension. I'd been at this junior high several times before this, so I knew this rule and rarely sent students out because of it. But sometimes, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
Normally, for junior high and high school, you get a new set of students every hour. This class, however, had the same students for all but one hour. It was for English language learners, which I'm sure was why they had them all there for the whole day. In the several hours I had this group of kids, I saw very few students put any effort into their work and some other students helping themselves to those students' work. I also saw students try to steal hall passes from off the teachers desk. I used one such hall pass to send one such student to the office. This student said something to me in Spanish, which another student translated, "She said that if she goes to the office one more time, she can't come to this school anymore." I still sent her, because she had had her warning and if she wanted to waste her last chance that they gave her, she would face the consequences.
She came back to the class later that day, which I don't think is typical of students who have been suspended or expelled. Fortunately, I had had my suspicions that she hid out in the bathroom instead of going to the office. So, I gave the office staff her name on my lunch break.
My suspicions were confirmed when the vice principal called this girl outside to talk and she came back crying. In the eyes of this girl and her classmates, I was the bad guy (and other choice words that won't be repeated). Well, when the bell rang, we all went our separate ways and I was happy to be away from these kids.

2 + 3 = Leave

This class is more fresh in my mind, I must admit. This was initially the first 3 days of this semester. Then, it expanded to the whole week. Then I had them again twice the next week. And again the next. And then twice more the following week. That's a total of 10 school days with these kids over a period of 4 weeks. In that 4th week, I thought to myself, "You know what? I don't need to keep taking this class." I was kind of in the mindset that I know the subject (math) very well, and I was the only sub who would be able to do it. Then I thought, "You think too highly of yourself, child. Plus, you want to teach elementary. Do that, dummy!"
But why was this class so horrible? Two words: 3rd hour. There were entirely too many students in this class that didn't give a crap about their grades. It wore on me day after day standing in front of the class, telling them how to do the problems, showing them the proper stops to solve for the variable, all the while these yahoos darlings wouldn't stop talking or throwing paper or drawing or <insert method of not paying attention here>. I would even call on them to do a problem. "I don't know how to do it." "Why not?" "Because I'm not paying attention." You can imagine my sympathy when it came time for a quiz or test and they didn't know how to do it.
The kicker came one day when we were in the computer lab, doing an online quiz. Some students kept playing around still, doing the wrong quiz (which they were not getting credit for), sitting in the wrong seat, and some even turned off other students' computers. That day I sent 5 students to the office, a personal record for me. I was through with them. And get this: a couple of them refused to go! As if they were not going to get in trouble if they stayed, as if it wouldn't be more harmful to them to have to have security come and get them. I never did find out what happened to them, but the office definitely heard that they screwed around in the computer lab and didn't go when I asked/ordered them to.
Oh, yeah, that was just one day. There were plenty of days where multiple students were sent out of the classroom for various reasons. One for ripping his test apart. And then, when he got to the other room, he did the same thing. I don't understand these students' form of protest. It does not hurt the teacher in any way when you screw around and fail because of it. If you hate the class so much, why are you choosing to take it again?
Well, no one ever accused these kids of being the sharpest crayons in the shed.

Class dismissed!