Teacher Conspiracy

The previously untold stories of high school teaching that explain why alcohol is a great choice of weekend (and sometimes weekday) companion and also the stories that make it all worth it. 

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New year, new school, new classroom (ahem trailer). In one week, kids will return and so will their stories. I've been informed by my new colleagues that there is no shortage of weirdness from these guys, so cheers to another 180 days of insanity!

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Fluorine uranium carbon potassium bismuth technetium helium sulfur germanium thulium oxygen neon yttrium.

Dollar dollar bills, ya'll (but only single dollar bills 'cause teachers don't get paid that much).

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How many detentions do you issue per year on average?

I've never actually given detention, but I've written a handful of administrator referrals. I generally don't have that many behavior issues.

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what would happen if someone told the school you work at about this blog? would you have to take it down?

Seeing as I haven't mentioned any names or the name of the school I even work at, probably not.

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in this house we get Hard For Science

Hard as wurtzite boron nitride.

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where do we get the list of education-related applications for mobile phones?

The app store? Which ones are you looking for?

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can’t you get in a lot of trouble for posting about students? i’m pretty sure you can get fired for that...

As long as no names or clear identifiable pictures are put up, there's no issue.

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have you ever had a crush on a student?

Definitely not.

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how would you handle one of your students having a crush on you?

Ignore it. If it becomes a problem, then it should be reported to an administrator for them to handle.

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Pardon the blank walls as I pack up my classroom, but lemme just brag about these kids. I told them they have a quiz today and that they had a certain amount of time to study. You know how they chose to spend that time? One of them got up, pulled out one of their practice sheets, and started walking the whole class through how to do the problems and the logic behind them. (Let me make sure you all know, I didn’t tell them to do this at all, it was all on their own.) The rest of the kids were 100% focused and asking questions and everything (except for the one girl watching Supernatural on her tablet, but I don’t blame her. Supernatural is life). It was beautiful. These kids give me a little bit of hope for our futures. *Also enjoy my two tiny Bill Ciphers that sit on my desk.

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NO, FOR REAL, THIS IS HOW IT IS. 

Send a fucking email, quit wasting my time that I could be using to do nothing productive. 

And also fuck that one teacher that always asks questions. You know who you are. 

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It’s not just students that are ready for the end of the year. 

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The Truth Behind Movie Day

Everyone loves movie days in school. The days when the teacher lets you sit in the dark with something playing that requires absolutely no mental power. Especially on Mondays or Fridays. 

Well, now that I’m a teacher, I have learned what it actually means to have a movie day: it means that the teacher is so fucking hungover that they can’t even function (or they’re still trying to get over whatever weekend debauchery went down). 

Obviously this isn’t true for every teacher on every movie day, but it sure as hell is true for 95% of all the movie days that I’ve had. 

Most of my kids have caught on by now (when I come in with a baggy hoodie and sunglasses on, I don’t even have to say out loud whats going on). 

Hate all you want, but it happens. Teacher get fucked up, too. 

And with that in mind, I’m going to keep showing movies all day. 

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A Wild Possum Chase

Here’s one from when I was a junior in high school: 

My high school was a weird mix of a little bit suburban and a lot bit rural; you’d have the preppy kids wearing Polo and Sperry one day but come in the next wearing plaid and cowboy boots (real working ones, not the cheap fashionable ones). 

What a few seniors brought to school one calm, spring day really cemented in the fact that no amount uppity, expensive clothes could ever hide how down-right redneck we really were. 

They brought a fucking possum. 

But wait, there’s more. They didn’t just BRING the possum, they even let that little bastard loose in the bus lanes during dismissal. 

It was hilarious to watch from a distance: the administrators in their nice slacks and ironed button-ups running around after a possum. And that possum didn’t make it easy for them, either. 

It would run in between students, bolt under the buses, and loop around constantly, leading the adults in a never-ending chase while all the teenagers were dying of laughter and taking pictures/videos (I wasn’t one of them, my introverted ass went home). 

I’m not sure who actually brought the possum or why (it wasn’t for a senior prank, that much I know), but I did hear that they found a truck in the parking lot with a wild animal trap in the bed, leading everyone to believe it wasn’t just some random possum that had the unfortunate luck to wander onto a busy high school campus. 

Sometimes I still wonder what happened to that possum. 

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Try-Outs for the WWE

Rumors are great, aren’t they? Stories that may or may not (usually not) be true. Too bad they normally get everyone involved into trouble they are never prepared to deal with. 

There was one rumor (actually, there were two or three) surrounding two girls. Let’s just call them Girl 1 and Girl 2, for convenience sake. 

I’m not sure which rumor was true, if any of them, but I do know it resulted in Girl 1 dropping a “diss track” about Girl 2. 

Fast forward a couple days to a Friday afternoon in gym class when things come to a head: Girls 1 and 2 start arguing until Girl 1 shoves Girl 2. Girl 2 walks off, sits down, pulls out a book, and proceeds to ignore Girl 1. 

Girl 1 does not take too kindly to this. 

Girl 1 takes a lap around the gym, her friends start hyping her up even more, she ties her hair up, she’s ready to go. 

When Girl 1 makes it back around to Girl 2 and proclaims, “Get up and fight me, bitch.”

I have to give it up to Girl 2 with her deadpan response of, “This book is fucking great.”

You can imagine how well that went over. 

Girl 1 starts beating on Girl 2 (who had remained seated the entire time). They trade blows (attempted blows on Girl 2′s part) for a bit before Girl 1 gets Girl 2 on her stomach, gets on her back, and pulls her into a choke hold. 

The entire time, other students are filming this on their phones and cheering them on (did you expect anything else?). 

The students eventually break it up before any of the coaches see or get involved (the layout of the gym makes it very easy for these things to happen). 

It takes another week before the school resource officer sees the video of the fight and call the girls in. 

There are only two things that I know that happened after the fight: 

1. Girl 1 is now in alternative school (after the administrators debated charging her for attempted murder).

2. Girl 2 posted on Snapchat a little while after the videos of the fight circulated saying, “Little does she know, I like being choked.” 

As getting the last word in goes, that one is pretty damn funny. 

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It’s a Chris Pine

Christmas is a special time of year where we all get together, spread peace and love, and decorate to show off our holiday spirit. 

My classroom took the last one to a new and weird level. 

I have a little 4 foot, white, light-up Christmas tree from when I was younger (and it still miraculously works) and was asked to bring it in by my students so they could decorate it. 

Seems innocent enough, right? Wrong. 

At some point it became an unspoken thing for them to fill the tree up will the strangest items they could find. 

Here’s a list of what became an “ornament”:

An empty bottle

An empty chip bag

Balled up pieces of tape

A white balloon that had once been inflated but then deflated to the point of looking like a used condom

Pens

Another balloon that was drawn on to look like the Lego Joker (it was nice until it deflated, then it got sad)

Several naked Barbie dolls

And a picture of Chris Pine in an attempt to recreate the “Chris Pine Tree” vine 

To make it even more “festive” they made some (too many) paper snowflakes and hung them from the ceiling. 

That one corner of my classroom looked like a demented, arts and crafts gone wrong, Winter Wonder Land Fill. One of the administrators took a single look at it and quickly walked the other way. 

But hey, it was fun watching them get so excited over it. My only regret is not having gotten pictures of it to share.  

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The School Shooting that Never Happened

Social skills are an integral part of life and are necessary to have in order to interact with others within to the unique and intelligent species known as Homo sapiens.

Unfortunately for one boy, not having proper (or appropriate) social skills can lead to undesirable situations such as being accused of planning to shoot up a school.

Let’s rewind a bit: I’ve known the boy serving as the main character for this story for a couple years, now. He’s always been a bit off, not quite fitting in, but he’s made some friends (at least, what I assume are his friends). 

A month or two ago, he’s sitting with his maybe-friends at lunch, talking shit like teenagers do. At one point, the guys of the table dare our unfortunate weirdo to go up to a girl and call her “Thunder Tits.”

A month passes of the other boys trying to pressure him to go say it before he gives in. 

Now, most of you might be thinking something along the lines of, “Okay, so he said it then got yelled at, everything went back to normal.” 

No. 

What actually happened was that our not-so-socially-skilled protagonist went up to his would-be target and started apologizing to her and her friends about what he would be doing the next day. 

Naturally, everyone got a little worried. 

“What do you mean? What are you going to do? Whats going to happen?” These are all questions asked by the girl and her friends. The only response given was, “You’ll find out tomorrow.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but if that were me, I’d be pretty worried. Those girls were definitely worried. 

By the next day, most of the school had heard that our awkward bastard had been saying shady things and were highly concerned (freaking out) about what was about to go down. 

At the same time, two boys unrelated to the drama decided that that particular day would be the best day to pull the fire alarm. 

I should also mention that this fire alarm was pulled the same week as the Florida school shooting in February. For those of you not aware, a pulled fire alarm was exactly how that school shooting started. 

Everyone started freaking out, screaming about how we were next and how we were all being herded to our deaths. When we made it outside, there were cops pulling in and positioning themselves around the school.

Not encouraging. 

Nothing happened while were awaiting our inevitable ends outside and eventually returned to the building and continued our day. 

Our little weirdo from before was pulled into the front office and questioned. 

It didn’t take long for the full story to circulate around the school: there was never a plan to shoot up the building, just an awkward kid that didn’t know how to talk to people. 

And what about the boys who actually DID pull the fire alarm? They ran off into the woods. Not sure if they were ever caught, though.