WARNING RANTY VENTING POST AHEAD

 

 Alright. That's it. I have had it up to HERE with this school. My elementary school has got to be one of the most ridiculous places on the PLANET. I am absolutely sick of this! "Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh," I am sure you are saying to yourselves, "here he goes again! Whine whine whine, bitch bitch bitch. At least you have a job, loser!"

WHATEVER DO NOT GUILT ME OUT OF MY FEELINGS.

Let me tell you what's been going on since school started up again a couple weeks ago. I was looking forward to this semester; I had been promised fewer afterschool classes to teach, and I would not be teaching the youngest students (grade 1 and 2). I was excited! I thought, "Man! I've got this teaching thing down! I think this is gonna be a good semester!"

And then, to borrow a line from Julia Sweeney, God said "Ha!"

I got my schedule for this semester last Friday. This semester, I will actually be getting paid overtime, which is definitely a plus. But the work I am doing for this over time makes me want to kill myself. Or more accurately, it makes me want to kill this school. I have to teach 11 after school classes - up from seven last semester - four of which consist PRIMARILY of 1st and 2nd graders. Remember? The ones I wasn't going to have to teach this semester?

JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL.

What's worse is that, in these classes, I teach alone. No other person there to help with translation issues, should they arise. Add to that, I was told by my school to go out and purchase (personal copies of) textbooks for these classes, to be assigned to the students. Not a single student had any clue that they needed a textbook for the class, and why would they? It's not like anyone had told them! And have you ever tried to teach 1st and 2nd graders from a textbook? Entirely in English? With ZERO translation? It's impossible! Just not happening. 

So, instead of this easy and relaxing semester, I'm putting up facebook statuses like "Nolen Deibert time to do battle with my afterschool classes that inspire a rage in me so violent I want to throw small children in a lake filled with piranhas >:O" and make me feel like Carmen Maura in "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown"

This is me. Very soon. A Spanish lady about to go into hysterics.

*A note of clarification. I do not have any real issues with the children. If there were someone to translate, or if we could just play games all day, it'd be just fine. I love the two times a week I go visit the nursery. But sometimes I just can't handle it all.

Sixth Grade Girls are SO MEAN

On Wednesdays we wear pink.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that there is no group of human beings on the planet worse than 6th Grade Girls. They are snotty, catty, and generally just the WORST the world over. This is no less true in 2010 South Korea than it was in 1997 America (for those of you playing the home edition, this would indeed be the year your narrator was himself in sixth grade). 

We all had That Girl in sixth grade. The one who loved to make our lives miserable. Even if you yourself were that girl, I am willing to bet a not-insignificant amount of money that you had someone who was That Girl to you. You know who I'm talking about. The one who knew EXACTLY the right thing to say to shatter your already-fragile tween confidence. The one who could wither you with just a single glance. The one who, in short, was just this side of Satan himself (though I suspect she was even worse). 

Some of these girls grew up and became well-adjusted members of society; some of them ended up on the Real Housewives of the Orange County/New York City/Atlanta/New Jersey/Washington, DC. That is neither here nor there, though. I wonder how many of us considered the impact on our teachers of these meanest of girls? Not many, I would imagine - I know I definitely did not. But now here I am, 12 years later, forced to consider that very issue. Why? Because now I'm in their shoes - I have the distinct displeasure of teaching Sixth Grade Girls.

"Now wait a minute!" you should rightly be saying. "Aren't you like twice their age and size?"

Of course I am, you twit! But haven't you been listening? That doesn't matter! There is nothing anyone can do against the power of the Sixth Grade Girl! Those of you who know me personally are probably thinking "But Nolen, you're basically a Sixth Grade Girl on the inside," but that's the point - it doesn't matter. You could be the strongest person in the world, whether it is emotionally, physically, or mentally, and they will STILL be able to ruin you at a moment's notice. There is a particular group in one of my sixth grade classes with whom I have been doing battle since very early on in the semester. They will come into my class, sit together at a table, and spend the entire class texting or talking to each other. At first, I tried to be nice about it, asking them to put their phones away. This was ignored, or worse, actually listened to for about five minutes before they took their phones right back out. I separated them to keep them from talking to each other, but somehow they find a way to spend all of class being disruptive as a group. Some sort of weird mind link, I don't even know. They're probably Cylons.

Sixth Grade Girls.

The worst, though, are the looks. I made the mistake one day of actually punishing one of the girls (making her stand in the corner), and now instead of ignoring me, they are actively being mean. "How?" you again ask, incredulous. "You are ONCE AGAIN like 2x their size, age, and probable mental capacity."

Silly reader. It is The Gaze. You know, the snarling, sneering look that only Sixth Grade Girls are able to give. The look that cuts down Popes and Presidents. The. Look.

It sees all. It destroys all.

Any request, instruction, or command I give is met with this withering glance. And there's nothing I can do about it. I've tried pleading, cajoling, buttering up, and punishing. Nothing works. I am trapped in the snare of the Sixth Grade Girl Look, and there is nothing I can do to escape it. Ugh. The worst part of it all is that it makes me feel just like that whiny 13 year old I was when last the Sixth Grade Girls and I encountered. I just want to stamp my feet and shout "BUT I'M 25!! I SHOULDN'T FEEL LIKE THIS ANYMORE!!"


But that, folks, is the special power of the 13 year old girl. And that is why they must be stopped.

And that's how Regina George died. No I'm totally kidding.