I'm the man

So being a teacher is kind of like being the the governor of an oppressed colony. It sucks because as much as I don't want to be dragged through the street, I do want the peoples of my colony to feel free and on some level above my control, and think on a higher level. I want their minds to run free, and to be able to let their minds run in wild in academia, I just don't want the kids to run over me.

One class has been running over me, especially the past two days. On a day where only half the class was able to get a pencil and paper in front of them, the more vocal of students began to ask "are we really having class when everyone is asleep." Another normal day. Then, a student who came late only to go out for the bathroom almost immediately decided that she needed more time in the hallway and ran out the room. When she came back to class I stepped outside to say that she needs to be in class, and she said she would do her work and get out of her way. So she stepped by and the door was locked, and thus we were locked out. I went for help and the kids kept me locked out for five minutes. I got back into class and warned the students that a punishment was coming.

The rest of class was difficult as the students thought that they could get away with anything if they could lock the teacher out of the classroom. I whethered the storm of their constant talking and taught to the third of the class that was taking notes while the rest of the class tried to see how bad they could act. The whole time I was focusing on the punishment that they were goin to get the next day.

The next day I told the assistant principal about this and she got mad. She designed this elaborate punishment which will take place after school and she got to work writing a letter to parents about this. She then went into my class and straight yelled at my school for a while and explained that they needed to forgo an hour of their after school time and if they don't come they will be suspended for three days.

Well the kids were no longer students for the rest of the class. They WERE NOT doing any work and all of the kids who were in class were having a straight up town hall meeting / "fuck this school" rally.

And here I am having to tell the kids to stop their complaining, they're not acting like they should and they will continue to be punished if they don't conform. They kids are telling me that they are all going to transfer out of this school, or that they are going to fail intentionally just so that they can say that our school sucks.

Perhaps I'm addicted to chaos, as I've been told by my teachers before, but I am looking at the students and kind of agreeing with them. It's hard to be the teacher, partially because no one deserves to be yelled at, not by me or other teachers who don't know their situations, and definitely not because they don't fit into our vaguely defined behavior expectations. But I also enjoy the students recognizing their own power in this situations, and begin to use their minds in order to figure out how to use it. I would much rather the teacher and help them figure out a way to use their minds to beat us, than for me to distinguish the inspiration of their minds and put them through this punishment that will prevent them from doing so freely in the future.