Teaching Nightmares

In my six-year tenure as a public school teacher, I had a lot of nightmares about my job. Some of them were run of the mill “getting lost on the first day of school” nightmares, but most of them were a little more unique. 

In one dream, I was running late and had the choice between being on time and wearing clothes. I chose the former. Lucky for me, there was a serial killer posing as a janitor who was murdering all the teachers who had sold drugs to students, so me being naked wasn’t as big a deal as it normally might have been. As my dreams tend to follow classic plot structure, the denouement of the nightmare featured a debriefing with my principal that went sort of like this: “Well, you came to school naked, but at least you weren’t dealing drugs to students. Wear clothes next time.”

Another dream included me having students vote on which student to shoot with a revolver as a lesson in democracy. When the class decided, I pulled the trigger and winged the elected kid. I got in trouble, of course, and a mentor from the school district was called in to mediate as part of the discipline process. She just shook her head and said, “Honestly, dear, since you shot that boy, I’m not sure there’s anything I can do. My hands are really tied here.” After lunch, I swapped out the handgun lesson with a back-up plan where I lit a car on fire in the middle of the science lab. As the principal filled out my pink slip, she asked, “So, Jessica, is there anything you learned from this experience?” I replied, “Yes. I should have asked your permission first.”

The reality of teaching wasn’t usually that colorful, though I did have my moments. My professional highlights include: a student attempting to carjack me after school; receiving a phone call in the middle of class telling me that if I didn’t produce a certain document by the end of the day, I was fired; a strange reality show-type downsizing where my torch was extinguished and I was voted off the faculty; and of course, there’s the usual cocktail of students passing out, throwing up, or getting pointy writing implements shoved up their rectums on accident. (True stories all.)

Even though the teaching I do now is a lot different, I hit a new low today. I was covering the class of another teacher who had a driver’s test. The class was comprised of 14 three year-olds who didn’t speak a lick of English. Any attempt to control or distract them wasn’t even acknowledged. There were kids on the floors, on the tables, climbing the shelves, and screaming their heads off. One little boy wet his pants all over the linoleum and then slipped and fell in it. He just lied there, crying and rolling in his own urine. I tried to get a janitor to clean it up, but he didn’t speak English either and just pointed to the boys’ bathroom down the hall. I had to grab the man by the arm and show him the mess before he understood and got a mop. Meanwhile, another group of kids got ahold of some wooden blocks and started throwing them at each other. 

By the end of 45 minutes, there were people in tears, there were people hiding behind desks, and there were people shrieking. I am proud to say I did none of these things. I did the incredibly mature thing of putting my hands over my ears, spinning around slowly, and saying, “This is it. I’m in hell. I always wondered what it would look like.”