I'm on the Phone!

We’ve all witnessed it.

That moment when your teacher has “Had It.”

You know what “Had It” looks like. Most of us have probably been on the receiving end once or twice. It’s when your teacher’s face starts out as a tight-lipped smile when a student makes the same stupid joke for the twenty-seventh time that week. It happens when they make it for the twenty-eighth time and your teacher’s sanity has decided that it’s had enough.

Suddenly, Michael is getting dragged out in the hallway by his one-hundred pounds soaking wet teacher, and Cassandra’s got it all on video. An overnight YouTube sensation.

Maybe it’s not that drastic, but if a teacher flips every now and then, and can we really blame them?

This is what they have to work with every single day:

Whoever said, “there is no such thing as a stupid question” made a very stupid statement.

I work with both the new, bubbling teachers and the experienced, at their wit’s end teachers. My job is to assist them on the phone with our testing software, so they can administer computer exams to their students.  This is generally at the end of the semester or school year.

End of school year = STRESS.

So I try not to judge.

Here are some interesting observations I’ve made over the last couple of years:

1.   Every troubled child is named Jamal. Every. Single. One.

2.       To get your students to be quiet, scream “I AM ON THE PHONE!” As loud as you can into the speaker of the phone. Not only will I hear it with ear-shattering clarity, but so will the class.

3.       Jamal does not care that you are on the phone, because he is Jamal.

4.       Teachers are often forced to instruct classes in areas they have no experience in, due to low budgets and/or being short staffed. This results in questions like: “How do I know if I am on a MAC or a PC?” and “What is an internet browser?” From computer class teachers.

5.       Jamal will laugh at you to look cool in front of his classmates when you tell him he better sit on his butt and do his work, or he will get “turnt”.

6.       Teachers are so overloaded with all the work they have to do, that they will try to get every class they teach tested in ONE day, and they will have “Had It” when it doesn’t work out.

7.       Jamal will shut up and say “yes ma’am,” when you tell him you’re going to call his momma. Jamal is afraid of his momma.

8.        Most teachers also cannot spell.

9.       Jesus will pick up the banner of Class Clown once Jamal drops it. The legacy continues.

10.   Teachers are interrupted every three seconds by an obsolete announcement over the loudspeaker. They are interrupted every other day by the fire alarm. They are interrupted ten times a day by Jamal.

And finally, despite it all, many teachers will come back and do it all over again the next year.

SO BE NICE TO TEACHERS.

Because it’s the only chance I have that they’ll start being nice to me ;)