A Day in the Life

So yesterday at school we had a late start day. That means the kids get to come late, school doesn’t start till 9:00 a.m., and the teachers get to start early, actually (7:15 meeting start time).  After sugar, caffeine, and required discussion, we sodded off to begin school.  Because we started over an hour later than usual, the students’ energy level was high and the talking was frenetic.  We had a student pass out in P.E. in the morning.  He was drunk, under the influence of alcohol to the point where he was non-responsive. The ambulance and fire engine came – excitement in the school driveway! – and carted him off. He later explained that he gotten the 4Loco, now illegal in our state but vigorously stockpiled, off a “hobo,” and he had gotten it for free.  (Not a real gifted critical thinker, obviously.)  His grandmother died about an hour before his collapse and he didn’t even know it yet.  When his mother was called, she had to deal with the death of her own mother and the hospitalization of her son.  There was a girlfight between periods; these are becoming more common this year.  It became known that a ninth grader has been receiving tattoos, both from another student on campus and from an adult off campus.  Naturally the student, who thinks it’s cool, won’t give up the identities of his inkers and his mother is beside herself.  A senior was very likely beaten up by her boyfriend, who is also a senior, and who posted something about it on Facebook and then claimed his account had been hacked.  He was absent from school last year because he spent the time in jail for statutory rape instead of taking the SATs and going to prom and bitching about homework.  The girl denies that he beat her up but doesn’t have a better explanation for her split lip and other injuries.  The seniors are having their spring meltdown – a combination of stress and fear and insecurity about what comes next – months earlier than normal.  Another student, a junior, confessed (forgive me, Teacher, for I have sinned) to almost cheating; the same student was then caught for an earlier actual cheating incident.  He’s under duress because the DREAM act didn’t pass and now he thinks he won’t be able to go to college and so any work he does now is just for nothing.  During fifth period, the air-conditioning suddenly took on a new, louder, more urgent tone, conflicting seriously with class discussion, but that was better than sitting in an eighty-degree box of stale bodies and synthetic carpet odor.  One student spent half of sixth period crying but took her quiz anyway and probably aced it.  These are only the incidents and occurrences that I know about; and I know so very little.  Just a typical day in public education.  Pray for the teachers you know and the ones you don’t; we need it.  The students do, too, these semi-grown babes.