Eat this----Not that

Teaching was my game, and I did it for a number of years---too many, as I look back.  During those years, I have seen many sad sights.  I have seen teachers break down in tears in the classroom, inappropriately rage at, threaten, or barter with disrepectful and aggressive students, and I have known quite a few young teachers to leave the profession, realizing that it was not to be  the career they had hoped for.  Personally, mostly when serving as a substitute teacher, I was met with negative student behaviors, out of the realm of ordinary expectations.  A seventh grade girl once walked out of the classroom I was subbing in  to report my behavior to her counselor when I told her to stop talking.  Another young boy, wanting to control the class, enlisted the aid of another student and threatened to tell the principal that I had made him the victim of sexual abuse. He told me he had successfully caused the firing of another teacher using the same ploy.  In truth, the other teacher had been removed from the classroom, ostensibly for other reasons.   An entire class (save for one student) conspired to tell me they had been excused for testing, and cut class that day.  A senior boy used the absence of his teacher to destroy her Shakespeare literature collection, and another senior high student used her absence  (and my presence) to steal valuable art supplies.  The worst occurrence was in the aftermath of my writing up a senior high student for misconduct, he, weighing about 200 lbs, deliberately threw a body block into my 90 lb. seventh grader  in gym class.  I was called to the office to be told my son had been knocked unconscious.  Oops, sorry. 
    My point is that the classroom, or any school venue, is no place for the weak of mind or body. I think every teacher has a share of horror stories; those suited to the job find ways to turn the negatives around, and make it a positive experience and a rewarding profession.  It's not an easy job; it usually takes a lot of work to become one of the good teachers.    If you're not prepared to do that work, you should find employment elsewhere.  There are jobs you can go to suffering from a headache, and your supervisor and  fellow employees will try to give you a little leeway, and lower their expectations.  No teacher, some who interact with up to 125 different students a day,  can reasonably expect  that type of consideration.  Jobs where you interact with students demand that you be proactive, and make clear what type of behavior will be tolerated and what will absolutely not be.  Teachers, assistant teachers, teacher aides are all charged with that  responsibility: to be in control of student behavior.  If you are not committed to that responsibility, you have no business collecting a paycheck.  I don't mean to imply that anyone can control everything---mistakes will be made and disasters will happen.  But if you are being paid to do a job,don't ignore what your task is.  At least try, or get out.
   (Go ahead, leave a comment.  I dare you.)