You're fired!

During my long employment history, I have only been fired twice.  One deserved, one undeserved.  Let’s talk about the one I had coming.

Back in the day, I used to be a teacher, generally working with adults to get their skills up to par to take their GED.  I needed money and decided to branch out.  I applied for a position at a local private school for boys.  It was an afternoon position and it fit in well with my schedule and the money was great.

I applied at the end of the school year, so they gave me small study groups, a class of six 3rd grade boys and an 8^th grade science class.  It went well, not perfectly, but I got through it.  They asked me to return the following year to teach a full fourth grade class.  I said sure, why not.  This was my first mistake.

On the first day of school, I was handed the teacher texts and a class roster of 35 ten year old boys.  Now, this is double the amount of students in the public schools I attended and three times the amount of adults I was used to teaching.

Ten year old boys can sniff out fear, weakness, and lack of experience like a trained Doberman.  My experience was the opposite of the one in “Kindergarten Cop”.  In the movie, it started out horribly, but Arnold got his magic ferret from his car and everything was hunky-dory from that point on.  Me, I could feel my authority and power slip away by the minute.  I didn’t have a ferret or a car.

By the end of the week, it was like the “Lord of the Flies”.  Piggy was gone and anarchy ruled.  I threatened to call parents.  I cajoled and pleaded.  I used humor.  I screamed and shouted.  My efforts became increasingly less effective as the week progressed.  Any advice I got from others was as effectively used as throwing a cup of water on a raging inferno. I was in a siege mentality, wanted to hang in there and get the job done, but the principal of the school finally put an end to the fiasco and fired me.  Bless him.

Today, the only children of school age I have taught have been my own.  At home.  Where the teacher to student ratio is decidedly in my favor.

Don't let the door hit you in the backside on your way out!