Today on World’s Worst Teacher 2, our guest author is Holden Caulfield.

I should probably start out with my job, and how I got it and what I think about it, but I think all that crap is kind of boring, tell you the truth. I’ll just start in talking about this morning.

On the day I want to tell you about, I drove into the parking lot at Hogsboro High at around 7:30 in the morning. I’m always that early, which is pretty funny when you think that I was late to just about all of my classes when I was a highschool student, and in university I was typically 20 to 40 minutes late for every class, for chrissake. Very few teachers are late like me. Man, I just about died when I got into teacher’s college and they told me I had to be in ever class and on time to boot, or they’d give me the axe. Before then I really got a bang out of horsing around: wearing pajamas to class or bringing in handcuffs or something like that. I was a pretty good student and all; I just loved to horse around. You know; try and get the teachers to react. I had one old character who hated my guts, but he was one of those creeps who are too well-bred to come out and say it. I knew he hated me because he never called on me. I brought handcuffs to one of his classes, just to see if I could get his attention. It didn’t work: we were all sitting in a circle and he just skipped me when it was my turn. If my friend hadn’t bought his stuffy boring book that had practically all his lectures exactly, I never would’ve passed.

The reason I was so early every morning now that I’m a teacher is that I have to be really early, or I’ll be really late. Funny, isn’t it? So anyway, I came into the school quite early, like I said, and went straight to the English department to drop off my stuff. I usually carry quite a bit of stuff with me when I go home at night, but last night I just knew that I wasn’t going to be marking or any of that other crap you have to do every night when you’re a highschool teacher. I felt awful to tell you the truth. I’ve been kind of sick for a week; not sick enough to stay home but not well enough to feel like anything but death on skis. I’m pretty healthy though. When you consider all the germs and disgusting things floating around your typical highschool, I’d have to be healthy to stay on my two goddamn feet. Hogsboro High is disgusting, let me tell you. The things those kids drop on the floor is not to be believed. We’re all lucky we don’t have the plague or something.

One of my coworkers was talking to another one when I got into the room. The first one – her name is Kinsey - never stops talking. She’s one of those women who just talks and talks and talks. She fills the whole air up and sometimes I get frustrated because I can’t get a goddamn word in edgewise. But I’m not always in a talkative mood so when I don’t feel like saying anything I can be in the same room with her and just listen to the words pouring out of her mouth. Another thing about Kinsey is that she gets along with everyone, even the jocks and the tech guys. They all love her to death; at the last Meet the Teacher night they gave her a badge that said “Hot Girl.” She’s very attractive, don’t get me wrong, and she’s not the phoney kind of girl who uses her looks to make up for being stupid. She’s quite smart, and gets along with everyone, and good-looking too. I always wonder if she’s got a less-attractive friend somewhere, someone who is less beautiful and intelligent and friendly but who can cut down some of the glare from Kinsey. But maybe she’s got a friend who’s more of everything, and Kinsey’s always scrambling to catch up. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I don’t like Kinsey. It’s just that I find her exhausting sometimes.

She was taking to Betty, who was hired at the same time that I was. Betty’s one of those girls who always has a sympathetic ear and a helpful attitude. She’s one of the most helpful people I’ve ever met. She’s a goddamn saint, if you want to know the truth. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked her for favours; she’ll do anything for us and we all take advantage of her somewhat. Hell, last week I called her on her lunch to see if she could watch my class while I went to the bathroom. Any other teacher would tell me to get lost, they’re on their lunch, but old Betty just comes down to my portable, sweet as a lamb in a storybook. She makes me gentle, because I can’t stand the idea of doing something stupid that would hurt her feelings. I can be very thoughtless and cruel when I’m not even trying.

This morning I wasn’t interested in listening to Kinsey’s conversation because I was in a fairly bad mood, what with it being the morning and all. I’ve had a headache for something like two days. Every night I go to bed early, but my baby is going through a growth phase or something and he’s up practically all night. I don’t get very much sleep at all and I wake up feeling like hell. This morning was Friday, and I’d been fighting this headache for two days, like I said, and I didn’t feel like listening to the latest hundred things to cross Kinsey’s mind. So I dropped off my stuff on my little messy desk and just waved silently at the two of them. Then I went out the door to check my mailbox.

There are three main ways that the Hogsboro High administration likes to talk to us. There’s the email, which is new this year and I keep losing my password for. It’s kind of embarrassing because I’m actually quite good with email. I have been for years. I just have a block about the school email: I keep forgetting my password and I need a week to reset it. Then the whole thing starts again. The second way is through the phone messages, a method our principal Goneril is quite mad about. She’s been known to leave three or four messages a day. And they’re not short, either. Once old Goneril gets going about something, she’ll talk for days. I’m not kidding – for goddamn days. You should hear all the crap I have to listen to. Her biggest thing right now is The Mission. Last year when I was gone, they had a lot of meetings to agree on The Mission and draft the wording of The Mission and now every goddamn newsletter we get includes the words, “Living The Mission.” It’s so phoney, this thing about The Mission. Like we’re a goddamn crack team of Navy SEALS or something. I tell ya, it gives me a huge pain in my ass.

In my mailbox this morning was an on-call, which meant that some lucky bastard was sick or something, so I had to cover his or her class. As if I don’t have enough to worry about, I gotta babysit somebody else’s problems while I’m supposed to be working. And besides, this was the third day in a row they’ve put one of those lousy blue sheets in my box. I’m not kidding. Three in a row. On my way out of the office, I walked by the vice-principal who gave me the on-call, and mouthed, “are you trying to kill me??” She got off the phone and gave the on-call to another teacher, being as we’re not supposed to get three in a row. That’s why it’s good to be part of a union, I guess.

My first class went okay. It’s an academic class, so you’ve got kids who remember to bring a pencil and some paper – most of the time. These students, I swear to God they don’t know their asses from their elbows. Most of the time when I talk to them it’s like they’ve drifted in from Mars or something. Arrogant little morons, too. They treat me like a bug or a doorman or somebody too lowly to talk to. And they think they’re so smart, too, like I can’t tell they’re lying when they make stupid excuses about why they didn’t hand something in. It’s like they’re completely blind to anyone even a few years older than them. I look at these classes and I think that it was less than ten years I was sitting in those seats, but to hear these students you’d think I was some kind of fossil, all dried up and unworthy of the tiniest bit of respect. If they hand in a single assignment they get all mad if I don’t make a big to-do about it, like they’re such goddamn princes for doing the work in the first place.

And they’d never know it, but they stink to high heaven. Cigarettes and drugs and sweat from gym class and horrible perfumes and french fries and all kinds of crap – it rolls off them in waves. Makes me damn near puke if I’m in the right mood. I tell ya, ya gotta be in just the right mood to teach these kids or you’ll puke from the smell or hit the roof with all their little moronic habits. I can’t tell you haw many times I’ve gotten angry – really angry! – at one of these morons. Thing is, I need the money, so I pull myself back. One day I’m going to really hit the roof and pop one of these morons. I can’t wait to see the look on old Goneril’s face when she finds out how I’ve been Living The Mission.

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 4/01/2005 08:30:00 p.m.