There was a bright side to the long teaching assignment.  That was the 8th graders, math 8.  Pre-Algebra.

    Like with all the other classes, when I started, I had no idea where they were, or what they'd done before I showed up.  So, I asked the class.

    There were only maybe 23 to 28 students in this class though... and it was amazing how much easier that made it to teach than a class of 32 to 36.  I got the yells from the students who wanted class to start wherever they felt like it should start, just like from the other classes... but these kids actually shut up when I told them to.  It was amazing.  I think I smiled.

    So I began asking specific students what the last thing they'd done was.  Near as I could tell, they'd just started mapping points onto a Cartesian coordinate graph. I think maybe 5 to 8 of them could consistently tell me where to place a point, say (3, -4) would go on a coordinate system.  Where was this work in their book though?  When I opened the book to look, they'd go back to chatting.  They were at least sensible enough to chat quietly enough so that the class next door couldn't make out what they were saying though... so I let it slide.

    What I didn't realize until the end of the second week though, was that teachers apparently no longer feel the need to go systematically through a textbook.  Apparently the textbooks are little more than references nowadays.  Wonderful.  So what the fuck have they learned so far?!?

    I'm still not sure.  Around the time I figured out where the coordinate graphing was in the book, another student came sauntering in... his hair in cornrolls, a big smirk on his face.  "Just fucking great..." I thought to myself.

    I was wrong.  That guy turned out to be my star, and confused the hell out of me in the process.  I had students who looked at me blankly when I talked about combining like algebraic terms (2a + 3a = 5a... is it really that confusing??), and then Eric, who'd sauntered in like he owned the joint... he managed to deduce how to graph y=2 on a Cartesian coordinate system!  What the fuck was I supposed to try to teach them??

    And then there were the 2 cool cats, in the middle row, who liked to lean back in their chairs so they could chat over their shoulders with the cute chicks behind them... but managed to keep up and answer any questions I threw at them from problems I worked on the board.

    Yet another class that didn't bring their books to school unless I specifically told them to.  The halls were lined with lockers, and the students weren't allowed to use them.  Let's hear it for draconian measures taken to keep kids from having a storage space that can be used to keep their guns and knives!

    This class was cool though.  They broke stereotypes.  The black kids who got things were quiet about their chatting while I went over solving single variable equations by addition/subtraction/mutiplication/division or some combination of all of the above with the asian girls that didn't get it.  The high scores on the test came from a Eric (a black male), and a latina girl.  If all the classes I taught at that school had been like that... I'd still be teaching there today.

    They weren't though.  The other 4 classes were an exercise in babysitting for the college educated.  Cab driving is like a vacation compared with teaching half of those kids. At the very least, I don't have to deal with the city's ignorance in such concentrated doses...  and, somehow, the freedom to tell people to get the fuck out of the car whenever I want to makes all the difference.