Outnumbered

Days like today remind me I am severely outnumbered in my classroom. Most good teachers can handle difficult and disruptive students 2, 3 or even 4 at a time. Rooms have four corners and students with discipline problems can usually be relegated to those corners (you're familiar with the concept--- Divide and conquer!). However, the two classes I teach this year have more problem students than my room has corners. When classes have 8-10 difficult students (each!), there is just no way to divide the class to minimize disruptions or avoid problems. When there are this many behavior problems in one classroom, there seems to be a sort of mob mentality that takes over. Pick your analogy... it's like herding cats, it's like trying to contain a swarm of gnats, or my personal favorite, it's like trying to put out an inferno with a squirt gun. I think you get the idea. There is just no way to deal with that many different discipline issues at the same time. As soon as you quell one problem, two more spring up on the other side of the room. Once those problems are contained, the first problem pops up again because your attention was diverted elsewhere. It's like watching a high-speed tennis match. My head swivels back and forth like a bobblehead doll. Are you getting the picture? There is just no way to see (and hear) everything that goes on. To be honest, sometimes it looks like carefully controlled chaos. Now visualize all this happening... every day... for hours on end. All the while I'm expected to teach a very challenging curriculum to needy, mostly poverty-stricken students who started school about 7 years ago at a severe disadvantage. Most never catch up and most fall further behind as the years pass. It really does sadden me, but I daily give it everything I've got... without fail. Honestly nothing ever improves and things seem to get worse and worse all the time. The photo below seems to represent how I feel sometimes. In a hopeless situation. Sorry to paint such a bleak picture, but it's my reality. I don't think most people realize how tough public school classrooms are these days.