Cheshire Cat Logic

This is the fourth week in a row my 6th period Integrated Science class has almost sent me home in tears. I literally have no idea how to get through to them. They’re either zombies, merely warm bodies with a semblance of a pulse, or they’re screaming banshees, unable to control their desire to talk, gossip and howl with laughter.

I don’t know what to do.

Even my CT doesn’t have a firm way of controlling these kids, which gives me pretty much no hope at all. I’ve tried discussions, bargains, lectures, keeping them in, detentions, they simply don’t care at all. I had to give a boy a detention today for obstinately ignoring my requests for him to be silent and do his work, and all he did was shrug and say, “Whatever. I already have 7.”

Nothing I do has an effect on them, and it’s making me feel so helpless and frustrated that I’ve honestly questioned why I even want to teach. The worst is that my 10th grade Biology class is so much better behaved, sweet, and funny, but I’m only co-teaching it. I’m instead stuck teaching the infuriatingly unruly 9th graders at the very end of the day.

I need a drink.