A High School Teacher Problem

There comes a time when you are walk up to two of your students who look like they might be ready to pound the ever-living crap out of each other and somehow get between them only to realize you are not the biggest one in the room. It's a bit of a surreal moment because you're at least ten years older than these children, but they are not only taller, but broader (sometimes heavier) and on occasion much stronger than you.

I noticed this first when I was supplying a grade eleven class in the morning when I first started teaching. Everyone got up for O Canada and I couldn't see the students in the back of the room. That is always disconcerting when you're a supply teacher because who knows what those kids in the back - probably kids who usually sit in the front on the seating plan - are doing. So, like many women in my position (and some men, I'm sure), I try and compensate with heels.

Heels are great for height, except, you know, they're painful to stand on for too long if you're wearing heels with any actual height to them. Not to mention if you are wearing tall heels and something like a fight breaks out down the hallway - God help you in getting there on time if you need to run. But heels, or even stilts if you're really desperate, can't help you in a drama room. The drama room are socks-only territory. The drama room is where everyone's equal... or, not really.

Seriously, there is nothing worst than trying to be the adult in the room, trying to gain control of a situation that might go violent at any moment, and realizing that if one of the kids actually does decide to do something, you will probably be next to useless. Some of the grade nines I've had over the years (and currently) could almost literally crush me. Lucky for me, most of the kids don't realize that. I still wield some unforeseen power of control (which usually consists of two letters and a word: VP office). So, as long as no one tells students that teachers are completely and utterly human (except for a few), we'll all be fine.

Hopefully.