I guess a little tamer than a lot of the confessions l’ve seen on here. I haven’t really figured out how to feel behind very embarrassed and confused.
I’ve kind of fallen into being a high school teacher after my last career imploded. I have a background in teaching and don’t was just kind of natural as a fit.
The school I teach at as my first time is in a fairly rough area. Virtually none of the students are, well, white. Which is obviously totally fine and I wouldn’t even mention it except they do seem to make a pretty big deal out of the fact that l’m white.
I very often feel like I’m not being taken seriously. They always seem rowdier with me than other teachers. When I try and instil some discipline that just seems to make them amused more than anything else.
Recently I started to notice some really odd comments that didn’t make sense to me. Maybe it’s where l’m an immigrant to the US but they went completely over my head. One called me ‘thicker than a bowl of oatmeal’ which was confusing as hell and I think it must have shown on my face because the whole class started laughing at me.
Then the other day walking down the corridor after school I overheard some students talking. They immediately stopped when they saw me and I got the impression that I’d just been talked about I rounded the corner and hesitated a bit before walking off to see if they said anything else.
One went ‘man, that’s the new English teacher? She got cake’ And then ‘whole damn bakery, dude.’ I was so embarrassed I just kind of ran for it. 😳
