It's 3:01pm last Friday. My last class comes barging in, and Kiana marches straight up to me with a pouty little look and says, "Look what they put in my locker." She hands me a piece of folded paper. I open it to find a drawing of a penis. At this point, it's ignorable, so I tell her, "I'm sorry... stupid boys. Let's just forget about it and start class."
3:03pm: Kiana comes to the front of the class while I'm in the middle of getting started and hands me another piece of paper with a "Ms. Mayer!" look on her face. It is, of course, another drawing of a penis. No longer ignorable, I hold up both drawings to the class and say, "Is this how we're going to end our week?" A couple shouts of "It's Anthony! It's Anthony!" rain out.
This disturbs Anthony, who immediately flips open his notebook and fiercely draws a penis. He comes to the front of the classroom holding his own drawing, and I realize that at 3:06pm, I am standing in front of my 9th grade English class with three separate drawings of a penis. It becomes clear, however, that Anthony is not responsible for the first two drawings as his penis drawing is clearly different. I announce, "Okay, Anthony, we can all agree that the first two drawings are not yours. Can we PLEASE start class now? Enough penis talk."
Everyone gets settled. Class is running smoothly. I am rotating to each student to check the outlines of their Of Mice and Men papers. It is pin drop silent as each student is finally diligently working on their writing. I am pouring over a student's work when I hear from behind me Pamela Reyes yelling.
"It won't go in Ms. Mayer! It won't go in!"
I freeze. I have a total panic flashback to the beginning of class. I take a deep breath, realizing there is NO WAY the two incidents can be related.
But it's too late. Mohammad sees the look on my face. He says, "Ms. Mayer, seriously? That's where your head is at??"
I turn around to see Pamela trying ferociously to get a piece of lead back into her mechanical pencil.
Deep breaths all around.
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