To Sir with Love

"Daniel... Daniel, would you please turn around."... "Daniel, please turn around and stop talking to Aimee."

With annoyance in her voice, Aimee replied, "Sir, shut up!"

"Daniel, I need you to turn around and pay attention."

"Shut up, Sir!" Daniel repeated, as if I didn't hear Aimee the first time.

"Sir, me and Daniel are talking. Stop interrupting us," Aimee added.

"Sir", a word that continues to haunt me in my sleep; "Sir," a phrase dripping with sarcasm, irony and belligerence delivered in a British accent. It causes the hair on the back of my neck to stand and my blood pressure to rise.

"Sir... Sir... Sir...Liam stole my pencil!" Craig whined. "Sir...Sir...make him give my pencil back!"

Exasperatedly I replied, "Liam, give Craig his pencil."

"Sir, I don't have his pencil," Liam chirped innocently.

"Sir, he's lying!" Craig playfully shouted.

"Daniel, take off your hoody and please turn around."

"Sir, why don't you go back to America?! No one likes you here."

Daniel's comment was intended to remind me that she and others had no interest in learning and my time would be better spent elsewhere. This was how all my classes started. The names were different and the escapades varied, but the motivation was the same... chaos. In British schools, the children are encouraged to find their own expressions as individuals and to come to appreciate learning on their own terms. As their teacher, it was my job to guide them through this journey of personal discovery, taking all of their abuses with a good heart. After all, they are just children.

Like feral animals, the students chased each other around the room, jumping on each other's backs, pushing each other off chairs, and knocking things off the shelves or tables. The inmates truly ran this institution. Students wandered in and out of classrooms.

"Sarah, you're not supposed to be in here, please leave," I asked as nicely as I could.

"Yes, I am," Sarah said incredulously. Trying to control my temper I replied,"No, Sarah, you are not."

"You're such a fucking-cunt," Sarah snorted as she finally walked out the door. Verbal and physical confrontations between students were common.

"Leo, why are you such a fat bastard?" Jack shouted across the room.

"Go to hell," Leo quickly shot back.

"No one likes you because you're fat," Jack retorted.

"Jack's mother is a pikey!" Leo snickered. To this day I am not sure what a pikey is, but apparently in the British Isles it's a grave insult because Jack got up and tried to hit Leo.

Every day wrought new humiliations and antics, which numbed my soul and depleted my patience. I had become as shell-shocked as a solider during a war, concentrating on the crisis at hand, blindly plodding ahead. I was once told that hell was the impossibility of reason. After spending a year working in this school with these children, I came to understand why. As enthusiastically as a man walking to the gallows, I would try to do my job: teach.

"Okay class, today we're going to learn about energy transfer," I said.

"Sir... Liam still has my pencil," Craig roared.

"Sir, I don't need to learn any of this stuff because I am going to become a hairdresser," Amiee shouted from the back of the room.

"Sir, I just can't be bothered to learn this stuff right now," Daniel added.

"Sir, Liam broke my pencil!" Craig cackled.

In environments where the students are completely hostile and uncooperative, there are few tools available for a teacher. Besides having the students make posters or word searches, I relied heavily on worksheets. The worksheet was a great tool, because I could hand them out and I was no longer the center of attention. The ones who wanted to learn would attempt to complete them and I would help those people individually. The others, if you were lucky, would sit idle in their chairs, talking to their friends, and not causing too much of a disturbance.

"Okay, class, here is your assignment. Please take one copy and pass the worksheet on to the person next to you."

"Sir... I can't do my assignment because Liam broke my pencil," Craig shouted.

"Craig, I have a pencil you can use," I replied tiredly.

"No, Sir, that's okay. Liam would just steal it again." Craig said happily, pleased with himself for finding a loophole that would excuse him from the assignment. Pretending that worksheets, word searches and posters actually involved teaching was hard, even on a bad day. I was just a babysitter with an agenda and some part of me couldn't accept the situation.

"Gemma, please get started on your assignment." I asked, knowing a fight would ensue.

"Sir,