What to say? Tired doesn't even tell the half of it. Sick? Revolted? That comes half-way. Why is this generation so horrible? Gee, let's see.

Two kids spit in my coffee (gum and spit). When I told the school board that I thought they should be allowed to come back to school but do some community service like scraping gum off the desks and cleaning the toilets, I thought I was giving some valid options.

What I didn't know, until my principal talked with me two days later, was that no one but a judge can make Virginia students do community service. School administrators can't force kids to do such "dehumanizing" work such as cleaning toilets and scraping gum. How does that make custodians feel? If it is considered corporal punishment and unfit for wayward teens, why is it okay to force it upon adults? I guess because they get paid and the kids don't. Well, shouldn't the kids pay back society for the trouble they have caused?

At what point did cleaning up after yourself become dehumanizing or harmful to one's self esteem? If anything, it would help a child's self esteem. What lesson do we teach kids when we let them get away with bad behavior?

The parents should have waved their kids' rights and told the school they would be more than happy for their children to scrape gum or clean toilets to make amends for what they did. Of course, the kids' parents are the problem. Do parents even parent anymore?

Kids are little monsters. My school doesn't have any way to punish students other than writing them up or sending them to the ISS room--after being sent there three times, you get a referral. Problem is this: our ISS room is barely big enough for the kids who are supposed to be there--forget about the kids that get sent there for an hour because they are acting like asses in a teacher's classroom.

So where does that leave us? I've been teaching four years and have no interest in my kids attending school in this rural community in Virginia. How sad. I feel sorry for the good kids who get stuck in classrooms with idiots that goof around, trying to get out of work due to stupidity, laziness, or both. Yeah, I know. Kids who act up are just trying to drag attention away from the fact that they don't understand. Not always true. Many of my biggest goof offs are smart kids. They could do the work--they simply choose not to do the work.

I want a new job. Teaching is the worst job on earth. I'd rather do practically anything than teach English in a rural school system. What a waste of education.