Today is a memorable day.

I lost my head and blasted a class for 2 entire periods. Punished them too, no less.

This class has been the bane of the lives of every single teacher who teaches them. Even i, one of the fiercest around, have problems dealing with them. This is a class who has made teachers cry and enjoyed doing so. The same class who has students with the audacity to hurl vulgarities at teachers. A class who induces teachers to throw up their hands in despair because nothing seems to work and teaching anything seems an impossible task. A class who has damaged school property, played truant, stolen things, absented themselves more than just frequently and have hence been punished in every possible way and yet...

I tried the soft approach, mixing it with the hard approach. I'm not sure if the soft approach worked at all on their hearts. I tried to be approachable and understanding, and some did open up, albeit to complain about the 'authorities'. (That's probably the only thing we have in common)And every time i think there might be some headway, they'd do something to make me think i wasted my time and i was just a fool to even cut them any slack. Sometimes its almost as if i hear their jeering voices at the back of my mind, laughing at my naive attempts to reform them, laughing at my stupidity in believing maybe i can change something. Dunno wat to believe.

Today, as i made them gather in the hall, i hoped that the last day of the term would not end on a bad note with this class. But u know wat, it did. They simply WOULD NOT SIT DOWN! Can u believe that it is an uphill task just getting them to do something so simple? No amount of yelling would help. Soon as u make one sit down, the rest would be up and about, playing catching and totally lost in their own world of fun. And it goes on. I can never win. Not when there are 30 of them and 1 of me. So, i lost it. I abandoned thoughts of having any semblence of a lesson and concentrated on telling and showing them exactly what i thought of their atrocious behaviour. For almost an hour, i concentrated on making them sit in their rows and crossing their legs like good students should. I barked at anyone who sat facing in other directions or who did not cross their legs or did not keep quiet. I made offenders race round the hall within 10 seconds after which they had to pay the penalty of doing many pushups for running slowly. Only after these, did i manage some sort of silence and obedience from them. And i only needed to glare at them henceforth when they crossed ANY sort of line. I did not even allow anyone to roll their eyeballs at me. I blasted the only guy who dared to do that with me.

Was so angry at one point of time, that i told them exactly what i thought of their behaviour over the year. I told them that i was sick and tired of all the shit they'd been giving me, as well as all the other teachers, and that if they were only capable of producing shit, then they were effectively just assholes.

Thus said, my anger abated somewhat. So I gave them a chance to redeem themselves. I wanted them to show me that they could follow instructions promptly, just like any other class. And so, they raced from one end of the hall to the other and back again to their respective seating positions within 10 seconds, twice. Only then were they free to return to their classroom. But not before i warned them threateningly that i would watch their every step back to their classroom. Hmph!

Feel so drained now...