Difficult, difficult day.

A few moments from today's second lesson, with thirteen and fourteen year olds:

The moment just after Louise had stopped punching me and released her grip on Jez's throat, ceased pounding his head against the wall...

The moment just after Mohammed stopped shoving me while pretending to cry, badly, till I flipped, lost my cool, and used the 'serious voice' in an attempt to compel him to step backwards away from me ...

Just after Jack finished swearing at me, then throwing his weight hard against me to push his way out of the room, or turning up after work to swear at me again, or stopping to articulate to me that it didn't matter what I did to punish him, as management never follow up on things, anyway ...

After Sharise required approximately one hundred interactions all involving the words 'sit down' ...

After the last two requests to remove a student who was being violently abusive to me and to other children had been ignored ...

After James, zonked out of his mind on drugs, screamed and screamed the words 'you're unfair' at me for pointing out that when I watched him throw metal objects at other students, I was definitely going to do something about it ...

The moment just after five kids got up and circled the Sri Lankan boy, and picked on him for being 'indian' ...

Just after I realised that this was Fabio's first morning in an English school, in fact Fabio's first morning in England, but because of the rioting I've just described, I wasn't able to even speak to him, much less explain (in words a non-English speaker can decipher) what his media project was meant to be about ...

After I got so wired, so fed up, so threatened, so out of my depth that I sent for another member of staff and begged them in tears to just stay in the room for five minutes, to let me go stand in an empty office and pull myself together, because I literally couldn't stand to be in there any longer ...

After I had to send two notes begging management to actually read this 'incident report', or after they admitted they hadn't bothered reading the last one ...

I didn't feel that much like a superteacher.

Turn, depressed, bored, to the horoscopes, to find under 'Leo':
"You've always been a child at heart, which is especially evident today. You tend to throw tantrums when you don't get your way. And while it's understandable that you are angry over frustrating circumstances, that doesn't give you the right to make an embarrassing scene. Resist the urge to lash out."

Okay. Tomorrow, then, last period (just before my twelve hour day closes with three hours of parent interviews) I shall try to resist the urge to lash out.