IDLE HANDS


Since my school district administers final exams two weeks before the last day of school, it’s pretty safe to assume that there’s not much teaching occurring for those last ten days at the high schools. You would think that high school students would opt to stay home, but the demographic that I serve continue to come to school. Some because they come from troubled homes. Others want to hang out with their friends for a little while longer because they don’t live near each other. Some of the kids date each other and their parents don’t know, so coming to school is the only way they’ll see their boyfriend or girlfriend. Some parents won’t allow their children to stay home. Some don’t want to be there anyway. Others come for the breakfast and lunch. Our school has faculty volunteers who make the students hot breakfast that’s much more appetizing than the school’s standard offerings. Also, the culinary arts class cooks lunch for them. So, they get to eat all day and hang out.

What my school does to keep those students occupied is organize different activities for the students to participate in and assign faculty members to monitor and facilitate them. They can play in the gym or on the field, play video games, watch movies, create art projects, help teachers clean their rooms, play board and card games, and a few other options that they may suggest.

I was assigned to the video game room. One student brought his game system on the first day and that was it. No one else brought theirs for the remaining days and the room was dead. No students, just four staff members. I took my laptop to be productive and boy was I grateful. Since I appeared to be a fly on the wall, I heard some of the juiciest gossip and soaked it all in. Apparently, the student aides are the most drama-filled department in the entire school. First of all, they poke their noses in business that is well above their pay grade and discuss it like they’re talking about the weather. You’d think they were administrators making major decisions. The older aides boss the younger ones around. They throw each other under the bus by snitching to their supervisor without being prompted. They speak to the staff as if they hold a teacher’s job in their hands. Two of them are older women and they behave as if because of their age they demand respect by default. I am all for respecting my elders, but I am grown and you are not my boss. There are times when I want to say, “I am a teacher, you are a babysitter. Chill out.”

Being a fly on the wall for the past two weeks has allowed me to observe that indeed idle hands are the devil’s playthings because those bored student aides were every bit of messy the entire time. 

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