Trouble in Paradise

If you are a teacher, you know how this works. Every year, you have that One Kid. Or that One Class. That kid or that class that drives you crazy. The class that no matter what you do, makes you want to cry in frustration or punch your fist in the wall. And usually, it isn't so much the class itself as a whole as it is 2 or 3 (or 4 or 5) kids in that class that make your life completely miserable.

I thought that I still deserved a pretty good year after the hell of 2 years ago, but apparently not. This year my third period makes me absolutely insane. I exert a huge amount of mental focus attempting to control that class and keep them in line and at the end of class I am completely exhausted. There are about 5 kids in there that make life miserable for the rest of the kids and for me and I don't really know what to do about it. Of the five, there are two that are by far the worst and of those two, I think I could control one of them if I didn't have the other one.

For the most part, the kids in that class are pretty good, and overall I really like my classes, but in third period, the one that gives me the most problems is a girl I'll call Daisy. Daisy is completely self-centered, to the point that she is totally unaware of the existence of any other person except herself. In addition, she feels the need to talk incessantly and loudly about topics that she knows little to nothing about. Here's an example:

We were talking about India, and one of the students said, "I heard that in India people don't take showers, is that true?" Before I could say anything, Daisy says (loudly), "Ew! That is so disgusting! Those people are weird!" (My poor little Indian girl in the back looks completely mortified...) I said, "No, not weird, just different. Remember that half the people in that country have no running water, so it is hard for them to take showers." Daisy looks at me with the little attitude-y head bob and says, "You can say whatever you want, but it is still gross and weird, and I can say it if I want to."

Seriously? What do I do with that? She is disrespectful and obnoxious, and today went so badly that I asked my third period for their exit slip to tell me what I could do to make third period go better, and 26 of the thirty kids put down that class would go better if I made the other 4 shut up. The other four? Put down that I should "let them talk more."

This is me....praying for patience.