Not good.

You open the sliding door into the classroom. Room 401, class 4-1. You’re greeted by the white tiles on the floor, the greyish walls and nothing else. Your precious little senior year students could not care less that you’re inside the classroom. The loud chatter continues, even with only a total of 20 students. No, wait, there’s only 14 students here today. They’re sitting backwards on their chairs or on top of their individual desks.

You walk up and stand behind your own desk, leaving your books on top and putting your hands on it. “Good morning class.” You greet them with as much enthusiasm as you can muster, which is to say, not a whole lot. There’s a few students who glance your way before turning back to their friends.

You sigh mentally before trying again. “Please turn around, sit well and remain silent while I give today’s announcements.” A few students groan in annoyance but at least do as told. Others don’t give a single damn and continue their talk. Still, there’s enough silence in the room that if you speak loud enough, they should hear you.

You start taking attendance, trying your best to commit their faces and names to memory at the very least. You’re in charge of them, after all. You need to at least know their names.

Your class is, how to say it? Very diverse. Even counting the ones absent, there’s 14 men and only 6 women. There’re people of different skin colors and nationalities. Yet they all share one thing: they don’t give a damn about school. Honestly, you can’t blame them. Not only is this place a shithole, but one only needs to look at this side of town to realize why. Who are these kids? The sons and daughters of muggers, **** dealers, **** addicts, gang members and more. No, it’s not you making an assumption, it’s some of them admitting it like it’s a badge of honor.

“Yeah, my dad’s been in prison for 2 years now.” You hear one of the boys admit with a smirk on his face. “I hear he stabbed a fucker who tried to fuck with him.” He tells, eliciting laughs from his friends.

Of course, there’s always an exception to the rule.

“Veronica Young?” You call.

“Here, Mr. Sinclair.” The girl answers.

Veronica Young, an earnest, studious girl who actually tries to get something out of school. Now, you know very well it’s not appropriate for a teacher to look at his students with eyes other than those of an educator, but you figure that as long as these thoughts stay on your mind, it’s fine, right?

Ms. Young is a girl with a slender figure, small chest, nice hips and thighs that you notice thanks to her tight blue jeans and white cardigan. Her light, honey blonde hair is long and tied in a braid. She has a cute face, though sadly it’s usually with a frown or scowl of annoyance at her loud classmates.

Once more, you try to tell the talking student to remain quiet, even walking up to them.

“Mr. Green, Mr. Rivera, could you please remain silent while I give the announcement for today?

“Why should we?” One of the boys, Gabriel Green, asks with a defiant look.

You swallow your anger and frustration at the lack of respect and answer calmly, but firmly. “You’ll be lost if you don’t hear them. Save yourselves the trouble and keep quiet for five minutes.”

Before any of them can answer back, another student intervenes.

“Dude, just shut up. He’ll leave sooner if you do.” Ryan Foster says. Your heart can’t help but sink at those words. It’s one thing to know intellectually that these kids care not for you as their teacher, but to hear something like that…

Both boys sigh, sit correctly and quiet down for a while. “Thank you.” You tell them, not letting your feelings show.

This is what your colleagues criticize you for. They say you’re not hard enough on the students. Sadly, you think they’re right and have been trying to correct it, but…

“Alright, that’s it for today. See you later in English class.” As you leave, you hear the chatter immediately resume in full ****. You grit your teeth as you walk towards your first class. And this was only homeroom.