Father, forgive them.

Because of yesterday, I'm deathly afraid to send my future children to public schools. To say that "she didn't know what she was doing" would be the understatement of the century. Mrs. Nameless, as she will hereafter be referred, is not a teacher, no matter what her name tag says. My small words will never encompass completely the aweful gravity of the situation, and how a woman, masked as a teacher, could ever slip through the educational loophole. Although the purpose of this blurb is not to get the woman fired, I'm not sure I would mind taking full responsibility if she did get the axe. Now, to explain...

I was actually quite excited about substituting yesterday when I walked into the bright white room. It smelled of paper and Windex and was clean, kept, and colorful--walls filled with cheesy posters and quotes that few students would ever stop to read. The class was team-taught Algebra, so I had the rare opportunity to observe a teacher in action, which thrilled me to the core--well, at the beginning anyway.

First problem--Mrs. Nameless, I quickly observed, didn't require respect even in the smallest measure. She was much more concerned about being "the cool teacher" to some immature and rude freshman. First hour was full of foul-mouths (which is typical) who Mrs. Nameless allowed to speak freely without penalty (untypical) about whatever they wished, including sex, "shrooms" and other narcotics (which she chuckled about), and several personal stories that included the f-word (which she also freely allowed). Sure, I should have said something, but friends, at this point I was probably sitting there with my mouth gaping open, forgetting that I owned a voicebox. I began to pray.

The rest of the day was full of conversations about "wiener-suckers", bad words in sign language, paper airplane throwing contests, hopscotch during the supposed lesson (2 math problems), and a small speech about how Mrs. Nameless got a D in HS Geometry class and still passed, so they were going to be good if they didn't do every homework assignment. What?! Why are people like this allowed to teach America's youth? I'm sure they were learning a ton of Algebra when 50% were listening to their ipods and 30% were in deep hibernation.

Mrs. Nameless was on such a mission to be cool that she let students who were skipping class or roaming the halls come and hang out with her (and wrote them passes to class). And, what's wrong about completely trashing the team teacher who was out sick with no voice to defend himself anyway? And worse? Allowed the kids to join in. She started conversations about how Jeremy had red eyes because he was probably stoned from the night before and told a girl who was dating a "gangbanger" to have safe sex if she was going to swap spit.

All I know is that now, I feel that I don't have an option to be a teacher. The world needs people who care--with values--and I'm never giving up on these kids. I'm not Mother Teresa, but what if I'm their only hope? The only Jesus they'll ever see?

All of it, the whole ordeal, made me so sick that driving home, I could've actually pulled over to vomit. In fact, right now, remembering this sick world and a wasted day in the life of 150 kids, I just might lose my lunch. Lord, have mercy on our fallen nation. We need you.

Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." -Luke 23:34