Year-end tallies

Some teachers, those conscientious real teachers I've heard about, usually assess their school year with a set of year-end statistics on failure rates, test scores and student performance. I also like to evaluate each school year by crunching some numbers, although these numbers are a little extra crunchy, even grainy, if you will. Let's look back on the past nine months and see how the numbers came out.

3: Number of popped-out tits seen this year while breaking up girl fights.

Negative 13: On a scale of 1 to 10, the hotness factor of seeing those three tits.

Big Fucking Zero: Number of kids who failed any of my five classes this year.

5 - 10: Number of kids who probably deserved to fail my class.

Plenty, and I Love It: Number of teachers who would be pissed off by this statistic. These are the teachers who look at a high failure rate as some sort of badge of honor, as if failing lots of kids indicates stringent standards and stellar teaching. I agree that 40 percent of your kids failing indicates gross ineptitude, but not on the part of the kids.

22: Estimated number of days off I took this year, which included six field trips, four days working on a state testing committee and two days for other professional conferences. The other ten? Hey, a guy's gotta take some time off to recover from all those field trips, committees and conferences. What, you think nine weeks of summer, a 12-day Christmas break, and a 10-day Spring Break are enough days off? I beg to differ.

7,897: Number of times the words "fuck" and "motherfucker" were used in the halls this year.

3,832: Number of times those words were used by me.

2: Number of embarrassing, time-to-reevaluate-the-way-I'm-living-my-life moments in which a student returned from running an errand to retrieve something from my car and said, "Hey Mr. Bitters, why is there an empty beer can on the floor of your car?"

78: Number of times since then when I thought of those moments before cracking open a beer while driving.

Fucking Zero...what, are you kidding me?: Number of times I didn't open the beers.

43: My age, which makes the previous three items even more pathetic.

0: Number of school sporting events I've attended in the past three years, despite three teams advancing to state final games.

0: Number of games I attended while I was a student in high school.

Infinity: How badly I hate high school sports.

0: Number of plays, concerts and similar school functions I've attended in the past three years.

Infinity Cubed: How badly I hate those functions, too.

$149: Money spent watching the Major League Baseball Season Ticket package, proving that my priorities are severely, irreparably fucked up.

Around 150 Per Day: Number of against-the-dress-code belly shirts seen walking by my room each day between classes.

Around 149 Per Day: Number of apparently non-mirror-owning girls who should never be seen wearing a belly shirt yet sport them anyway.

4: Average number of inches of belly flab sticking out beneath belly shirts and over jeans that are two sizes too small.

0: Number of times in my 19 years of teaching that I've sent a girl to the office for showing too much cleavage, thigh or stomach. Hey, I'm no creepy old letch ogling the little girls, but I'm not dead yet, either.

1: Number of first-year teachers caught bypassing the porn-blocking system on his school computer, which led to him staying at school until the late evening hours "doing lesson plans."

1: Total career years this teacher will have at our school.

Negotiable: How much I'm willing to pay this creepy little perve for information on how he pulled off this slick maneuver.

X: The value of which I still can't fucking find. How do those kids learn algebra, let alone all the mind-bending math classes that come after it?

Y: Hey fucker, I still haven't found the value of X yet, and you think I know what Y is?

158: Number of days I showed up to teach this year.

158: Number of days I was sure I was going to quit teaching, or at least quit my school and relocate.

158: Number of days I laughed my ass off, had wonderful conversations with countless amazingly interesting intelligent kids, and realized that even on the worst of days, it's hard to beat this job.

76: Consecutive days off this summer vacation. Yes, 76. Days off. So to all you real job/real world people, I'll put that number up against your stock options, your corner office with a view and your two martini lunch any time. Well, you might have me with the two-martini lunch thing. But I'll try to even the score over the summer. Because I can. Did I mention that I have 76 days off?

Ned Bitters teaches high school and dreams of one day seeing one of his former students on stage at a strip club. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.