Teachers guess who's popular versus bullied, the hidden hierarchy in every classroom.

I'm a young high school teacher and football wrestling coach. I'm very aware and I try hard to make everyone feel accepted.

Often the bullies are kids that I coach. If the athletes in my class act like meatheads, I make it very clear that I won't put up with it.

I've pulled many an

athlete into the hallway during some downtime to let him know I saw him being ignorant to a student

and it's in poor character. It rarely takes more than one of these conversations. Because of my

position in the school, I've never had to do so much as raise my voice and still maintain a pretty

laid-back atmosphere. I also spend most of my

downtime reaching out to kids that aren't popular. I talk indie music to the artsy types,

and they often burn me CDs of their bands. Sometimes they even turn me onto a new group that ends up on

my iPod. I watch far more crappy movies on Netflix than I probably should, so I sometimes

spend my lunch period

gabbing with the movie nerds in the cafeteria. I encourage students to use my work email at any time.

I have a habit of answering through my phone, even though I'm off the clock, but my fiancée is a

teacher, and she gets it. I spend so much time with the athletes after school and on the weekends.

I almost find myself overcompensating

during the school day so I don't come off as a caveman to my students that I don't coach. In short,

I notice, and I try to be cool to everyone regardless of interest or clique, regardless of the

impact on my reputation amongst the jocks. When my mother was a teacher, a lot of her kids

would actually pass gossip along to her, even if she told them not to tell her. So she knew who was doing the deed with who and who got drunk every weekend? Yeah, she definitely knew. And even if you don't straight up tell a teacher things like that, I think it's pretty intuitive, at least to an extent. As a teacher, you can tell who the good-looking jocks are and who the

awkward nerds are. You don't all of a sudden become numb to social stuff once you become a teacher.

On the contrary, you probably pick it up better because you're constantly around that high school

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