Flashbacks

I spent about 20 minutes of the job interview for my present employ discussing my strategies for controlling a classroom full of young teenagers not fully in control of their hormones. At the time I wondered if the whole "hormones thing" was really as bad as the vice principle so seemed concerned.

Now we're winding down the last term and I've had to rewrite my syllabus to include in the classroom rules the phrase "No lapdances!" I have had countless numbers of young girls fall madly in love with me one day and then refuse to speak to me the next.

I had 3 different sets of girls who were BFF one day turn so venemous against each other that they had to seperate them by switching all their classes.

I have a student who spent a month talking online to her best friend (a boy) pretending to be a girl from Atlanta looking for a boyfriend when she moved to her dads house. She was going to end it by making him think she died of a heart condition. He found out what she was doing and now refuses to sit anywhere he can see her (it's too late to switch classes.)

Then there's the hormones that don't lead to sex. There are the let's do dumbass things because we're bored and stupid hormones.

I thank my lucky stars that I'm not the teacher who had the kid who blew his eyes off. It's everything I can do to keep my kids from turning every moment of their life into a "Jackass" live performance act.

I have a new respect for the force of nature that today's teenager is. I just wish their parents knew how to teach them self control.

Still, it beats working.