The Wheels are off the wagon

Ah...April.
The sun is out, the temperatures are rising, the flowers are blooming and the children are out of control.

I can see it in the faces of my fellow teachers. The exhausted befuddlement that comes from teaching half-naked husks containing naught but raging hormones.

All of the teachers in a middle school develop a twitch in April.
What happens is we will see a group of seventh grade girls, half of them will be giggling and the other half will be sobbing and all of them will be screaming. They pass us scream some sort of greeting and they walk away trailing wallgreens store brand perfume.
As soon as they gone our head articulates slightly to the right, our right shoulders lift almost imperceptibly and there is a small quiver often accompanied by sharp inhalation or exhalation.

By June we all have chiropractic appointments.

Here is where my capacity is truly evident.
I love the kids, even when they are like this.

Here is a little tableau of what a class period can be like for me in April.

Two boys, one very short, the other very tall walk into my classroom beating each other. They are laughing.

Three girls walk into my room arm in arm, they are flouncing. They all have purses, digital cameras, three inches of mascara and about one square foot of clothing each. They look at the boys, roll their eyes at their immaturity (feigning apathy) and then proceed to stare at them for the next ten minutes, stopping occasionally to giggle behind their hands.

Two more boys walk into the room. You can tell without seeing them due to the cloud of Axe body spray that precedes them. They are wearing polo shirts with the collars up. They are cool. They know it.

Four girls have been following them in the hall giggling behind their hands (honestly its like a Japanese comedy of manners)they fall into the room yelling and laughing. The room is now as loud as sound check at a Metallica show.

I try to quiet the room, but as I look into the student's eyes I can see that they are just quivering with hormonal energy.

I then begin the tricky process of teaching the children. I need to avoid using the following words and phrases.
balls
straight
job
get together
hook up
blow
hot
passion
bend over

now, out of context those could sound a little risque. Here is how I have used them recently to a chorus of sniggers and gasps.

"what if he crosses downstage and balls up the piece of paper and throws it away"
"you are going to have to give it to him straight" (Ok, that was is a little rough)
"That's not his job"
"Your group get together over there"
"Don't worry you can hook up with another group later"
"Well, if you are going to have a birthday cake, somebody needs to blow out the candle"
"I know it is hot in this room"
"Characters have to have passion or the audience will never care about them"
"I just saw it around the bend over there"

In October these things are not funny.
In April, its like an evening at the improv.

I then release the students to work on their scenes. What follows faintly resembles herding cats in heat.
One girl is in the bathroom crying. One of the boys walks into a wall (this happens more than you would think. Two girls have found the paper towel dispenser and are wrapping themselves in the paper towels and performing fashion shows for themselves. Two girls are arguing about the merits of their respective make-up.
and a boy and a girl are mysteriously absent.

No child left behind.


The long and the sort of it is that when we remember middle school I doubt we are remembering things from the spring because I am pretty sure that your brain is so addled by hormones that you can think of little else besides...Well...you know.

Normal people stay away from these situations but given my capacity for self destruction, I just jump right into the mess and don't stop 'till June. Huh huh...I said jump into...