There’s so much more going on in your average teenager’s life than you really want to know, and I wish they
would leave their angst and arguments at the classroom door and come in and get on with the things detailed on
my lesson plan, but of course that’s impossible. Instead, teachers and other adults in the vicinity are often
the buffers and observers of the little dramas played out in teenage lives every day. At the moment it’s the
season for arguments. Boys will argue, have a punch up and usually resolve the matter in minutes. Sometimes
the more sophisticated ones use arguments to test their powers of sarcasm for the next month, digging at each
other across the room, giving sly punches on the way in or out, but nothing compares to the way girls treat
each other.
With girls, friendships are constantly tested and under pressure. The closest of friends will turn into the worst of enemies in the blink of a heavily mascared eye. (As an aside, my spell-check just informed me that mascared should be massacred. You see, there are more connections than we know.) Even the best of friends will constantly dig at each other, pass notes to other girls about each other, and stir up rumours, and that’s just the stuff we teachers see. Plenty more goes on in the realms of text messaging, emailing and instant messaging. Some girls believe the best form of defence is attack, whilst others crumble under the pressure.
I had a row full of girls crumble this week. Three were in tears and one stormed out of the room, meaning I had to get a message to reception and involve the deputy heads in a hunt for the girl around the school site. I could make no sense of the situation either, when I had three or four girls telling me what had caused these events in a manner that the writers of “Vicky Pollard from Little Britain the TV show” would be hard pressed to capture in any form of dialogue.
On the flip side there are the rare moments that make you see a different more favourable side to a pupil
that you teach. Before my GCSE class left for study leave, and before the boy I’m about to tell you about was
suspended for rearranging the features on another boy’s face, I confiscated a note that this boy and another
were passing between them. It ran to two sides of A4 paper, far more than either of them had produced in the
whole of Year 11, and when I tried to read it I found it was a coded message, written in a language only
teens understand, that of text messaging. That just made me all the more determined to decipher it, and I
spent a lunch hour pondering the contents of this note. When I eventually deciphered it, it did make me see
these two little thugs in a different light. So for your elucidation, I have transcribed its contents into
a more palatable form of English below:
Boy A: How are relations between you and your fair lady these days?
Boy B: Not so good, I’m afraid. I think she favours another.
Boy A: Who is this other suitor? We should take him to one side and have words.
Boy B: That won’t do much good. The fault lies with me.
Boy A: Why, for goodness sake, would you say that?
Boy B: I really don’t appreciate her as much as I should. I really am very upset. She is so special to me. She really is the one.
Boy A: But why does she no longer worship the ground you walk on?
Boy B: I neglected her for football practice.
Boy A: That was silly. I know how it feels to have loved and lost. It’s difficult to find a good woman who doesn’t have loose morals.
Boy B: I know, I know! I’m such a fool. I’ll do whatever it takes to win back her affections. I’m so miserable without her.
Boy A: When I split up with my lady friend I was extremely miserable too. However the good thing is that we’re talking again.
Boy B: Do you think your love can be rekindled?
Boy A: I’m restraining myself. I don’t wish to press the lady in case she considers me too serious. Our conversations are limited to electronic media right now.
Boy B: I’m glad I have your confidence. I wouldn’t be able to discuss this matter with any of the other members of the football team. They would consider such talk to be in the realm of the homosexual.
Boy A: Worry not, my good friend, we are men of the world and understand how it is to have loved. They are the homosexuals.
Boy B: I’m laughing out loud at your insights into our fellow team members.
Boy A: I am laughing out loud too.
added 11/6/06
© Copyright laws apply to the contents of this website. 2003-2006