To my everlasting chagrin, many students at my school think that the only way to solve a problem is to throw a fist or slap a face or push someone up against a locker. Admittedly, the latter has sounded strangely appealing to my own rat self on occasion…but of course, I’d never follow through. That’s the thing — some people can’t stop themselves in between the two (the wanting to and the doing).

There was another near-brawl yesterday, all because someone “talked trash” about someone else on MySpace. Bigtime important stuff, I’m sure. Besides, getting suspended for fighting just gives you extra time to work on your homework.

*blink*

Sometimes I wax philosophic to my high school choir (aka a captive audience of 89). As I look at them staring blankly back at me, surely asking themselves, “Will she never shut up?”, I’m not sure they ever agree with anything I say. Kinda reminds me of the seventies…heh. Been there, ja? Anyway, I told them the other day, “Y’all are one angry bunch.” I actually saw heads nod in agreement. Don’t get me wrong: there are great kids at my school. It’s just that sometimes they get lost in the cacophony of disrespectful, loud, undisciplined, mad-at-the-world-and-the-world’s-gonna-pay malcontents whose sole purpose is to appear as big and bad (and downright mean) as possible, cuz, you know, that’s what gets you somewhere in life.

I don’t frown on rebels, or on people who hear and follow a different drummer. On the contrary, I celebrate them. We probably wouldn’t enjoy half the wonderful things we have today in our culture (literature, music, art, scientific advancements) if there weren’t people who went against the grain. It’s the people who do so for the singular purpose of making others miserable that get on my Everlast nerve. Honestly, it would be a field research project for Helen and the Thriller (social work and counseling majors, respectively).

I know this is a hot-button topic in education, and I’m no Pollyanna, suggesting that we all just join hands and sing our way through life. I suppose that as the years go by, I’m just getting less tolerant of the less tolerant among us. Cantankerous old hag anyhow. Be careful around me; I might hafta knock you out.

*kA-BLaM*