Warring with Teenagers

Five days out of seven I go to war with the most maddening race of people on the planet: the American Teenager. I just finished my 18^th tour of duty in my current theater and have slogged out of the trenches this time more ragged than usual. The little vampires had almost bled me dry. Then summer came and airlifted me out of the battle zone.

I don’t mind the hand to hand combat, the grappling in the mud over ideas, the squelching and throttling of teenage ignorance, and the thrashing about of their half-baked thoughts gasping for the sweet air of logic. I relish the blood and gore of students and teachers clashing in a battle of wits. That is the adrenaline high that keeps a good teacher coming back for more, coming back with a bigger and better pair of boots for stamping out their ignorance. The clash of ideas and the exchange of intellectual fire keep me wading back into the fray again and again.

But this year… this year felt like bludgeoning baby bunnies. This year felt like beating the proverbial dead horse. This year they discovered that my kryptonite is apathy. The little vermin went armadillo on me and curled up into a ball of Apathy and beat me down. Or rather I punched myself out like Apollo Creed on Rocky’s thick skull. There can be no grappling and squelching and throttling of anything that curls itself into an inert ball. All weapons are blunted against the round thickness of Apathy’s hide.

Or at least that’s the way it felt for most of my campaign against ignorance this past year. Having tried with all my might to pry the aggravating little armadillos open, I was spent. Then, in typical teenage fashion, they surprised me. As I read their last exam (a very long essay question), I began to see that my battle had not been in vain. I saw thoughts ---thought out thoughts ---coherently put forth on paper. Here at last was real, tangible evidence that their firewalls had been breached. Many of them actually learned some things. And then glory of glories, they were kind enough to say thoughtful, warm things about their experience in my class.

The truth of the matter is the more I read the kinds of things they had written, the more I realized that I really love my students. Of course they would never suspect that their responses on an English exam could be encouraging, could in many ways validate my whole year and send me to base camp with a fresh wind in my sails. They really screwed up at the end. Now I will be sharpening my sword and polishing my boots for tour of duty number 19 to stamp out teenage ignorance. Looking forward to the war.