Grown Children

Most of my ninth grade students look like young adults.

The boys are mostly man-size: tall and heavy and strong. Most of the girls seemed to have passed menarche, given the number of requests I get to go to the nurse's office. I suspect some of these requests are actually sincere and not simply designed to exploit my natural disinclination to pursue a detailed discussion on the topic. The girls always get their nurse's pass. Boys, on the other had, often ask to go to the restroom but they obviously cannot play the "monthly" card. Most of the time I ask them to wait until later in the period when I have them working in groups. Often they forget they actually had to go. When I do allow them to leave, another student normally perceives this as a potential method of escape and asks me if he can go as well. I say that I will sign his pass but only after the previous student has returned. This usually results in disappointment. Although they look like adults, they often behave as little children.

Their brains and the way they use them are, of course, a dead give away of their age. Their emphasis on social and emotional connections almost always overrides their sense of professionalism and responsibility. Those not accustomed to dealing with young teenagers might respond to this statement with a, "well, duh," but I suspect they too might be initially fooled by these adult-sized humans with nascent socio-cognitive abilities. You see, sometimes they flutter between periods of mental maturity and childishness in the same way their voices once shifted tone. I have students who are perpetual children and those who seem adult beyond their years: these are at either end of a steep bell curve. Most lie in the middle, on the peak of churning wave, at times petulant, rebellious, and arrogant and at other times contrite, helpful, and considerate. This shift between personalities is, I believe, at the heart of what frustrates teachers and parents: They see the physique of adulthood in its prime: virile and capable, but have difficulty squaring that with juvenile social behavior. We must not forget that they are children, but children being emotionally born, making that transition from the second womb of childhood into the adult world. The work is painful and long, and no emotional C-section or spinal block can shorten or ease this labor.

I attach for your benefit evidence of a recent stir in my class room: a note from a substitute teacher who had an encounter with a student who is normally reasonably well-behaved.