today on discipline

We teachers chatted after classes about the girls who were fighting
who I chose not to send to my superior (against the rules, I was reminded)
and tried to talk to, talk through
with no progress
but no punishment for all that pent up bitterness that made them shove each other.

blah, blah, these damn kids. the crazy things they do
and you talk about the dirty things they say, and how you say
"would you think that was appropriate if I told your mother?"
and they stop.

It dawns on me:
you don't
see these kids
as human

and for this minute freeschooling has won me over.

oversexed media meets just-pre-hormonal students after school
and so of course they're going to play around with that language
of course this is of intrigue to them, it is to you, teacher, isn't it?
If we call these words "inappropriate" and try to extract them from school
then school is a place where big things get hidden
and grown ups are the keepers of the big fake machine
who don't have any real information on those real things

and then we're not moving forward, generations aren't passing on what they know
and we are stuck being lucky if we come to re-articulate
that these things we all do are human and not exotic or sell-able or full of shame.
Are you thinking about your actions, really, when you scold a child for using their new words. It made me angry, how the other teachers just nodded. These damn kids. This damn school.