The New Adolescent Threat…
As a teacher I’ve been trained to be on the look-out for risky student behavior; as school administration and staff are legally considered in loco parentis (“crazy parents”) by the state, it is incumbent upon us to be aware of dangerous trends our students might be engaging in and, as Marv Albert might say, nip it in the butt. Or at least adopt them as our own hobbies to appear youthful and hip, “with it”, cool, krunk, relevant.
It is this training (a five minute talk given to us by one of our new young counselors right before we left for lunch) that allowed us as a staff to recognize several new fads among our student population and ensure we had proper policies in place to maintain safety and proper decorum. Last year we recognized the Twilight series was inspiring a number of teens to decorate their skin with glitter, and, after an unfortunate incident in the cafeteria involving a wooden stake, we adopted new policies forbidding both glitter AND stakes. 2010 saw a spike in certain subsets of our male population joining local gangs, so each of our male teachers (90 out of 210 total teachers) was asked to volunteer as “sponsors” to our at-risk youth. I’m currently sponsoring Ramón, a clean-cut young man who actually has taken the time to introduce me to his “posse”. Nice guys. Hey, Ramón, if you’re reading this – LATIN KINGS SIEMPRE! ; D.
Unfortunately, we acted too late on guys wearing skinny jeans, but now there’s the latest fashion trend of low-cut, v-neck t-shirts being worn by the girls, and, in a 120 to 90 vote, the staff decided to include the shirts on the list of prohibited attire for next year.
But now I’ve noticed an even more disturbing trend among my students in my classroom, and in conversations with other teachers I’ve discovered it’s quite widespread. I call it “crotch-watching”: during class, often times during lecture, I will notice students at their desks, staring down at their laps, utterly absorbed by what they’re looking at. One or both of their hands are also in their laps, but nothing untoward is occurring based on the fact that the students sitting around them do not react at all to this behavior. The students afflicted by this behavior just sit, chin at their chest, and stare. The posture can last anywhere from 30 seconds to several minutes, and when I ask them what they’re doing, all they say is “nothing”, their hands immediately coming up from their laps. Usually they won’t go back to their crotch-watching for the rest of the class after I’ve shown some concern, which is good, because I want my students to know I care (and Ramón is always telling me to keep an eye out for new blood prospectives).
I thought at first that these students might be having some self-esteem issues, as they are avoiding eye contact and personal interaction with their peers while they navel-gaze, but typically these crotch-watchers are the more extroverted students – they always seem to have a lot of friends and constantly know what each other is up to. Just the other day, for instance, I had a student ask to go to the restroom and, as he left my room, I noticed that his girlfriend from the class right down the hall had been let out of class, too. One of the assistant principals was patrolling the hallway so he made sure they didn’t waste any time getting back to their classrooms. Fortunate, because we were discussing carpe diem poetry that day, including Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” and Robert Herrick’s “To The Virgins, To Make Much of Time”. Fantastic poems – both present such strong messages to young people.
Anyway, I’m trying to figure out the next step to take to try and curb this alarming trend among our students. Some teachers might argue it’s a lost cause; there are reports that this kind of behavior is now being seen in the middle schools, though of course not as commonly as it is here at the high school. I also hear that “crotch-watching” is widespread on our local college campuses, though interestingly enough students who bring laptops to class are seemingly immune to this scourge – they’re obviously too busy taking notes on their machines of modern convenience. But perhaps that’s the solution – maybe the district needs to assign laptops to students so that they will have something to keep them preoccupied during class and not fall victim to the empty pursuit of crotch-watching. We all know how teens love technology.
I’ll be sure to suggest this at the next faculty meeting. Tonight, though, Ramón tells me we’re going to be playing tag, although he called it “tagging”. He asked me to buy some spray paint, since he’s not 18 yet, to help mark “boundaries.” Funny, though, I would’ve expected him to have outgrown that game at his age. Maybe it’s a cultural thing – but it’s another way I’m staying relevant to today’s teens.
The Lower Frequencies 
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