I like to try to make sense of these kids. It's a challenge. With these fifth graders, their lack of self control really isn't something to fault them for too harshly. At this point they are slowly being given more and more responsibilities for the first time in their lives and its a lot to have to handle. As these pile up in their arms, no wonder they're droppingthings everywhere and giggling with embarrassment at one another's clumsiness. Despite all the stupid stuff that comes out of their unfiltered mouths, you know that their grey matter is coursing in asexual heat, it's unused capacity expanding exponentially every day. And with bodies that seem to be transforming into completely new creatures, it's like they've been put at the controls of a strange, powerful machine, simultaneously as silly and as dangerous as a monkey with a gun on roller skates. And though the better part of my roller skating career was pre-adolescent, roller skating might be the best image for what I'm outlining. It's as if suddenly one finds themselves outfitted with shoes that have wheels on them and you have to learn to walk again, only you're not just expected to walk, you are actually a big gay pussy if you don't try to go fast. When once you work up this nerve, and YMCA is pumping through the shoddy house system and the party lights click on, then you see that brick-o-block wall looming straight ahead. And who the hell ever learned how to use those weird toe brakes?
