‘Light the Blue Touch Paper’

If the kids do and say nothing outrageous or funny then I run short of the spark that lights a new Dean’s Blog entry. No outrageous means that all is well and the part of the Dean’s job of dealing with poor decisions is temporarily in redundancy. No funny means I have just not been listening to them; I have not made the time. Bad decision on my part; kids are hilarious and a tonic for a ‘Morgenmueffel’ like me.

Lunch provider skills
So there was this blank for the next edition of the ICS Newsletter, (or two), And then I got into a discussion with two colleagues and later on in the same week with some kids, about two words that I find myself using a lot: disrespect and disruption. The first word, in a deanish context, refers to any act or speech that shows disregard of another person’s feelings whether it be a student or an adult in the school. The second refers to the interruption of a student’s or of students’ learning, again, by act or speech. (Unsurprisingly, these are not happening at ICS on a daily basis.) You can subdivide them again into malicious and non malicious which is sort of accidental or merely thoughtless). Again, the first is very rare at ICS. Why would it not be? The second is a little less rare and a Bell graph of events on an age base would show a peak in mid puberty, and a higher frequency among boys than girls as, goaded by their alpha male hunter-killer instincts, they start to hone their lunch-provider skills. A girl audience as part of the peer group clique affects the frequency and intensity, of course.

Either vocal or body or both
Now this can lead to conflict between them and me as one result is we get a bunch of poor decisions. And that is part of my Dean’s portfolio. But when I listen to their explanation (and I do after a short address, either of the ‘rant’ or the ‘guilt trip’ type) I hear a growing note of disbelief and confusion. The disbelief is because the intention was neither to show disrespect nor to disrupt. It just happened, a random coming together in space time of a couple of factors that produced language either vocal or body or both. It was, they assure me, beyond the influence of reason. It was a social event that was almost over before the creator of it was even aware of the waves he was creating. The confusion is based on the fact that adult reaction is so intense by the perpetrator’s assessment scale of likely reactions to the aforementioned random event.

Emotionally pyrotechnic rocket
The consequences laid out by me seem to him to be expanding exponentially to fill a whole universe not yet discovered by this, say, grade 9 boy. The conversation may very well move on to MYP and IB grades and transcripts demanded by colleges for the last four years of secondary school as an indicator of future tenacity and consistency. The need to get excellent university application references from the teaching staff who ‘know you so well because they teach you four times a week for 35 weeks in the year’ will be explored. We’ll talk about social convention and the art of the appropriate, too. And all the time eyes widen in horrified disbelief that a mere gesture of the hand or a muttered, ‘You wish’ could have been the blue touch paper to this particular and awe inspiring, emotionally pyrotechnic rocket.

…And then it’s time to go patrol the lunch queue.