At 3:13 today I begin 8 weeks of vacation. I am ready. In the past week I have broken up a fight and caught a girl smoking pot on campus. Kids behaving badly.
But a quick story about the fight. The first fight I broke up, or tried to break up, was in my first or second year teaching. The two girls, doped up on adrenaline swung wildly and the only thing more entertaining for the on-lookers was seeing some 155 lb guy trying to muscle these two girls apart. A few days later one of the students apologized for hitting me (by accident I think).
So fast forward 13 years or so til last Friday. I was driving out of the parking lot when I almost made it to the end of the block when I saw some students wrestling on the ground. I thought they were fooling around. When I realized it was more violent than that I pointed my car at a 30 degree angle to the curb, and blared on the horn from about 20 feet away, hoping the sound would distract the fighting youth. It worked! With about 5-6 seconds of a constant blaring horn, and with me getting out of the car and also yelling at them, the fight broke up with the help of friends.
Maybe I need to carry an airhorn for those on-campus skirmishes that seem to flare up from time to time. But for as much as I complain about kids who don't take school seriously, the majority do... and for those students I enjoy teaching, a lot!
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