This morning I won a footrace through the halls of my school.
I was walking down the halls before first period, and a group of boys was standing to one side of the main second-floor corridor, and one of them appeared to throw a punch at another one. As I watched the interaction, it was quickly apparent that the boys were engaging in friendly “play-fighting”, much to my relief.
I walked up to give them my “be nice–teachers often can’t tell the difference” spiel, and as I told the group to wait (and not disperse) so I could talk to them, one of the kids bolted up the stairs. I followed.
He ran at a sprint up to the third floor, down a crowded hallway, around a corner, down another crowded hallway, and around another corner, with me in hot pursuit, shouting repeatedly, “You, in the blue shirt. Stop!” He rounded another corner, taking off the blue sweatshirt as he ran. (He had a white T-shirt underneath.) Eventually, squeezing through the crowds slowed him down enough for me to catch him.
It was like a game of tag. As soon as I tagged him, he stopped, turned to me, and said, “You got me.” That was it. We had a race. I won, and he lost. Game over.
Several of my students saw me chasing this kid through the halls and asked me about it later, during class. When I told the story, it made perfect sense to the boys, but the girls were baffled. I explained: it’s the same mentality as a fight. When teenage boys fight, there are unwritten rules. It’s a contest. As soon as somebody shows up to break up the fight, they stop. Game over. There’s a winner and a loser, and as often as not, as soon as the fight is declared over, the two boys can be friends with each other. It’s not at all like a teenage girl fight, which is a fight to the bitter end. When a teacher steps in to break up a girl fight, as often as not, the girls both reach around the teacher to keep getting at each other, and it usually takes at least two teachers to keep them apart.
I also taught some chemistry today, but I’ll bet the kids don’t remember it.
