One of my students shot himself over the weekend. In front of two of his friends at 2 in the morning.

The question is not "are the kids I teach on drugs?"

The question is "what drugs are they on?"

There are many on legally prescribed, helpful mood altering drugs. These kids often pretend to take the drugs then sell them to their buddies.

Then there are parents who will buy alchohol for their minors. There are parents who are in rehab or currently taking drugs. The pot, meth, ritalin, blood pressure medicine which is snorted. Very little coke, though I suspect some crack users. I'm becoming good at looking for the signals of the drugs. "he was okay this morning, now after lunch he's bouncing around the room, now he's crashing..."

Even the innocent sugar, the illegal for minors skoal, and the slipping of vodka into water bottles are problems. I watched a sugar rush happen on Valentine's day. A group of trying to do better kids slowly errupted into a riot. I _watched_ the transformation happen.

at least they are using more words

"my Malcolm, you looks spiffy today in your stylish M&M jacket."

"Mrs. Widget why you using big words?"

"What? Spiffy? Its not big its different, it means "sharp" or "classy".

Next week, "mrs widget you have a spiffy looking shirt."

How many of you have encountered this issue?


counselor "mark is in trouble with his father, he's not supposed to be hunting."

Me "wait, mark showed me his stack of hunting licenses and I know he's been poaching too." (hunting licenses are printed out cards, with the hunter's info and a place for the game warden to fill in when you are at the weigh station)

"he's not supposed to be out at all."

only in the state I live

we also close school the first day of hunting season, figure the kids and some teachers would skip