"Tell Teacher..."

I live in a telenovela… a very teen angst riddled one. The notes I confiscate and pieces of gossip that I overhear are better than any soap opera. The drama stirred up among the seventh grade girls could provide fodder for the CW for years.

Today was the last Friday before midterms so the already hyperactive students were turbo-charged with stress.

I handed each student a little slip with the book report poster grade as soon as they stepped into the class. Since their minds cannot absorb anything but the midterm, many students asked me if the poster went to their midterm grade. A majority considered their score as an omen to future performances. Everyone understood what the grade sheets were except one girl.

The slender pieces of paper look similar to the "Praise Notes presented for excellent academic behavior. When I handed the poster grade slip to the ultimate mega-generators of the seventh grade gossip machine, she gasped. "I got a praise note! I love you teacher."

"Actually, it's your grade for your poster."

The diva of melodrama's feigned excitement dropped immediately. "What! I hate you teacher!"

She stomped out of the classroom but stormed back in right as the bell rang. In her sweetest voice she said, “I’m sorry I said I hated you.”

Quite used to the emotional extremes of my students, I responded that while I’m glad she doesn’t hate me, her option of me does influence how I react.

She sucked in her breath with all the horror a twelve year old could muster. “That means you don’t care if I hate you are not!”

She marched to her seat with self-approved righteous indignation and immediately whispered to her friend. Though the friend was pained to be caught within the sandstorm of over-reaction, she turned to me with a grimace. “She wants me to tell you that she’s never going to speak to you again.”

I found myself weighing whether this was actually an unbeneficial development, but the drama magnet broke into my internal debate. She was determined to prove her point.

“Ask the teacher if she’s ever seen How To Lose A Guy in Ten Days.”
The friend repeated.

“Tell the teacher that I think the lead character is really pretty.”
The friend repeated.

“Ask the teacher if she knows who the lead is.”
The friend repeated.

“Tell the teacher that it’s Kate Hudson.”
The friend repeated.

We played jeopardy to review for the midterm, and the third person proxy continued. “Tell the teacher we want ‘Gerunds for 300’.”

The melodramatic student passed me later in the afternoon on her way to the buses with a different girl minion. With head held high she said to her friend, “Tell the teacher I hope she has a nice weekend.”

Though the rises and falls of the i-generation’s crises happen in an Internet inspired millisecond, I must be currently in the middle of a cold war.