Into the Bowels of Braindead I Went

I have seen a couple of assemblies of middle school students, and for a new middle school teacher they were an experience to remember. Here are a few things I saw 6th, 7th, and 8th graders doing in the two short assemblies I attended:
- pretending to vomit
- making fun of adults
- whispering, and lots of it
- poking, touching, and tickling
- yanking at articles of clothing
- incessant talking
- inability to focus eyes
- yelling the name of a friend fifty times
- groaning, and lots of it
- ignoring everyone
- children with a look of a brain dead zombie unable to move or blink
- children screaming and/or unable to sit still
- wild eyed looks on the faces of boys out of control
- teachers miserably failing to maintain a shred of sanity on their face
- one attempted kissing session (boy w/girl)

However, today I was told by the administration to actually sit with the students in the bleachers, probably as a strategy to keep them under better control. I noticed that many of the teachers did not do as requested. I discovered later, to my horror, that they ignored that directive because they have experience, brains, knowledge, wisdom, and an ounce of sense. I, however, climbed up into those bleachers in the gymnasium and sat surrounded by brain damaged, wild hellions and zombie children. It was a terrifying experience, and one I want to forget. My ears are still aching, my senses numbed, and my mouth unable to convey in some way the vacuous existence of middle schoolers en masse.