Teaching Seventh Grade

Seventh grade is hard to teach

Because the kids are crazy

Hormonal minds we try to reach

They’re either wild or lazy.

One day after lunch a student cried

With gasps like she was seizing.

To cheer her up I really tried

To understand the reason.

She explained friends laughed at her

Because of the Pacific

I need more info if I were

To understand; I said, “Please be specific.”

She cried when telling them there were two

Pacific Oceans they roared

I said, “Oh, really, I never knew.

Please show me on the board.”

She pulled down the rolled up map

On the wall in the front of the room

And on the map both sides she tapped

And my eyes began to zoom

She pointed to the right and left

And said, “See, there ARE two.”

Her quivering chin, that pointed cleft,

I knew what I had to do.

I reminded her the earth was round

And that those ends would meet

To show the only Pacific found;

She slunk back to her seat.

So now you know what it is like

To teach the seventh grade

And why I often have to spike

My glass of lemonade.