According to the supporters of school dress codes, high school boys are the most distractible creatures on the planet.
A bare knee? An exposed clavicle? The sight of these things is enough to permanently close a young man’s brain to the magic of math, or the bliss of biology. (The otherkind of biology.) But it raises the question: If teenage boys are so easily distracted, is it enough to enact a dress code that requires all the girls to come to school in their favorite color of burlap sack every day? There are quite a few other things that are surely just as distracting as girls — maybe it’s time to turn our attention to banning some of these things in school in order to make sure young men can learn in peace.
(Don’t worry about whether the girls are learning. How distracting can it be to be forced into a “shame suit” for the remainder of the school day, or to sit in a locked office instead of being in class while you wait for a parent to bring you a sweater to cover up with?)
That muffin-sized zit on his chin
This is a tricky one, since schools probably can’t distribute medicated acne washes to their students. Proposed solution: Either make students with pimples stay home, or make everyone wear full-face masks all day so no one has to worry about their zits being stared at.
The Homecoming game
This one’s distracting to girls, too, for that matter. In fact, school sports in general take up a lot of time and attention, and kids are forever talking about the subject when they’re supposed to be working on assignments or taking notes. I suggest ending all school sports-related activities immediately to resolve the problem.
That kid who picks his scabs
He’s not going to eat them, is he? OH GOD HE IS EURRRGH!
Those texts
Did Sophie text Beth about what she said to Clayton?
To prevent kids from being distracted by worrying about gossip or relationships, it’s probably best to forbid students to have relationships or be friends with anyone else.
Oh, and no cell phones either. I’m not sure which of those would be hardest to enforce.
His geometry quiz grade
A 4/10? What’s Mom going to say? That’ll haunt a kid for the rest of the day, and thenhow’s he supposed to take notes on macroeconomics or the French subjunctive? Bam — time to throw grades in the garbage alongside leggings and shorts that fall anywhere north of the knee.
Junk food
The King Size Snickers, box of goldfish crackers, 12 packets of fruit snacks, and 20-ounce Mountain Dew currently sitting in his stomach like an artificially sweetened, naturally flavored brick.
Best to just get rid of school lunchtime once and for all to make sure that he’s fully able to focus for the rest of the day.
The classroom clock
Make classes five minutes shorter. Then make them shorter again, since there’s a different last five minutes. Continue until all classes are four minutes long or less.
Conversely, remove clocks from all classrooms. Whichever is easier.
Or even more conversely, let’s stop pretending that teenage boys are delicate flowers who must be protected from distraction at all costs. Banning clocks from schools might be more realistic than that proposal, though.
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