What is it about being a teenager?

Last Sunday I had a city-wide teacher in-service to attend on Israel. It's for local religious and Hebrew school teachers, and it pretty much sucked. Instead of providing us with hands-on training and ideas about how to plan lesson plans and practical ways to teach Israel we were lectured to about Israel's history. Which, I'm sorry, but we could have all picked up a book and read about it and been a) better informed and b) much more interested.

However, as I was leaving (early) the director of the Conservative high school stopped me and asked me if I would be interested in teaching an art class on Sunday nights. It turns out their usual teacher couldn't do it and they were desperate. Despite the fact that I have a pretty full schedule with my own job and teaching at my own temple I agreed to do it. It's only an 8-week thing and I have pretty much free reign on the art projects I want to do. So, last night was my first class and it is populated by mostly 8th-graders, all of whom seem to be quite ambivalent about attending religious school, and couldn't care less about an art class. It was frustrating to say the least, especially because it seems we will be doing craft projects instead so as to keep them busy and from gossiping the entire time. Oh, well.

I truly did appreciate my well-behaved and eager-to-learn 4th graders, though.