In Which... Teenagers. Just, You Know, Teenagers.

It was the razor blade that really got to me. I mean, it's always suspicious when teenagers hunch over their desks, but I kept hearing a raspy skritch-skritch-skritch. So, while ostensibly monitoring my students' progress in writing name cards, I wandered the aisles in pursuit of the noise.

And there it was, coming from a hunched-over boy methodically carving the edge of his desk with a razor blade.

What the heck! Why?? Why are you doing this?

I wanted to shout and rend my clothes. I was 10 minutes into the first of my six eighth-grade classes, and I'd already stopped a girl from systematically painting a sheet of white paper with Wite-Out. Not that I have anything against Wite-Out or abstract art, but you see this name card I asked you to fill out, dearest? It's blank.

On one hand, the future looked bleak for my middle school teaching career. But on the other hand, I was vastly comforted by constancy in the universe: Teenagers are teenagers, no matter where in the world they're from. A Chinese 13-year-old has just as great a capacity for obnoxiousness as an American one.

So I did not come unglued at the boy with the razor blade. I lightly removed it from his fingers, stuck it deep in his desk and waggled an admonishing pointer: Don't.

Then I retreated to the front of the classroom and considered these students through narrowed eyes. Hmmm. This was going to take guile.

Had I been feeling more generous, I would have recalled my own fourteenth year -- without question, the worst of my life. I would have looked at these lovely, silly, awkward creatures and seen myself, 21 years ago.

There was the boy in the back, painfully aware of his complexion, eyes downcast, constantly shifting in his seat to find an elusive comfortable position in his own skin. There was the girl curled into herself like a comma, convinced that nobody understood. Were she a painting, she would be titled "A Study of Woe in Shades of Gray." There were the two girls seated side-by-side, demonstrating through icy disdain why they are atop the social ladder. They received the name cards I handed them with the Limp Wrist of Apathy. There were the boys whose favorite thing in the world is shoving each other, and the girls trying to get their attention, wordlessly pleading for any iota of consideration that would give them hope.

But like I said, this was not the time for empathy. It occurred to me that these students would not be wooed by Rachel's Traveling Minstrel and Deranged Clown Show. Whereas with my third graders I could run around waving a sock puppet and get them to shout adjectives at me, and with my fourth graders I could make up games involving chopsticks, these eighth graders would require sneakiness.

No more could I face them with what I now realized was a laughably lame lesson prepared from the world's stupidest textbook. In fact, a correspondence:

Dear textbook,

You are useless. I'd do just as well teaching from an Archie and Jughead comic book. Thanks for nothing.

Sincerely,

Rachel Sauer

So, a lesson about expressing opinions? The textbook wanted me to blather about robots or something, but I'm not ashamed to admit I resorted to pandering: I played parts of American pop songs. What is your opinion? Do you think this is a good song? Or a bad song? Tell me why.

I'm pleased to report they were rapt. If someone started talking, they shushed each other. They gave extremely serious consideration to the goodness or badness of each song, and cast thoughtful votes after each one. Then I promised that if they tried extra hard for the rest of class, I would play one whole song for them at the end. Thrilled buzzing! They could hardly believe it.

I know, I know. You are the luckiest eighth graders in the world.

Now, thanks to the help of Beyonce, Chris Brown, Feist and OutKast, I believe I might have my foot in the door. I just need to figure out what I'll do next week to trick them into learning English.

And a P.S. to Bob Dylan: Sorry, man. You really struck out with the adolescent population of northwest China. Better luck next time.