The elastic heart of youth

"But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time."

This line from Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has become one of my favorites especially after teaching junior high. It is amazing to me how frequent and drastic the mood swings of adolescents can be. Frequently when my students are being overly dramatic, I simply look at them and ask, "Aren't you just exhausted at the end of the day? Because I am exhausted just watching you."

This year, I have one student who has particularly dramatic mood swings. Humorously enough, I have found that this student's moods correspond directly to her having or not having her glasses--and they are often lost (much to my chagrin). She lost her glasses yesterday (left them on the bench at an away basketball game), so the following day at school was very melancholy. Throughout the day I would find her sitting quietly by herself writing dark poems probably about loneliness, loss, how cold and cruel this world can be, or something to that effect. Towards the end of the day, she came back to my class, and I asked her if everything was alright. Unconvincingly she said it was. Pressing the issue further, I said, "Are you sure? You seem depressed." "Oh no" was the reassuring reply; "I haven't been depressed for the past two hours." It is true: the heart of youth is very elastic.