Grafitti for God

For the next three weeks, I am teaching a technology class at an all-girls', Catholic high school. I have been amazed at the difference between private vs. public school-bred students, which is saying a lot since I am teaching all freshman, aka hormone-enraged adolescent girls all fresh out of 8th grade.

Having substituted for middle school before, I was expecting the worst, but I have to admit that I am more than pleasantly surprised at their good manners, advanced maturity and overall self-discipline. Of course, it is all girls, so that cuts behaviorial problems in half right from the get go. Don't get me wrong, boys are dear little things (my son included), but typically, problems at school are rooted in naughty little boys.

But, mix perfectly-behaved, over-achieving, desperate for extra credit-earning girls with a private school environment, and the result is rousing. As it typical in any school, the bathrooms here have scrawlings in the stalls, but I was taken back when I read the wall in a stall I was "visiting" today. In the beautiful maple-colored marble was etched, "Just always believe and trust in God."

As a teacher, I don't condone bathroom grafitti, but I gotta admit, it was actually rather inspiring. I mean, if a kid takes the time to etch that into a marble wall, it helps me regain some faith in our youth today and how their beliefs are being formed. I mean, in public schools, you'd think church is jail and an active faith life something of which to be ashamed.

Kids will always be kids, and there will always be bathroom poetry in schools, but only at an all-girls', private high school will you find them of a Biblical nature. I wonder what the bathroom walls at the all-boys', private Catholic high school across town have to say...