One of the reasons I am NOT going for my Teaching Certification

I subbed at the local high school yesterday morning. Got to school, got out of my car, and was crossing the driveway when a group of young men hanging out, outside the administrative building, were heard saying "shit." I called out to them, "Hey guys, watch the language." And they quieted down, but not one of them apologized.

A couple standing at the corner of the building were engaged in a full-body embrace, his hands were moving all over her, and they were engaged in a major liplock. I would have said something to them, too, except about that time I saw...

A teacher, "on duty," one presumes, since he was standing out in the grass facing toward the building as if he were there to supervise and police the action - only his nose was buried in a book and he didn't even look up when I called to the boys about their language. I walked up to him and said, "Excuse me, are you going to deal with that couple, there?"

He looked up, startled, glanced at the snogging couple and shrugged his shoulders. "There's nothing I can do about it, they can do whatever they want before school starts."

"Since when! According to the student handbook, which I am required to operate under, there are certain kinds of conduct these kids can't engage in on campus at any time!" He obviously could not have cared less. And, I might add - this is the side of the building facing the drop-off point for the kids being brought to school by their parents - dozens if not a hundred parents had a great view of this couple indiscriminately making out before school started.

I am so tired to the bone of being the lone ranger of understanding that the way these kids behave in public is the tip of the iceberg of how they're behaving in private. I am so tired of double standards being held to in the public schools. I am so tired of overhearing girls talking about the most outrageous topics - what oral sex tastes like is one example of a topic I've heard more than twice in recent weeks, and who's a dyke -

Teachers can't teach nouns and verbs or require the memorization of multiplication tables. Good literature is being abandoned in favor of trash like The Chocolate War. And conduct going through the absolute toilet. I'm so mad I could spit nails.

And I have people telling me I need to be practical and go get my certification requirements so I can be held hostage by this rapidly-disintegrating educational system for the remainder of my professional life? No, thank you!