The hole truth

I was substitute teaching for a high school biology class today. Right off the bat, I was a little worried because the teacher's schedule showed hours 1, 3, 4 and 6 labeled "at risk." I wondered who exactly was as risk, them or me? Yikes.

I had a co-teacher for all of the "at risk" hours and things were going fine, until 4th hour. It should have been the same as all the other hours. When the students finished taking the quiz, they were instructed to "find something to do--quietly." Ideally this would involve them working on homework, studying or reading, though more often than not it involves an ipod. Not a big deal. Today however, one of the girls used the time to pierce her lip. Yeah, in case you missed that, she PIERCED HER LIP! I'm not even kidding, she did it right there in class! Luckily, the co-teacher was the one that noticed. When she told me I almost fainted!

So in this case, I'm guessing "at risk" refers to the increased likelihood that the girl in question will develop an infection and/or contract any one of a number of blood-borne diseases. Although, given a petrie dish and a little ingenuity, she might be able turn either of those into a nice little extra-credit project!