The teacher worked tirelessly and had become increasingly frustrated and enraged

She’d spent her free time grading papers and writing lesson plans only to watch her class with their texts be engaged

The phones had been allowed in the classrooms since school shootings had become common place

Two years of enforcing digital learning ruined the classroom experience as public education had become a national disgrace

Now the top of heads is all this teacher sees as no one bothers to look up from their texts

She realizes no one is giving a thought to the current subject matter as the students are juvenile, boorish and highly sexed

She was young not that long ago and can imagine what the texts are like

More or less, they all have the same theme about current best friends, likes, dislikes and wishing the teacher would take a hike

The texts would all have the substance of phone conversations heard at Walmart

In other words passing time, and displaying the fact that the caller is not that smart

“gas ayt”

“booms”

“bic faak”

“rbay”

“ig2r”

Today’s texts were yesterdays phone calls. Only now one can instantly have a private line or a party line depending what information needs to be dispersed

Teenage angst, general information, and status can all be summed up in four or five letters depending on what needs to be conversed

The teacher came from the era when notes were passed when the instructor wasn’t looking like the scene from the movie Sixteen Candles

When friends handed folded notes back and and forth including intimate surveys, gossip and the latest scandals

She understands this is the new shorthand and one must be skilled in texting to comprehend

But she also knew the adults in the room had their own measures to counter this trend

All that is needed to completely confuse the texting generation are instructions or statements written in cursive

Anything in cursive to this texting generation might be considered sinister and subversive

The new generation has a real problem writing anything that can’t accomplished with two thumbs. Which explained the answer she received on multiple fill-in-the-blank test questions that weren’t graded very high

The four letter text simply stated “esad”