Hazard pay

It is perhaps the most stressful thing that I do on a regular basis: 14 Bunsen burners going in a room with 30 teenagers. Do math teachers worry when all their students pull out their graphing calculators? Do geography teacher's hearts race when all their kids are looking at maps at the same time? Perhaps in PE When the whole class is in the pool, is there the same potential for disaster, but even then, one kid might drown, it isn't like the whole building could explode.

We started today's lab with a lesson on how to light a match. I would guess 30-40% of my 10th graders had never done it. But they all have now.