Teenagers are funny. They do silly things to themselves, then whine at me when I ask them to stop. I don't particularly care if a student wants to stick a pin in her arm and make a pretty pattern of red dots - I just don't want her doing it when she should be writing a speech in class time. I'm even less keen on students sticking pins into each other (the same pin!), consenting or not. An outbreak of hepatitis or meningitis might thin the numbers in my class, and it tends not to be the ones you want to keep who do silly things, but nonetheless it's just not something I want to see in class.
I had a student give the justification above this morning - the old 'it's my body' line. Which is true, but not worth a whole lot in the context of a classroom. I can't take that line seriously any more having seen the episode of South Park with Cartman dressed in the manner of a low-rent prostitute, to get onto a Jerry Springer style show. I told the student this, and she called me weird. I guess I did do the Cartman impression, but nonetheless people with pins sticking out of their forearms shouldn't throw stones at glass houses if you ask me...
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