Ah, middle school. That crucible of adolescent life straddling the divide between the sugary, innocent and carefree days of childhood and the more serious physical, social, and mental developments of high school (that other crucible of adolescent life). Herein boys and girls become . . . uh, slightly older boys and girls, and because human society has a truly alarming belief in the virtue of social bonds, it was long ago decided that the best way to shepherd all those mischievous scamps into the next phase of their life was to dump them all together in a big ol’ building and spend eight hours each day having depressed, underpaid and overworked men and women talk at them about how to multiply watermelon, what Gettysburg’s address is, and what kind of a house the mitochondria lives in. Or something like that. But shoving all those hormone machines  ...