Do you believe in fate?

Recently, I began teaching William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, again.  If my math is right, I have been teaching for 18 years and 14 of those years I have taught freshman which means teaching Romeo and Juliet.  If you multiply that times the number of classes I taught in those 14 years, I think I have read this play somewhere around 84 times!  Woof!  But each year I begin this daunting task and am met with groans and sighs from my still wet behind the ears, 9th graders.  And each year, it magically becomes exciting and funny and challenging and interesting and surprising and fun and unforgettable!  I have colleagues that bemoan this play and Freshman in general.  I don't understand it!  My kids start the unit of study believing that this will be boring, difficult; then they come to it like they always do, with enthusiasm, wide-eyed optimism, intelligence, and a fresh sense of humor.  Before you know it they are entering my classroom and asking, "Mrs. Fruhwirth, are we reading the play again today?  Are we re-casting?  Can I be Mercutio?"  You should know, most high school students don't ask what they will be doing when they enter a classroom.  They see that time as their time to socialize, get a piece of gum, run to the water fountain.  They may say hello or good morning; they may smile and nod, but they rarely ask what they will be learning about.  Every year they start making inquiries on a daily basis during this unit.  So I have to ask why?  Is it the concept of teenagers in a love story that they are relating to?  Is it that they relate to being misunderstood by their parents?  Is it that I explain all of the dirty jokes in the play?  I know it isn't that they want to know how it ends, I tell them the ending on the first day!  (By the way, so does Shakespeare in the first 20 lines of Act I :)  So what is it that gets them hooked?  Maybe it is FATE.  Maybe it is fate that lands them in my classroom.  Maybe it is fate that they end up in the seats they are assigned in, the groups that they "form".  I have them talk about fate as we begin this unit and I will have you know, none of them believe in fate!  So how is it that all of these 14 year old realists, that haven't experienced "love at first sight", few believe it exists at all,  that don't buy into the concept of fate AT ALL, end up being soooo into this play?  It is something they confound me with annually.  When we finish they ask if we can do another Shakespeare unit.  When asked at the end of the semester which unit they liked best the majority answer: Romeo and Juliet.  They overwhelmingly come back to me as sophomores and juniors and ask me to tell them about the English IV elective: Shakespeare's Plays when it comes time to make their course choices.  Maybe they are just at a precipice in their young lives where they are ripe for the concepts of love, intrigue, smarmy humor, young adulthood, independence... and this unit has all that.  If that is true, does this simple, classic piece of literature change them in a profound and permanent way?  Isn't that what we want literature to do for kids in school anyway?  Inspire them?  Make them think?  Help them grow up?  I honestly don't know.  I will leave it at this:  I am a teacher, a great one.  I have objectives that I must meet each year and I do.  But I get a peek into what I am really accomplishing on this planet, what I am responsible for in my job when I teach this unit each year; helping build great, creative, funny, independent, thinking people.  I think of this when I talk to the man upstairs and I hope he thinks I am doing a good job.  :)