Earlier this week, I sat through an agonizingly long awards ceremony at our highschool. While I admit that it is a totally boring way to spend one's morning, it was also rewarding and encouraging to see so many of my former students excelling. Teens do a lot of stupid things, really stupid things. Many don't at all care about education and only graduate because we drag them kicking and screaming through their school years. But not all, not nearly all. An astonishing amount of scholarship money was awarded. Students who placed at area scholastic meets received medals. We have a young man who was awarded a spot at the Air Force Academy. We have a National Merit Scholar and an Academic All Stater. Another student was just elected State FFA President. These students all sat in my class. They worked their hearts for me and let me teach them instead of resisting education with all their might.
My point is that teens get a bad rap sometimes. Look on the news or on social media. It is full of images of teens making poor decisions. While I do honestly worry about this generation's ability to make wise voting choices and to contribute meaningfully to society, it is our job and perhaps our pleasure to spend time with these same kids making sure they learn to think. A lot of my friends interact with young people all the time. They are in education or other professions or programs that center around kids, like ministry, Girl Scouts or Duncan's Teen Theater. We have so many opportunities to be with kids in a positive way, and while many kids surely need some guidance, others just need to be encouraged in the already good things they believe and do.
As our end of the year project, my AP Lang classes worked our way through the This I Believe personal essay project. Think back to those broadcasts of This I Believe speeches on NPR. That is just what we did minus recording our speeches and sending them to someone. We did lots of small reflective journal writings, some collaborative work, and finally wrote and presented essays on some personal philosophy they held about an aspect of life. They wrote about everything. These were painful, soul searching essays. Students wrote about success and defeat. Fear. Aspirations. Coming out. Mental illness. Faith. You name it and we probably heard it. We went through a box of Kleenex during presentation days.
Let me just say that I was in awe of the collective wisdom in that room. They may just be sixteen and seventeen and eighteen year olds, but they know a lot. They have strong and solid beliefs that will help guide them. They know themselves far better than I did before I went off to college. One would think they had just came out of Ann Frankland's class on Campbell. I was really afraid they would blow this assignment off as an easy A, go through the motions, and turn in trite easy essays. A few did. Perhaps three out of fifty. Most were well written, had gorgeous style and dug deep. These were from the heart and I couldn't have been prouder of them. They badgered me to write one too - it was hard. How do I pick just one philopshy and make it relatable?
Through out the year, I learned so much from this group of kids. It was honestly the best year ever. It was just a wonderful group of kids. I poured my heart into the class and they did to. I learned from them all year - what ever we read or wrote, they always had some new perspective, some new slant I hadn't thought of. I learned a lot about teaching and just people this year.
I think sometimes I get so caught up in teaching what the state department or College Board mandates, that I put teaching the important things on the back burner. I did a better job of making them look at important issues and face difficult "life" issues this year. In the process I was reminded of how much they teach me when I am supposed to be teaching them.
One of my seniors gave me a card a few days ago. I stood in my room reading it, tears tracking down my cheeks. She said that she hadn't planned to take my class but that it was a God thing that she had and that we read what we did. Of course it was - I know she and others were put in my room to teach me a thing or two this year. I may be on the door step of middle age and she may be young, but I believe if we are listening and paying attention, we teach each other.
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