To the Class of 2014

Each year we watch another class of students walk across the stage to graduate and every cohort differs from the year before. I've composed addresses to each of these classes based on their personalities and my experiences with them. (2013 , 2012 , 2011 ) Below is this years edition of our "graduation speech that wouldn't be".

To the Class of 2014:

I am hopeful about your future. But I’m afraid that some of the important lessons of life that you should have learned by now are going to happen before you’re able to go boldly into that future. I’ve taught some of the brightest and hardest working students of my career this year, but I’ve also watched many students struggle to cope with the changing demands of our current context.

This year I discovered that many of you have learned the unhealthy coping mechanism of avoidance. While my normal absence rate was around 6 or 7 percent, that number magically went up to over twenty percent on every test day. Somewhere along the line you’ve learned “why do it today if I can put it off until tomorrow.” And I’ve had to tolerate giving you the chance to make it up on your own schedule and timeframe.

Educators point out it’s about the learning and find it clever to point out SATs, MCATs, LSATs, etc., can be taken over and over until you pass. But if you don’t perform next year to the standards of your school, they won’t let you come back, at least for another year. Some decisions are final and all decisions have consequences. So I hope that you take advantage of second chances without assuming beforehand that you’ll always have them.

This year I discovered that many of you have adopted the unhealthy attitude of American adults that glorifies “21^st century” excess. The excess of our century is busyness, activity, and work. You take eight classes, participate in a sport, maintain a social life, and leave town for a four day field trip with your band just a few weeks after Spring Break and just a few weeks before AP and End of Year testing and wonder why you’re so overburdened with work.

There’s nothing wrong with experiencing all that you can while you’re young, but time is not limitless. We reach a point where participation in something is going to affect our performance. An adult must work a little harder to plan for and then work a little harder to catch up from a weeks vacation from work. Along the way, you’ve learned that you should be able to do it all—the coach should give you playing time, the teacher should give you an A, you should have time to practice your part in the play, and your social life shouldn’t suffer.

You have a hard time handling life when it doesn’t work out this way. I’ve had to provide more weeks of material for your homebound instruction this year than at any point in the past. And the reasons for homebound instruction have not been physical recovery, they’ve all been psychological. We’re quick to treat your mental health, but slow to question whether your mental health is fine, perhaps the environment is toxic.

More likely than not, you’re going to be fine. Most of you were accountable for yourselves even when you didn’t have to be. Some of you will learn that after leaving this place, that only you are accountable for yourself. No other institution is going to take the blame for your bad behaviors, lack of preparation, or the fact that you just choose to not show up.

Of course every person is different, but based on my time with you collectively, if I had to offer one piece of advice to help you into the future it would be this:

“Simplify. Life can only progress one moment at a time. Learn what you can handle in those moments and make them count. There is only so much in life that you can be responsible for, but taking on more than that is no excuse for being irresponsible. Despite what you’ve heard, you can’t have it all, but you can have enough.”

Appreciation

Well Teacher Appreciation week came and went at my school...like elsewhere around the nation and world.  So with all the hubbub the real question to address is do I feel appreciated.  Yes and No. 

I will start with the bad. There is plenty of that.  In the recent past I am coming off another demoralizing budget season.  Sure money is tight, it always is.  But I have slowly come to grips with the fact I live in a community and a state that could do a better job supporting education, but chooses not to.  That's putting it gently.  Some outwardly decry taxes are too high and blame wasteful schools and dare I say...overpaid teachers.  Maybe so.  But more likely the levels of bureaucratic decision makers all take and redirect their share before it comes anywhere near me or my classroom.  I have what I need I suppose.  I know I have it way better than many around the nation.  So I learn not to complain or open my hand and whine too often.  But over the last few years most of the heavy lifting when it comes to balancing budgets, teaching more classes and more kids falls on guess who?  Mr. and Mrs. Appreciated.  But I don't like talking about money and few teachers start teaching in order to get rich.  If they did, they are dum(I like that one).

So there is one strike against appreciation.  But I get it elsewhere too.  Let's stick to the last week when a colleague who is a fellow coach couldn't get a sub for when he left early with the team he coached.  Maybe some of that was on him but this Spring has been crazy with cancellations so instead he had to struggle to find a colleague who could give up their unencumbered planning to cover his class.  A day before another teacher who wasn't feeling well heard the same thing.  That doesn't make me feel appreciated.   I was also informed of the Required Summer Professional Development where I was given no real choice.  Just choose among what and when I want to take it.  Next I dealt with the run up to next Fall when our overcrowded school will get another 100 or so 9th graders. 

During all that I kept focused in the hectic weeks before you guessed it, testing season.  ARGH! Already stressed and overworked with unrealistic and unsustainable expectations I had a young man in my class illustrate a point for me. I exist in a landscape  where  a 14 yr student chooses to put his head down, 3 minutes after I made a special effort to reach him about doing his best and what he is capable in the hopes I could get him through the 9th grade.  I felt more powerless than usual and that says something.   

I am in the not so sweet spot part of my career where I am devalued since I am not "new" and choose not to leave the classroom as a senior teacher in favor of some other role.  Most efforts on a national level seem to depreciate teachers.  From how they are evaluated to the ever tightening knot that limits how they practice their craft.  I did get the normal mass mailing letters of appreciation from the school board and division superintendent which I thought was nice.  But truth be told I am tired of being "told" I am appreciated.  But it wasn't all bad.

So how do I feel appreciated you ask?  There were some small gestures from students.  The applegrams, brief notes from students, yep... I received a handful.  I did get a small gift of appreciation from a family with a nice note.  I teach 135 kids so the odds were in my favor.  I did also get a few E-mail thanks which were nice gestures as well.  The most noticeable efforts were school wide in the form of some well timed and very tasty meals, snacks and treats from our parent teacher organization.  A thousand thanks to them!  So I do I suppose feel more appreciated than last week. 

Still what I appreciate has nothing to do with what week it is or what gets organized.  It is the psychological pay from countless seemingly meaningless interactions with the vibrant and infectious energy of youth.  It is seeing the world through their eyes and thinking of it as if they were my own children.  It is seeing the newness of learning brighten a day and the occasional light bulb go off.  Usually it goes off now on a cell phone first...  It is the unexpected thank you for something you did to help a student out.  It is the feeling of appreciation when students look to you for help, guidance and support.  The moments that are ever so briefly and arre, but also but also profound that make me feel appreciated as a teacher.  Thanks.