Like you, I know high school sucks. Unlike you, I’ve spent 20 years in it. I’m a teacher, the enemy. But before you dismiss me, let me explain why I’m here.
Unlike an alarmingly high number of high school teachers who return to the school they graduated from, I don’t work at my alma mater. That’s because I don’t look back on high school with nostalgia.
High school was a drag. Boring classes. People all around who wanted me dead or, even worse, didn’t know I existed. Crappy food. A pathetically tiny amount of time with friends. Teachers who didn’t teach. Teachers who thought they could teach. A handful of teachers who could, as long as you judge “learning” by a test grade and are unfazed that the knowledge evaporated the second the exam ended. Homework nobody checked. Papers nobody read. A laughably small number of assignments that helped me grow into a functioning human.
And I didn’t have wifi to distract me from the pointless tedium of it all. That’s right: we geriatrics deserve your pity. You owe your mom a hug because she barely survived it.
Hold up, M. You’re perpetuating this shizz. Why do this?
Two reasons:
- Life is short.
- You are awesome.
Life is short. Statistically, you’re going to live into your 80s. Right now, you’re thinking, It’s only four years, D. Why you trippin’? Four years when you’re 14 doesn’t seem so long. When you’re 18, you’ll be surprised at how quickly they flew by. Four years to an adult? An eternity. You could get married, have babies, and get divorced in four years. You could become a startup-stock-option billionaire in four years. You could easily see most of the world in four years. You could write the great American novel in four years, fewer if we’d get out of your way and stop requiring four pages of drivel (with citations!) every grading period.
So why should you waste any more time than the bare minimum necessary to get you out of here and on to the next (hopefully not) hoop-jumping phase in your life?
You are amazing. I’m flying in the face of multiple warnings from my required annual sexual harassment training here, but I’m just going to come out and say that I love you. Yes, you. You in the back, the quiet kid that’s clean cut and a little acne-prone but looking up at me when I talk. And you, the dyed-purple-haired kid with an unpronounceable preferred pronoun and a glint in your eye whenever I say something that mocks the system. And you, yeah, you over there, the one who never makes eye contact with me, hiding under your clearly unwashed hoodie with it’s sickly-sweet stench of hotboxed pot. And even you, the unblinking, note-taking, hyper-performer who IS GOING TO STANFORD and wants to know what extra credit opportunities are currently available.
Before you go thinking this will be some lovey-dovey, everyone-is-a-special snowflake thing, yeah… no. Although you make me smile almost constantly, even when you barely tolerate my system-perpetuating ass, some of you need a swift kick in the pants. Too many of you are coddled and weak, and the number of you who aren’t coddled are often acting out of terror: terror of your teachers, terror of disappointing your parents, and terror that your life won’t turn out the way you envision.
In the classroom, it’s my privilege to watch (and sometimes help) roughly 250 of you grow.
But I want to do it for more of you. Millions more.
If you’re the parent of a high schooler and you’re reading this, I’m here for you too. You’re probably only going to shepherd one or two kids through this system. Your kids only get one shot at a great education. Your learning curve is steep, and I hope I can make the next 4-6 years less of a slog and more of a mostly enjoyable hike, with only a few sections that make you question your decision to reproduce.
I’m lucky my spouse is so good with money; my family will be okay (if living on a much tighter budget) if I succeed here and the school district I work for elects not to renew my contract.
I want to help every one of you reading this, but for full transparency, my goal is to change the way all public schools do business. If enough of you follow the advice I’m giving, the monolithic, one-size-fits-none high schools across our country will have to adapt and maybe, just maybe, American public education will be better for the next generation.
Either that, or more of you will see the rot for what it is and push for school choice.
There’s too much at stake: your kids, my kids, our economy, and the future of the Republic. I’m with Thomas Jefferson here. He wrote to James Madison that “a little rebellion, now and then, is a healthy thing and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”
Young Americans, it’s time to bring the thunder.
Educated and Free 