My first year as a cow
__Disclaimer:__ _Oh boy… Enjoy this post from just after my first year of high school._
First year of high school. I’m going to write about it. Sans melodramatic analogy, hopefully. I wrote enough of that in my tweets earlier this week, when I compared this year to both childbirth and war—two things I'm prrretty sure I’ll never experience—because, with the end in sight (then), I felt a hint of anxiety. A hint of anxiety that I felt could just maybe be equated with post-partum depression and/or post-traumatic stress disorder. Don’t get me wrong; I was/am indescribably pumped to not compromise my constitutional rights on a daily basis. But I couldn’t/can’t help but feel a little bit sad the war is over.
Second thought, yes I can. The relief definitely outweighs any ounce of “misery withdrawal” I might have. I guess it’s just like getting back from vacation: when you’re in Mexico, your purpose is to relax. When you get home from Mexico, you don’t know your purpose. When you go to school, your purpose is to learn, or, depending on how pathetically I want to write this, survive. When it’s over, your purpose is to have fun, but that high is quickly dampened by some natural ennui. So, third thought, no, I can’t help but feel a little bit sad the war is over.
I don’t want anyone to think that I go to a horrible school, or that I’m beaten for bad grades (or that I get bad grades), or that school is really all that bad. When I say “anyone” and talk about that last thing, I really mean myself. Sometimes it’s hard to convince me that all this knowledge—about inertia and colonialism in Kenya and Shakespearean sonnets—is worthwhile. Worth around eight months of sitting in a chair for the majority of my day. Like I can’t help but feel a little bit sad the war is over, I also can’t help but feel a little bit of resentment. I love education. I believe that learning is great. I think it’s a shame that we don’t value education more. But gee golly does all this sedentary confinement make me angry.
Going in to it, I was ridiculously excited. I mean ridiculously. Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide… iCarly… Drake & flipping Josh. Although neither Ned nor Carly were high school students (Drake and Josh were), they were “normal” school students. For whatever reason, watching those shows for a decent part of my childhood planted in my head a utopian vision of “normal” school. Not that I had anything against my school then (I did, and to this day, love with all my heart Montessori education). “Normal” school was just something along the lines of driving to me—new, exciting, full of responsibility, fun. I was torqued for high school.
So when I think back to my very first weeks of school this year, I can remember a few of the thoughts that went through my head. At first, I maintained my optimism. Mostly out of fear—optimism, to me, is the antichrist of Too Cool for School Syndrome. Slowly, I realized, “Wow, all those grads were right.” Kids come back to middle school, newly-minted veterans, and tell their tales. Being someone with a lot of older friends, I heard quite a few stories. I sorta dismissed them all, not necessarily because I doubted them, but because I am absolutely terrified of Too Cool for School Syndrome.
They said that high school isn’t a glorious social heaven. I knew that. But I also wanted to bask in ignorant bliss as long as possible. Unfortunately, that probably didn’t help in terms of cushioning my fall, which happened a couple weeks in. After that, I had quite a few falls. They came kinda like waves. When people asked how I’d been liking the new school, I’d say, “It’s amazing, and I love it, but it’s school.” It’s school.
Now, at the end of the year, I still can’t quite put my finger on exactly how I feel about this thing. I can, however, put my finger on exactly how I felt after that first fall. At the beginning of the year, I noticed two things. Both of them made me feel like Temple Grandin.
Firstly, I noticed that we chillun are like cattle. Kids are herded around the building. We’re put on a four-year assembly line of growth. The cafeteria is our feeding lot. The dean prods us. We’re all served some portion of the same thing. We’re all shipped out to different places. There is a squillion of us in one space.
The second thing I noticed is a direct result of the first. Because we are like cattle, by which I mean the system is rigid and impersonal, our relationships with our teachers are boatloads less intimate. I don’t entirely blame them for this, although I do think that some pour more heart and soul into their job than others (and even the tiniest extra drop means the biggest difference). I mostly blame this on whoever decided that a building able to fit 1,000+ kids in it at one time would give those 1,000+ kids the best education possible. Allow me to further this cattle simil-nalogy (oops; melodrama here we come).
If we are cattle, the public school system is like a factory farm. I said before that I don’t completely blame teachers for their lack of attachment; do you think an employee at Tyson gives every cow it feeds a gold star and a pat on the back? Do you think an employee at Tyson can give every cow it feeds a gold star and a pat on the back? The system is big. The system kinda sucks.
And this is where my bias comes in. Having a solely-Montessori education resumé going in to high school allowed me to look at a traditional setting for the first time with the benefit of an almost fully-formed brain, an opportunity most of my peers didn’t have. While that makes it sound like I just have a fresher look at the system, it also means that I was used to referring to my teachers by their first names. So it works both ways.
I don’t think my “analysis” is exaggerated, though. I realize that, in the spectrum of Family-owned Organic Farm to Publicly-traded Synthetic Factory, my current school, as traditional as it is, doesn’t fall anywhere near the latter side. I can’t even imagine what Catholic school is—was?—like. My experience this year was just enough to make me feel like breaking shit.
One last thing. Teachers, please bear my audacity here for a moment. I let you off the hook before about the lack of intimacy… Sure, you could rise up in a union and demand a more open-ended curriculum, with a slower pace and more acknowledgement of achievement. But you don’t see any Tyson workers doing that. Sure, you could devote your whole self to the job you do and make us feel like you care about us, but that’s simply impractical (in a factory farm, at least). So I ask of you one thing.
Have sympathy. Not for me, and not for my friends. For the shitheads. I’m talking about “dumb” kids. The ones who, because they’re greasy, or dress funny, or never make eye-contact with you, or never turn in their homework, or act rudely in class, you assume are bad people. You should have sympathy because not only are they usually not dumb, but they are also usually not bad people. They are usually, I think, people that dress funnily and behave poorly and shower infrequently because of a less-than-stellar upbringing. Less-than-stellar growing up. Your lack compassion for their disease—being a poopstain in the world that is school, because of traits that are more or less out of their control—can only push them down further. And it’s not like a crack addiction; there is no rock bottom. There is only sucking.
I’m not saying you have to lift them up and nurse them to health. Definitely do not do that. Just try to have some sympathy. I know, that’s a lot to ask when they cheat and talk during class. When they talk back, you grind your teeth and withhold a backhand slap. I know that sometimes punishment is just plain necessary. Again, I’m not saying you should give them a pacifier and A’s when they don’t deserve them. Just know that your punishment alienates.
Trust me, they want to learn. At least some of them. The ones that don’t smell bad.
But then again, who can do that in a feedlot.
P.S. Don’t think I’m an apathetic stoner just because my dad’s a “rockstar.” It’s worse than when kids think I live in a mansion.