Now I Get It!

Ah, high school students….Rowdy, rambunctious, bouncing-off-the-walls, unfocused, scattered. Serious, scared, threatened. Afraid to be seen as not knowing, they are flippant, arrogant, defensive, hiding their incompetencies with bravado, yet still wanting the adults in their world to see that they are not yet with it – they need help. This dichotomy – this set of conflicting needs – to be seen as strong, competent, independent on the one hand yet knowing on a deep, sometimes intuitive level that they have far to go and still need/want guidance, assistance, instruction on the other makes this crew an unsettled, restless, exciting one.

I have new-gained respect and admiration for high school teachers. I am teaching only 2 hours a day, four days a week, for 6 weeks with only 15 students in a class (total of 30). Of course, I spend a good 3-4 hours in the campus Learning Center – making myself available to students and reading and responding to their work. I wonder how the heck a high school teacher can deal with these kids, with this kind of energy 4-6 periods a day, 5 days a week, week after week throughout a semester.

I confess that though I love these students and this experience, I am exhausted by it. I leave at the end of my day thoroughly worn out – mentally and emotionally. Yet at the same time, I am oddly rejuvenated by these students as well. On all counts – this teaching experience is filled with strange juxtapositions.

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I don’t like that word, “incompetencies.” These students are not incompetent – they are just not competent – yet. They are evolving, developing and working towards mastery – not of the subject material per se, but of themselves. Their major task is to develop an understanding of who they are, and to gain control and mastery of themselves.

Four weeks into the six-week session, and now I get it: at this level, instruction in writing and writing practice should be in service to the task of developing self-knowledge and self-mastery.