I Am Finally Graduating From High School

I spent the conventional four years in high school and then another four in college. Then I went back to high school and stayed for thirty-three years. I can now tell the world that, at the end of this school year, I am finally going to graduate. It is a strange feeling.

Of course, I have been anticipating my retirement for a long time. When I first started teaching, many of my colleagues were on the verge of retirement and their discussion of it seemed banal and boring. The younger teachers would kick each other under the table and laugh at the constant retirement talk. “Get on with it and retire already,” we’d joke. I hope I have kept my retirement comments to a minimum.

A friend had a retirement countdown clock that sat on her desk. She knew exactly how many weeks, days, and hours until her retirement arrived. I have a confession: I do have an app that does that on my phone. I look at it every so often. But I promise you, I am not reciting my countdown to anyone. and I want to see if I can slow down that clock, not speed it up.

This year is a series of “lasts.” My last first day of school. My last open house night. My last set of new students – and so on. Not that I needed a way to understand my seniors, but I am certainly identifying with them. Like first semester seniors, my post-high school plans are still in flux and I have not nailed down all the details. Unlike the seniors, I don’t see myself moving from one school to another. I don’t think I will pick up and teach at a private school or substitutes teach at mine.

I don’t know what is it like to NOT be a teacher. A great deal of my identity is wrapped up in school, and soon that will change. I have a long list of retirement goals, activities, and ideas. I have committed to giving myself at least a year (or maybe two) to try out retirement. It is different things to different people, and I want to find out who I am as a retired teacher before I grab a new identity as a something else.

Because my wife is a counselor, we did not discuss our retirement plans publically for a while. Our colleagues knew our plans. When another teacher told his students that he was retiring, kids who knew me began to put the pieces together, but I refused to confirm the rumors. Now I can tell the world!  

I am still working hard to make sure that my students learn the skills and content they need. I still want class to be fun, rewarding, and engaging for all of us. I am not becoming a different teacher or person because the end of my career is in sight, but my appreciation for the beauty of school, and of our school in particular, has been enhanced. I feel like I am having a many “It’s a Wonderful School” moments without an angel coming to guide me on the journey.

There is no doubt that I am going to miss school, my wonderful friends, and my fantastic students. There will be moments when I will long for the comfort and cycle of school. I want to boldly go into this new adventure. I will look back – a lot! It is my deep hope to stay in touch with the many people who made and continue to make my high school teaching career so rich and wonderful. That is one of the reasons I am a fervent fan of Facebook (and now Instagram). I love staying connected.

So now I will chronicle this new process. I will still be a Sunday school teacher. I will still be an educator, even if retired. And school will go on without me. How comforting and appropriate.

Your Behavior in High School Matters: The Past is Never Really Past

This week’s Supreme Court hearings are appropriately the subject of a great deal of discussion. They should be. The issues are weighty and important. One of the smaller lessons to take from this event is that what happens in high school does not stay in high school. What happens in college does not get forgotten.

Whether it is “boys will be boys” or “the best years of your life” or “you only live once” or any other rationalization for problematic choices – or worse – being young does not give you a free pass.

It should not.

I am not the person I was in high school or college, and I am happy about that. It is my strong belief that, as people age, they get better. However, that doesn’t mean that high schoolers’ decisions are without weight or should be casually excused.

Parents are concerned about academic behavior and place great importance on them. I have heard ad nauseam that a single B in a class could be a life sentence. Not getting into a college, earning a poor test score, or being closed out of a course are often viewed as life-altering.

There are many other choices that are life-altering. Sometimes, these choices are the means of discovering and creating our senses of self. Some choices reveal ourselves. This process of navigating decision-making is critical to the process of becoming adult. 

I have written about the car crash on October 13. While such events are many feel extreme, they are no more extreme than what happened to Dr. Ford. Attempts to minimize the power of teenage misbehavior may be an attempt to excuse or explain away its weight. This fails to recognize that, once we have some degree of independence, we must accept some degree of responsibility.

When I was in high school, very few people were carrying cameras all the time. Certainly, the photographic records of my classmate’s deeds and misdeeds were not posted publically. Social media makes this lesson all the more critical. What if Brett Kavanagh’s high school experience was chronicled by more than his calendar and yearbook?

I want my students to hear clearly: what you do today affects your future and the future of people around you, some of whom you may not even know. No one has a “get out of responsibility free card.” Or no one should.

I want my students to understand that the choices they make today, for better or for worse, will ride with (and within) them forever. What they choose to do about those choices, how they deal with them, confront them, or address them is a critical test of their maturity.

I want my students to be able to recognize problematic behavior in themselves and others and deal with it in a healthy way. When they make mistakes, I want them to learn to own those errors, and then recognize and repair what they have done to the fullest degree possible – and to work to make sure such things do not happen again to them or anyone else.

Teenage drug use, pregnancy, sexual assault, and other adolescent issues are not minor because those doing them are young. We often debate if individuals under eighteen should be “charged as adults.” When the crime is serious, we often argue that youthfulness does not save them from adult accountability. It certainly doesn’t save those whom they have hurt.

Hopefully, a small positive effect of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings is that it helps kids recognize their power and responsibility. I hope they hear the message the past is never really past. The choices we make  - and how we grow up and deal with them – become the substance of ourselves.