Wednesday, November 11, 2009

And Now a Word About Seniors

The other night I was thinking about the cognitive abilities of my 9th graders, as compared to everyone else. Mostly I was trying to understand how best to teach expository writing in a way that actually matters to 14 year olds. Currently the debate in my little head is between selecting cool topics ("Boys are stupid because _____, _____, and ______") or just making transition sentences worth one million points each.

As this is my fourth year at LVHS, this graduating class was also my first group of 9th graders. I've grown up with this group; just as they've learned how to back up claims with textual evidence, I've learned that not having a lesson plan results in immediately unpleasant consequences. I plan better than I did that first year.

It's fascinating. Seniors, even the smartest of them, get weird this time of year. Friendships fray; great students start opting out of assignments for no good reason; parents report tension and moodiness far beyond their child's normal angsty levels. It's happened with every group of seniors I've ever known, whether from my first two years as Yearbook adviser, to last year's multiple sections of LA 12 and AP. Every year right around Halloween, seniors begin acting . . . oddly. It's not mutiny, exactly, although sometimes it feels like it, especially when they take cheap shots at me that they wouldn't have taken as recently as last year.

It's more like a manifestation of anxieties, and, the anxieties having multiple sources, the weirdness is omnidirectional – I may not be the specific target, but I am certainly in the path, as are parents, homework assignments, and friends.

So I don't take it personally. In fact, I take it as a good sign: they're seeing beyond high school and are confronting the reality of "after." They realize that the big time looms; their scholastic career so far has been the equivalent of playing Chopsticks on a Fisher Price toy piano, and those heading to college are about to give a command performance on a Steinway concert grand. Some of them have worked hard in tough classes in order to mitigate that shock, and I like to think AP English is at the very least giving them some insight into college writing.

Still, I see behaviors that are contrary to success and wonder if it's because the senior is still essentially a high school kid, or if it's because he or she is letting the aforementioned weirdness surface.

*

I don't remember too much about my senior year, 20 years ago, which is disconcerting somehow. I'm not concerned about the lack of memories, exactly – we had a screwy schedule at Natrona County because of asbestos problems at Kelly Walsh; I drove my beloved '79 VW Sirocco; I took chemistry in Mr. Stofflet's basement classroom – so the memories exist.

I'm concerned because I don't know how high school prepared me for success. I simply don't understand what transpired between graduation in 1990, and 1994, when I was writing for The Onion at the University of Illinois, or even what transpired between 1994 and 1997, when I began working for Amazon.com. But all of that is for another post.

*

So I don't know what to tell my seniors; how to provide guidance and assurance; how to convince them that being afraid of the "after" is normal. This has come up in AP a few times now, and students admit to feeling the excitement, dread, elation, hate, sorrow, joy, and freedom just beginning to gestate. But I don't know what to say.

Sure, I stand at the podium and pontificate or hold intense one-on-ones with students (and that second one happens way more often than students would likely care to admit to each other), but ultimately those conversations strike me as informed prognostication, like reading road conditions before a trip: tell me I'm okay. Tell me I'm going to be okay.

It's late and I'm exhausted from the Pinedale trip. I'm not through with this topic, though, not even close. For now I'll settle for knowing that seniors hide emotions because they don't know what else to do with them, especially within the context of making rather important decisions.

Onward.

3 comments:

  1. I'm actually feeling quite the same way about my group of seniors, who are now in the middle of freak-out mode about their unit plans and the onset of student teaching....

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  2. i'd have t say i rather like this article. Its intense and gets right to he point and is completely accurate. "freak out" mode has been going on for some time for me. (like the end of last year and hasn't stopped). But hopefully it gets better. Look out hee it comes.

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  3. seth finley from sfxOctober 25, 2010 at 1:28 PM

    AMAZING! WHAT A TURNPOINT IN MY LIFE!

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