Valentine's Day, 2024

It would be so cool to give out Valentine's cards with Optimus Prime saying stuff like "I will transform your heart." Campus today was packed with students going, shall we say, extra for Valentine's Day. Lots of red lipstick and nail polish, prom-like black suits with black shirts and black ties, teddy bears and gift bags and all manner of Valentine's swag.

It was good! The energy felt awesome and I hope it overflows and reaches people who are not as enamored. This may not happen easily. People are generally anxious about being alone and young people are especially pained by feeling left out. It's not hard to spot the students who aren't having a good time.

I guess that's as decent an introduction as any to what's been on my mind lately. I'm teaching a number of high school students and once again, I really need to think through my own experience. What would have made sophomore year of high school better? What about senior year? For me, sophomore year was the worst. I was miserable and except for a friend and teacher or two, I can't remember anyone caring. I'm sure they did, but nothing felt easy. I wasn't told to do anything as much as I was criticized or neglected. Senior year was bad, too. I didn't feel like I had accomplished anything and what confidence I had was fake. I believed my high school had given me everything and that college would be easy.

When I'm this direct, it does seem that there are conflicts governing each year of high school, conflicts not unlike Erikson's stages of development. My senior year I needed a strong sense of identity, one which informed me about what things were actually worth. I didn't realize that college was less about accomplishment and more about independence, and I desperately needed the latter. I didn't realize that there were real things I was achieving in high school, but they required a lot more work and thought to build from. What I'm struggling to understand is the conflict I experienced sophomore year.

I'd like to say I slacked off and didn't do anything sophomore year, but that's not true. I got stunned by some bad grades, getting multiple C's, because I was genuinely struggling with the material. I'd like to say I was neglecting role models, but that's not true either. I was trying to be like the people I admired. I don't think sophomore year went wrong because I didn't work hard or set goals. I can only imagine how lost some sophomores must feel if I'm struggling to figure out what's wrong nearly 30 years later.

The feeling I remember most is this: there was so much support freshman year. Where did it all go? It became this combination of abandonment and aimlessness. A large part of the support freshman year involved my perceiving goals as clear. We were going to learn world history, for example, so we needed to know rivers and mountains and countries first. We were going to discuss literature in class, so it was important to read with an eye to comparing characters and themes. Sophomore year the goals were said, but they weren't sticking. It was like life had to be something else to be useful. My needs had changed and I didn't know it.

If I had to develop a sense of identity, then prior steps would involve recognition of what that takes. Eventually, I got better grades but was only a little less miserable. That was the story junior year, too. What's prior to developing a sense of who you are? Truth be told, just knowing what you like and where you feel comfortable. Feeling free to try new things and see how they work. Hanging around people who welcomed you. I didn't understand how important these things were. I didn't think to document how I felt and keep any kind of record of what was working. Good grades masked a deeper problem. If I did assert an identity, how would I know who I was?

The thing I wasn't told is that I had to be more responsible for my growth. Not only grades, not only obligations, but thinking about how I wanted to grow and finding ways to grow through my values. I get why this happened. We really don't think of kids as having values. Even when we mean well, we think in terms of activities or keeping them busy. It's hard for us to appreciate what a genuinely new experience can mean. We're told the stories! We're told stories about how someone fell in love with the sound of a poem or wanted to make music or do a kickflip or figure what happens if black holes collide. We're told these stories and still, somehow, I'm in a world where parents insist their kids shouldn't drive while demanding the same kids get jobs. Or where we refuse to have tutors for, say, geometry when someone is building their art portfolio.

The problem with sophomore year is that it is loaded with "do this" when the real question of what one should be doing lingers overhead. The conflict, I believe now, is between doing and discovering. The kids I'm around are giving incredible effort and I'm amazed at how they're using their resources to discover. Going all-out for Valentine's Day is an energy that can be harnessed for any number of positives. I'm seeing them talk to other teachers and staff who care. They're accepting being reached out to.

Still, there are consequences for centering a curriculum around busy work in general. We don't know what the United States of America will be after this year's election. The kids are more aware than I was that something critical is missing.