When our kids were still at home, we’d hit an uncharacteristic lull in the chaotic banter at the dinner table and someone would say, “Mom, did anything interesting happen in school today?”
I’d quickly scan my short term memory and spit out the first thing that registered, “Well, one of my juniors got down on one knee and proposed to me today.”
“What??”
I’d either shrug or begin to retell the scene exactly as it happened. I never had to make anything up — the stories from my classroom have always been more fantastic than you might imagine.
There was the group of guys from the same era as the proposal who regularly spoke in ‘Pterodactyl” as they walked down the hallway. Yes, it was a high-pitched, loud, screechy “language” that could not be ignored — or understood.
I had one class that routinely swiped the remote control for my projector and would play around with the virtual pointer until I noticed what was going on and then had to determine who the culprit of the day was. One of the students from that same class occasionally, during after school hours, suspended a sandwich from a string so that it swayed in my doorway. I would arrive at school at 7am to find a cellophane wrapped ham and cheese waiting for me.
I consider these to be expressions of love from the hormone-intoxicated minds of teenagers. They can’t help themselves. They’ve just got to be weird.
You might, when I tell you I teach high school English, have visions of me standing, dressed in an A-line skirt and heels, hair neatly styled above my cardigan, leading my students through sentence diagramming. It never looks like that in my classroom. Never.
Instead, teaching high school, for me, is more like bearing witness to a handful of humans coming of age — making (or beginning) the transition from childhood innocence to adult experience.
On Friday, I was sitting on a desk, balancing a giant tablet of Post-It Note paper in front of me while my students and I collaborated to chart the similarities and differences between ancient and modern maps found in a passage we had read. I was holding a marker in one hand and the pad in the other, wrangling both the students, who were unsuccessfully “trying” to ignore messages from classmates on their phones, and the giant tablet so that we could complete the task. I was sweating, they were distracted, and we were getting nowhere fast. Finally I put the paper and the marker down, walked to my desk, took a drink of water, looked at my students, and said, “I’m working too hard here.”
“Mrs. Rathje can I go to the bathroom?” asked one student.
“Mrs. Rathje can I have a bottle of water?” asked another.
“Mrs. Rathje, you got anything to eat,” chimed a third.
I took a deep breath, surveyed the room, and said, “Here’s the thing. We said at the beginning of class that we had to complete this task before any of that happens. We’ve been working on this for quite some time, and we can’t seem to get it finished. I’m handing it over to you. You know what to do. You guys work together to finish this chart and then we’ll talk about snacks and water and bathroom breaks.”
It was a hail Mary, to be sure. And it could’ve gone either way, but those students got out of their seats, huddled around the incomplete chart, and worked together to finish it.
“Wow!” I said, “this is how we are mapping texts moving forward. You guys are going to do it on your own, and I am going to sit back and watch.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you, Mrs. Rathje. Just let us do the work.”
“Heard,” I replied as I handed out cold water bottles and and opened my container of snacks.
We had three minutes left in class and the boys in the group spent the remaining time trying to bottle-flip their water bottles so that they would land on a small ledge of a ceiling beam. They couldn’t quite get them to land, so eventually, one 6’2″ student jumped straight up in the air to place the bottle on the ledge. The room erupted in shouts of joy just as the bell was ringing.
This is English class, ladies and gentlemen — a study in human development with moments of maturity interspersed with childhood play.
Earlier that day, I had a small group of senior “men” in my room. The class has “women” in it, too, but none of them were in attendance, so I just had the guys for a class in which we were building our understanding of “coming of age” so that they could write their own coming of age narratives for an assignment next week. We’re reading Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime., his memoir about growing up in South Africa during Apartheid, which includes anecdotes of pivotal moments where he lost his innocence or where he gained some kind of experience. We’re finding those moments, discussing them, and preparing to write our own.
So, as part of Friday’s activity, I posted a journal prompt on my screen.
I tell them to write for eight minutes straight, I start a timer, and — you’ll never believe it — they start writing. They write and they write, and I sit at my desk, writing, too. The room is silent except for the ambient music of the timer. When time is up, I say, “Anyone like to share what they wrote?” half expecting that they would all say “Nah.” Being that it’s just five senior guys, I wouldn’t have been shocked if they all wanted to keep their thoughts to themselves. But, they began to share, one by one, the things they’ve discovered about themselves, the things they’ve learned, the times they felt like they did not belong.
Then, somehow we found ourselves in a discussion about how much you should share with a girlfriend — how vulnerable you should be.
“You should never share your personal feelings with a girlfriend,” one man-child said.
“What?!” I asked.
“You don’t share your personal feelings because they’ll use them against you,” he replied.
“No. That’s not how it works,” I said. “You should be able to share your feelings with your girlfriend.”
“No you shouldn’t, because when you break up they’ll tell your business.”
“Oh, well, right. I can see that,” I said. “I guess it’s all about trust. You can only be vulnerable with someone you trust. For example, my husband and I have been together for thirty-five years, and we can tell each other anything.”
“That’s what Mrs. O (the Spanish teacher) said, too,” another student replied.
And then, we’re on to the next topic. These guys are moving through their day gathering tidbits of wisdom about relationships while loosely committing to completing their school work.
Earlier last week, I went to another classroom to grab a senior who is in danger of failing a couple of classes and not graduating on time. Each of the members of the leadership team have been assigned a couple such students in order to get them across the finish line.
As this “very cool” senior and I walked down the hall, I linked my arm through his, looked up into his face and said, “You and I are going to get together once a week to make sure you do what you need to do to graduate.” He looked down at me, seeming a little more concerned than his usual playful self, but he walked with me to my classroom, sat in the desk where I directed him, and looked with me at the screen of my laptop to see his current grades.
“You are at school every day, ” I said, “and you are very bright. I don’t see any reason why your grades should look like this other than the fact that they are not your priority.”
He looked me straight in the face.
“Your priorities, from where I’m sitting, seem to be your girlfriend and having fun.”
He nodded.
“I get it. I do, but dude, her grades are strong, and she’s gonna graduate. It would be a shame if she left you behind.”
“I’m gonna do better. You watch,” he said.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” I replied. “Let’s check in again next week so that I can see your progress.”
“OK.”
A few days later, the same student saw me in the hall. “You were right about my priorities,” he said.
“Was I?”
“Yup. But I’m doing better. You’re gonna see.”
“Amazing. I look forward to it,” I said, and we fist bumped and went our own ways.
Is this what I pictured my life would be like — interacting with adolescents, trying to enjoy their playfulness while also pressing them to dabble in maturity? No; I think I pictured the woman in the cardigan analyzing literature or poetry. I do get to do that sometimes, but more often than not, my role is less about English Language Arts and more about developing humans.
And, what an irony that I am developing right along with them. I, too, am coming of age.
Next Chapter 