High School Blues

In this second year of teaching, I have been lucky enough to gain another title amongst current students and former students alike - confidant. I suppose a year is just enough to garner the appropriate amount of intimacy that makes passerby students want to drop their secrets in my ear - ranging from mundane weekend details to the kinds of disastrous love stories that can only be experienced in high school.

But recently it's become more substantial: students weeping on my shoulders because of friendship conflicts that have now left them in the cold, isolated from the rest of those they once called their closest friends; or others who emit tears of frustration because of their teachers. My shoulder has become the new hot spot in school.

In these situations, it would be impossible for me not to be carried back to my own high school experiences. What is it about those years that were so paradoxically life-changing and devastating? From those years I will never forget the slip-ups, the laughter, or the heartbreak.

With these students it is difficult to know my place, I cannot interfere for the sake of their friendships, especially when the other students involved are members of my own class, nor can I take the risk of making the situation worse by some verbal misconduct. The situation is even more delicate regarding students who are having problems with my fellow peers, as it is not my place to question or judge the actions of that teacher in her own classroom.

But, for now, it seems that what I give is enough. Perhaps they are not looking for a solution from me, perhaps they recognize in their own way that teachers cannot be called upon to solve all of the mysteries of the universe. They are content to sit and cry, and I am ever willing to hold the Kleenex.

What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches. ~Karl Menninger