Letdowns

The winds howled for almost three days. Driving was a chore and walking the dogs was torture. And I was stuck with several classes of Seniors that really discouraged me.

I love being productively busy but it seems I can only be productive when the rush is no more than 38 hours. More than that and I'm in need of a break. I hit that break last night.

It started yesterday morning, shortly after Kevin left for work. By 6:30am I was at the computer starting my assignment for that night's class (which took me about two hours to complete later on) when the high school called at 6:40am to come in. I was already showered, so all I did was eat a bowl of Cheerios, brush my teeth and got dressed. Bisbee called ten minutes later but I was out the door, forgetting my wallet in the kitchen. Luckily the Cheerios pulled me through the day.

The day started out with three gifted classes of AP English. But my lesson plan was a one-sentence plan: "Have students read 'Ode to a Nightingale' and finish multiple choice quiz." The poem was by John Keats. Most of these students were done before the hour was over and kept busy with other assignments from previous works.

There were a few gems in the first three AP classes. One Hispanic girl boasted about her all-paid scholarship to ASU that she rightfully earned (and who also defended that university for not honoring President Obama with an "honorary degree" just because he was Black), another student I recognized from a few months ago who shared a few dreams of studying comparative religions, and a few other bright minds that quietly wrote their assignments.

One young man in 4th hour, a junior, complained that he was one credit hour away from graduating but the school was not going to let him unless he took the class during the summer for $147. When I asked him why he simply couldn't take that one credit in the fall he shot back that he couldn't wait to get out of school and leave home.

"He could get a job this summer!" replied another girl, clearly defending her classmate. But my point was not that he was rushing through his life, but that he was wasting the opportunity to take elective classes of his choice in the fall that would help expand his mind. He wasn't interested in that. He just wanted to get out of school.

"What are your plans after school?" I asked him.
"I dunno...get a job?"

But what got to me was the Senior English classes toward the end of the day. I had no grade book to peek through but these kids must have been tracked as the low achievers. The first indicator was the attire I saw coming through the door: one girl, whom I recognized from weight training (and all she ever does there is preen herself in front of the boys) came in wearing a sheer red dress barely covering her crotch line. The front was low-cut exposing her push-up bra and cleavage. The back was low-back with her bra strap running across the upper back. And she wore her trademark moccasin black boots. Another classmate, walking in with super shorts, commented on her dress with "That's a nice dress!" but what went through my mind was "Ho."

Unfortunately the rest of the class came in fitting right in. Two boys wore sleeve-less work-out shirts and kept nagging me to write them a pass to the weight room. I refused unless they finished their assignment. Jock 1 turned his in with incomplete sentences, each one with several errors in it. Jock2's work was more complete and more thorough but he had to wait ten minutes until his jock friend was finished re-writing his. The entire class, I could tell, hated me for delaying their friends' plea for the weight room. I was not going to budge. Telling me that "The teacher lets us go to the weight room" answered with "But I am not that teacher!" did not sink in.

I couldn't wait to see that group of low achievers walk out the door and for the first time in a long time, I was glad to get out of that school for the day and relax finishing up my assignment at the library.

Fatigue began to set in in the late afternoon and our class last night ran until 9pm. The instructor rambled at times and I had to stay awake, which was hard with no caffeine to hoist me up artificially. When I got home I devoured the left-over Kevin left for me, thankful for that little surprise, but had to force myself to stay up to 10:30pm. I didn't have the energy to finish my take-home assignment from Wednesday's cancelled class. Since it's not due until Sunday at midnight, I figured another day won't hurt me. My goal was to finally get some rest and sleep off that day's horrific experience.

Despite the shining minds, what always gets to me is seeing young people waste their opportunities for a free and solid education. The "jocks and hos" that walk through that high school door today are going to be tomorrow's homeless and I have no desire to continue supporting their careless lifestyles.

Sometimes I get so disgruntled with the town. Sierra Vista has an ugly interior. There's a great intellectual divide between the high-end employees on post (who are not necessarily more intellectual) and the local low-end class in town of underpaid workers. I see so many more potential "workers" coming out of the high school. These kids have no future plans, no goals, no dreams. All they seem to want to do is spend their days texting their friends and staring at the cellphone, hoping someone would ring them.

An additional hit on my otherwise positive outlook for the day came via email from my Mom: she is flying next Thursday back to Berlin. Her beloved cousing Manfred is sick with cancer and, according to a family portrait that was sent to her via email, Manfred looks haggard and near death. She doesn't expect that he will live much longer.

The sad part for me was that I never got to meet Manfred. During the Cold War our families were divided by the Iron Curtain that divided Germany. Once that was broken, our lives continued going in separate directions. "I'll meet him one day" I kept telling my Mom, but that day will never come now. Lost opportunities and regrets, I am sure, will follow.