According to Lady Bracknell, an engagement “should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant.” I think that good-byes should come as a surprise, too. An impending End tends to overwhelm experience; even when we know that we still have X numbers of days until the End, we can’t completely ignore that it’s coming. So instead of actually savoring the normal moments, we pressure ourselves to create Special moments and miss the actual Lasts.
In one of my creative writing classes, we had to write a parody of a poem that starts with “On the last day of the world.” As I brainstormed for that poem, I started with grandiose plans for that final day. But in the end, my poem was a celebration of normal life, much in the spirit of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, a day that is special because it is. This has been a week of saying good-byes for me, starting with telling my students that I would not be their teacher next year and ending with my final concert with my choir. A large part of me pressured myself into sentimentality: “This is my last X,” “Aw, this is my last Z.” But most of me just wanted to let those good-byes go unsaid and slip away into the night. Beyond saying good-byes at Ends, routine good-byes should also come as a surprise. This May has been a long Bad-bye, a text-book case in my argument that the end of the school year should be a surprise for all students. Imagine a May with no “The year’s almost done; why are we still doing work?” The students and teachers would have to stay focused because we wouldn’t know when the last day would be. With the same delight as a snow day, everyone would get a call one morning: “Good morning School XXX parents and teachers. Today starts final exam week.” Yep, it would be amazing. Um, to clarify, this isn’t my subtle way of saying that I’m done blogging. After a week of Bad-byes, I doubt that I could blog good-bye today.
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“Senior year is about memories,” wrote an eighteen-year-old in her professional portfolio, explaining away why her senior project was lacking. At first, I laughed in disbelief. How could she not realize what a bad impression that would make in a professional scenario? Yet, she wasn’t alone. I’ve seen that idea pop up all year like a diabolical Whack-a-Mole in seniors’ reflections, in juniors’ journals, and even in parents’ comments. And yet, isn’t that exactly the message that the media has taught our culture for longer than she has been alive?
If people thought that high school were like Hollywood’s portrayal of it (and many of my students think it is), then how do they exist after graduation? They aim for prom and graduation as though those events are going to be the greatest nights of their life. Eighteen—less than a fourth of the average life expectancy—has become our target, our end goal, not the adulthood that comes after it. Instead of letting art (for sake of argument, let’s consider all media potential art, whether it deserves that title or not) reflect life, we now reshape our expectations of life to match art. And art has taught us that high school is about making memories, having fun, and “enjoying life while you can.” Silly me: I thought high school was about preparing for the future. But we, those who have passed age eighteen, know how much fuller and richer life can become after eighteen. Instead of trying to raise adults by shifting their focus to the life beyond graduation, we have gotten sucked into the myth, too, as though living vicariously through the pre-eighteen-year-olds is a worthy calling. We help them create magical “moments” that steal their focus from worthwhile lessons as they plan for weeks their “prom-posals,” wardrobes, and rides, and then we console them after the magical moment didn’t live up to the expectation we collectively heaped on these events. (Is it obvious that it’s May, and I’m tired of Senior Angst?) We can do better for our children than raising them to embrace childhood and cling to adultolescence because they have not been prepared for adulthood. We can direct them and equip them for adulthood so that they look forward to it with the confidence that comes from knowing it is the goal, not the consolation prize. Wouldn’t it be convenient if we could rehearse each day before it happened? People could get a feel for possible ways to deliver their lines; they would know when to best time their entrances and exits and pick up on cues that they otherwise would miss. It might take some of the spontaneity out of life, but it could also clear up a lot of misunderstandings.
Or, for those who like spontaneity, what if we could hear the soundtrack music for our days? It wouldn’t give away specifics, but it would help us know how we are supposed to respond. Scenario: Guy and Girl are walking down the street at night. A light staccato on the piano lets them know that this is a light-hearted scene and it would be okay if they wanted to dance in the rain. Or a swelling of the orchestra lets them know that this is a romantic climax in their relationship. Or long, menacing tones from the string bass warns the girl to scream and run away. (The other day in class, we were enjoying a discussion during which I periodically soapboxed for a few minutes before releasing the discussion back to the students. Each of my soapboxes was serendipitously accompanied by the music from the neighboring classroom’s movie, the mood of the music perfectly underscoring each my points.) Perhaps, some of you think that even having the soundtrack gives away too much. How about if we at least knew which genre we were in? My friend and I were driving back from a party one night and noticed a side road that neither of us had seen before. Curiosity made us want to turn down the lane, but we didn’t know what genre our evening was in. If it were a horror movie, this was the part of the story that the audience is yelling at us to stay on the main road because they know that an escaped killer is hiding out down this side road and would chase us around the woods (because, naturally, our car would break down and our cell phones would die). But if this were a romantic comedy, our car would still, naturally break down, but it would be right in front of a cottage in which Mr. Right and his best friend lived (even though at first we would inexplicably hate them both). Or, an even better option, if this were fantasy, this side road existed only on this one night and it was a portal to a magical realm in which, of course, one of us was the Chosen One to face the scary bad guys and lead the people into a golden age. So many choices. But, alas, we were not able to rehearse the scene before, heard no soundtrack music, and did not know which genre our evening was, so we continued on our humdrum way home, skipping all possible adventure and misfortune. |
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