Get Real

At long last, school is now open—at least for most American children. After more than a year in which some went to school, others endured a hybrid classroom/online-at-home experiment, and too many fell through the cracks, real-time learning in real-time classrooms led by real-time teachers is back. Last year took a toll on everyone: children, parents and teachers. Returning to some semblance of normalcy has been neither smooth nor easy, and the lingering discontent is palpable. COVID fears and precautionary work-arounds are still part of the learning equation this year.

When any school year begins, even one as uncertain as this one, educators, students and their parents all bring with them agendas and expectations that can be both collaborative and oppositional. Each party has an idea about what should happen during the year to satisfy their individual and collective aspirations. Many hopes ride on those measurements of success that will generate smiles and foster pride:  grades, athletic victories, prizes and awards, noteworthy stage and concert performances, college acceptances and scholarships. Equally important are the anticipations about the school’s social calendar with its celebrative rituals, traditions and service opportunities that add so much spirit and vitality to our learning communities. Throw in the normal range of joys and heartaches, exhilarations and disappointments that define adolescence, and you see how absorbing and gratifying a school year can be.

For many years I had the good fortune of presiding at the opening Convocation programs in the schools where I worked. These assemblies were designed to help our students make a smooth and positive transition from the inertia of summer to the busyness and accelerated pace of the scholastic year ahead. A few year’s back I decided to rhetorically invite our middle and high school kids to think about what they wanted to get out of the coming year. I didn’t have to guess how the teachers and parents in the auditorium would reply. Who wouldn’t want their children to enjoy success, to have their efforts and abilities recognized, and to reap a harvest of good grades, college acceptances, and the honors and accolades they had earned?  

For the students staring at me with their first-day, “deer in the headlights” expressions, their hopes and expectations for the next nine months were predictable. I’m sure some wanted to get nothing more out of the year than to be liked, to have fun, and to belong—somewhere. I suspect most of them wanted to learn, providing it wasn’t too hard or demanded too much of their time or energy.  The jocks in the audience wanted to get championship trophies and a dose of ear-splitting fan support and adulation. The artists in the house hoped to get the chance to create, to perform, to once again experience that high that comes from making music in ensemble or taking a curtain call bow. I don’t think I’d be far off in assuming that what most students wanted to get from the dawning school year was very much the same as what any of us older folks would want to get from our jobs, friendships and families. Each day is a leap we take, faithfully hoping we’ll get all, or most, of what we want.

With the students following my train of thought, I pivoted to tell them what I hoped they would get out of the year ahead.  Channeling Rod Serling, I hit them with the unexpected:  “Here’s what I want all of you to get this year: I want you to get frustrated, to get lost, and to get into trouble.”

Looking left and right I scanned the audience for those knitted brows and frowning faces that would assure me someone was actually listening. I had counted on the shock value of my assertion to trigger a “what did he say?” or “did he really mean that?” But high school kids are pretty good at feigning attentiveness in front of grownups, so I was left to wonder. While most appeared to be attentive, their auditory deflector shields were in full operation even on this first day back. The moms and dads in the audience, not to mention the teachers, were probably more taken aback at such a crazy statement, wondering where this gauntlet I had thrown down would ultimately land.

Undaunted, I proceeded to unpack my three wishes for them, one at a time.

I want you to get frustrated this year—because I really want you to learn, and without some frustration, learning is probably not going to happen. Hearing what we already know, and nodding in agreement may be comfortable and make us feel superior—but we learn nothing from such exercises. Real learning requires us to hit those walls that come when we don’t understand something easily or quickly. And that can be frustrating, especially if we are used to picking things up without breaking a sweat. But who wants to be frustrated? I don’t know anyone who likes failing, making mistakes, or being dumfounded by a problem he or she can’t explain or solve. Yet that is what learning requires, and the further we hope to go, whether it is grasping a difficult concept, or mastering a demanding skill in the arts or athletics, the greater will be the struggle to get it and own it as something we understand.

Telling my students that I wanted them to get frustrated during the coming year was neither expected nor welcomed. It must have seemed sadistic to those who would rather live in a world of easy answers and simple solutions. Yet I’m not sorry I said it.  For unless we allow our children to hit walls from time to time, why should we ever expect them to learn or grow up?  Without the frustration that most learning entails, we consign ourselves to lives of dependency on others whom we expect to answer our questions and solve our problems, frustrating them with our failure to grow up.

I want you to get lost this year—for only in getting lost in doing something worthwhile, something meaningful and constructive, something bigger than yourself, will you ever find yourself. People often get lost over their lifetimes, and adolescents may be more subject to these wanderings than at any other time. You can’t fault them. The need to belong and to discover their identity, whether in a clique or gang, is a powerful centripetal force that draws them to some while distinguishing them from others. That same need continues for many of us into adulthood judging from our fanatical affiliations with favorite sports’ teams, political parties, and even national symbols.

Schools can be great places for kids to get lost in constructive associations, like teams, ensembles, clubs and interest groups. Emotions are stirred, friendships are forged, and patterns of cooperation and sacrifice are often reinforced. And when the goals of the group are noble, and the demands placed on its members help them cultivate responsibility, self-discipline, and empathy, getting lost turns out to be the ticket for them to really find themselves.   

My final wish for my students was the most difficult of all for me to say:  I want you to get in trouble this year.  Schools are places where trouble is not hard to find. It doesn’t take much effort to get in trouble with a teacher. Don’t pay attention, don’t hand in your work, don’t show up for class or practice—could trouble get any easier to find?  Break certain school rules with your appearance, your language, your attendance, or with what you smoke, shoot or ingest—and trouble will become your resume. School officials understand trouble, they stand vigil trying to address it, they employ vice principals, deans of discipline, counselors and even uniformed police to try to prevent it and respond to it. In this battle the troublemakers have the upper hand, and probably always will. It is easy to get into trouble that is fueled by laziness, selfishness, and the desire to get attention. 

But then there is REAL trouble.  I’m not talking about the juvenile, attention-getting behavior I’ve just described. That’s easy. That’s for conformists. Real trouble comes whenever we take a stand for what is right, when we risk popularity and social status by being honest, by telling the truth, even when it may cost us friends or popularity. Getting in real trouble is not going along with peers who want to lie, cheat, or steal their way to success or social coolness. It is having the courage to say “no” to those who would hurt others or destroy what others have worked hard to create. Getting in trouble is valuing integrity over loyalty.  Who wouldn’t love being in a school, or working in a job, with troublemakers like that.

School is back in session for most of our young people.  And that is where they should be, for it can be such a good place, perhaps even the best place for them at this point in their lives.  What better place to work through the frustrations of trying to learn?  What better place to get lost investing themselves in something worthwhile alongside peers and mentors who care about them? What better place to get into trouble for standing up for what they believe in the company of those who willing to listen, support, and give them a chance at redemption? School can be, and is, such a place—possibly the most important place in their young lives for them to discover what getting real is all about.