Teach & Serve IV, No. 32
The Learning Portion of High School
March 13, 2019
The time to work with our students, to learn with them, to help them become critical thinkers, to set them up for the next year, the next school, the next steps in their lives is too critical to give up.
Last year, the movie Lady Bird, written and directed by Greta Gerwig, was nominated for multiple Academy Awards and was touted as one of the best films of the year. A loving look at the life of one high schooler growing up in Sacramento, California, the movie played out as a very realistic take on the adolescent life and included many, many quotable lines.
One of my favorites was spoken by Lady Bird, the title character. As she is speaking with one of her teachers, she delivers this bon mot: “I think we’re done with the learning portion of high school.”
Lady Bird is in the last months of her senior year and her quote epitomizes that all-too common malady: the senior slide. It is a great line but here is the problem: too many of us believe it.
Too many of us give into the notion that the learning portion of high school wraps up before the seniors actually walk across whatever stage they will stroll in their caps and gowns. Further, many of us believe that the learning portion of any given year winds down sometime in the spring, weeks before the end of the school year, and we give ourselves and our students latitude to down shift, to stop working hard, to slip into vacation.
I get it.
We are tired at the end of the year. So are the students. We are ready for break and we can see it coming. We need the down time.
I get it.
But the days and hours are so precious. The time to work with our students, to learn with them, to help them become critical thinkers, to set them up for the next year, the next school, the next steps in their lives is too critical to give up.
Should we adjust our strategies as the end of the term approaches? Absolutely. Should we abandon the work of education in the final weeks of the term and give in to our lesser natures? Absolutely not.
While “we’re done with the learning portion of high school” is a great line, it is just that: a great line. As educational professionals, hopefully we hold ourselves and our students and staffs to a bit higher standard.
We should.