Random things that I will not miss about high school:
– listening to my classmates whine
– my business law teacher parroting back everything I say in the form of a question
– never getting any input on anything I turn in
– disgusting bathrooms
– listening to my male teachers flaunt their “big, tough guy” persona
– not having enough writing or literature classes
– hearing my teachers talk more about their social life than the subject they teach
– wasting six hours and accomplishing nothing
– tedium
– watching my peers create loud, violent disturbances in class after class, and having teacher after teacher stand back and say helplessly “I don’t know what to do with them.“
– getting up at 6:21a.m.
– never getting any advice on my assignments and therefore, never becoming a better writer
– watching the teachers try even harder than students to invent excuses for us to not do any work
– counting the seconds and the minutes and the hours until I could go home and have my time truly be mine againI am ready for college. I am ready to learn how to think and feel for myself again. –Kayla Sawyer —I am dead inside, and I have the educational system to thank (Shameless Digressions)
Kayla wrote this the evening that she finished her last day of classes as a high school student. She’s on her way to Seton Hill University in the fall.
She contacted me the other day, saying that she heard SHU journalism majors used blogs, and she wanted to get sarted.
If you have a moment, I hope you’ll visit her blog and let her know what you think about her writing. I know I’m looking forward to having her in class.
Will, when Kayla takes classes with me, she’ll get writing feedback, I can promise.
You can get feedback in college, if you’re willing to push for it and ask the right questions. I think Kayla is hot to learn and has certain expectations of college courses that may or may not be fully realized, but it’s always up to the student to get something from the learning and to go beyond if necessary to get your dollar’s worth.
Boy…if she thought she didn’t get feedback in high school, I feel sorry for her when she gets to college.