First Day At Edison High School

“If you graduate here and then don’t go on to college, you’re looking at working for minimum wage.”  These were the first words I overheard at my first day at Edison High School.  They were spoken by the principal to a male student.  I overheard them because I was sitting in the front office, waiting to go to my CT’s third period class, and the principal’s door was open.  As I continued to listen, I realized that the principal was in the process of writing a letter of recommendation with the student’s input.  At one point the student expressed an interest in going into auto repair, and the principal asked if he had taken any art classes, since the skills one learns in art--particularly ceramics--could be useful in terms of learning how to shape and mold metal.  The principal read the recommendation back to the student, said he would mail it; the student went on his merry way.

The building is old and the hallways aren’t heated.  The carpet was put down sometime when people were still listening to Def Leopard.  The textbooks are old and tattered.  The desks are a mish-mash of new and ancient.  The physical plant is, in some ways, held together by duct tape.  But what amazes me is that, on the whole, the kids feel connected to the place--and to their teachers.  They know their teachers, and, on the whole, it seems like they are known well.

Marie talks a lot.  But the kids respond to her.  She went off on this whole tangent with her fifth period class about tattoos and piercings, told a story about her son who got his lip and tongue pierced and ultimately removed both because he was tired of people judging him because of the way he looked.  At one point two students were wondering what this had to do with the characterization exercise they were doing, and then she said that the descriptions they were doing were ultimately about selecting details--external details--that allowed readers to see their characters.  They seemed to understand.  But what impressed me was that she was talking about the kids interests--many of them have piercing and were thinking about getting tattoos, and she was talking about those things without judgment.  There was a moral to the story--be careful with those choices, since they do have lasting consequences, but she didn’t drive that point home with any explicit moralizing.

Perhaps my expectations are too low.  I had concerns about who got to talk in Marie’s class--mostly the girls.  And who she directed her attention too--again, mostly the girls.  But there’s a certain warmth to her that is frankly refreshing after the coldness and hostility I saw daily emerge at Edison Middle School.  We will see how things turn out as the winter progresses.