Questions to a Young Poet

So what are you going to do this summer?

...languish....

Based on a positively true story of my encounter with a young poet.

Carpool Conversations

One of Chongo's friends -- the very talented artist one -- said, "CHS (Competitive High School) has taken so much and given me so little."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, I guess it's taught me to think more critically, but it's taken so much of my time. I could have been out exploring the world."

When he puts it that way, my heart agrees with him.

Although I trust and deeply hope, that CHS actually prepares students to explore and engage the world, my fear is that conforming to the world is valued too highly. Because at the end of the day artistic talent, witty observations and some deep thinking about life doesn't pay the bills or get you into too many colleges.

Social Niceties

Today you waited.

You waited after all the carpool clowns had climbed out of the car and started up the street, ignoring my goodbyes.

I turned to the open car door and there you stood, looking at me expectantly.

"Have a good day," I said, knowing that I love yous are not so welcomed in public.

You gave me a slight smile, and a nod. Acknowledging me acknowledging you. Then you turned and walked to school.

It made me happy, remembering that one moment you had turned back, waiting just to say goodbye. To acknowledge I was there. I've given you speeches about the importance of social niceties to make people feel valued. But they are just speeches. Today I knew in my heart what that really means. Thank you.

These hands

Sometimes, when Chongo is asked what career he wants to pursue, he answers, "a surgeon."

This would be a fine occupation to have, but Chongo says it in jest, not (yet?!) being an ambitious enough student to be looking down the road at all those extra years of study.

But when Chongo says he wants to be a surgeon, I think of one thing: his hands.

Chongo can do the most intricate, minute sculpting with those hands. Like this piece he created out of "green stuff."

But he is ornery. So when I go to take a picture of him working he does this:


And then he replaces himself with his alter ego.

Do they let ornery monkeys be surgeons these days?

When people ask him where he's going to college he says, "Stanford." If he ever becomes a surgeon who went to Stanford, no one will be more surprised than his mother. But with those hands, he could do anything.

Community Service

It's the time of year for choosing classes for next year's high school schedule. Chongo has been avoiding any honors or AP classes, convinced he might have to work harder than he wants to get an A.

But I keep pressing the issue. There's one honors class that, rumor has it, is really the same as the regular class. The only difference is that students have to complete 20 hours of community service during the year.

Community service is a deal breaker for Chongo. If this is true, he's definitely not taking the honors class.

"Why?" asks the volunteer happy mom.

"Community service is actually a punishment courts give to people who have broken the law?" he answers. "Why would I want to do that?"

I'm dumbfounded about that one.... But I'm working on a response, and I assure you it won't include "it's a good thing to do" or "colleges care."

A rant

As I went looking through the file where I throw everything school related for Chongo, I came across his Freshman class request list. And that old anger at the way counselors have steered us wrong came bubbling back up into my stomach so that I sat there for several long minutes, just trying to recover.

We've had many negative and discouraging experiences, but do all the details matter? Today I saw proof that we really had tried to get the counselor's help in placing Chongo in the right art class. But we were never contacted and Chongo was placed in a beginning art class. After freshman year Chongo said, "I'm never taking another art class. It's such as waste of time." Which made me very sad, since he's actually good at art. Even his teacher at the end of the year told us, "he really didn't belong in this class." I know now it was my naievete as a parent, thinking I could rely on a counselor to be looking out for my child.

So this is a rant about counselors (Mr VB excluded, except that he retired just when we needed him most)...

1. Every time I turn around I discover that something they told me, even insisted on is either entirely untrue or contradicted by the next counselor.
2. When you don't take seriously something they said (" we don't change classes") they get angry despite your repeated experience of #1.
3. They seem to think scheduling classes is formulaic, as if there's homogeneity among the 2500 kids trying to keep their heads above the academic water without losing interest or stamina or hope.
4. It appears there's more interest in getting their schedule organized than in personalizing students schedules to best serve them.
5. A pure, unadulterated prejudice against anyone who keeps her desk perfectly neat, devoid of papers, nothing out of place. Really? Okay maybe that's my own issue, but I believe it explains why this particular counselor does not understand the vagaries of my child.
   

A caveat: I am fully aware that counselors deal constantly with pushy, insistent parents who can only see their child's needs and not the larger community, and I am sure it can make them cynical. And I know there are many great counselors out there who have made a real difference in the lives of their students (did I mention Mr. VB?).

Now that Maia's filling out her high school registration form I had to email her counselor. "Surprise me," I wanted to say. Show me up, let me be wrong. Care about students as individuals, assume vocal parents might actually be saying something worthwhile, and above all, work imaginatively.

This time, I'm going to follow up.

P.S. I couldn't decide if I should publish this one... because a rant generally serves only to make me feel better, not to actually help anyone else. And I don't have any good advice. Except to counselors, which I mentioned, but which, if I were a counselor, I wouldn't even be able to hear after a rant... unless I was already a good counselor...