The End of the Year

Yesterday three students presented their remarkable senior projects. It was quite moving to feel the support and interest from the rest of the students, but most worthy of comment were the projects themselves: a labyrinth, a fashion show, a book on yoga.

If I take a moment to reflect on what the school year encompasses, I get overawed. I read of a woman who cannot forget anything at all. Every trivial detail remains vivid to her, harassing her. It is unbearable to always know the date and time of what so and so said on that hot afternoon thirty years ago. The dead are never dead, and the whole of a particular experience is never broken down and refitted to the unscrolling narrative of her life. The weather, the words, the image of the action, all are unweighted and unemphasized. A life-long drone of detail.

One of our seniors just arrived with a tiny dog in her arms. Her boyfriend rescued it from an abusive home. She says kids had painted it and were tossing the wretched creature repeatedly into a pond. How will this story be altered over time to reflect what we value, or the point we are trying to make: the virtue of this young man, the cruelty of drunk, neglected teenagers, the trauma syndromes of chihuahua- terriers, the pleasure of being able to bring your little abused dog to school. Each requires a different mix of detail.
A process we take for granted and totally foreign to the unforgetting woman.

So much happens from September to June. The changes accelerate as the end of the year approaches. The last day of school is a time for celebration, a holiday truly meaningful to the young. It marks time and achievement in a way that nothing else can. But being young, they may not reflect on it all that much, they may not drape habits of memory over it. They just live it.

We march in an impose our meanings on their school lives because we see it as our institution. They have to come to school because it is good for them.

But perhaps...perhaps since we make young people come to school we should be far more accommodating to them. At very least, cede to the them the very end of spring. Let them make the meanings.