English Class, Three times around.

In high school I was hardly a stellar student. Actually I was a somewhat nightmare of a student. I was a reasonably smart kid who just refused to do the work. I never saw the point of it. If I could get 95% on the tests having never opened the textbook, I figured I should never waste my time and actually open it. This skill of mine got me by until about 10th grade. And when I say getting by, it was much more by the skin of my teeth than, looking back on it, I should have allowed. The way I'm setting this up, it's starting to sound like I did all these things, and then suddenly out of the blue, this external influence came into my life and I sorted everything out. Not exactly.


The teacher that probably had one of the most profound effects on my life was the english teacher I had for three years in high school. She was someone who I very much had a love hate relationship with. I would be lying if I said she wasn't a good teacher. She very much was, I just wasn't always willing to accept that. The first class I had her for, my freshman year of high school I hated. Not because of her though. The students in that class were mostly the over-achieving crowd, the ones who always want to know how many points it's going to be worth, how it's going to be graded, and what they can do to get extra credit. Frankly, those people disgust me. I understand that they have been forced into this mindset, but many of them couldn't care less about what they learned in high school. Most of them probably don't remember most of it, at least not the details. I digress. In summary, I didn't like that class because of my peers, and didn't do very well in it.

Sophmore year, I took what was considered to be a slacker english class, that just happened to be taught by the same teacher. I hadn't really intended for that to happen, it just did. I enjoyed her class more having her an additional time, however I didn't work any harder in it. I skidded by, barely in it, doing slightly more than the bare minimum (though that point could be argued). It wasn't that I didn't like the teacher particularly. Well okay, I had days where I didn't like her. But I can't say it was entirely her fault.

One thing that you should be aware of about me is that I love attention. I love to be a part of what's going on. I hate the idea of sitting by watching. In high school, one of the easiest ways to get attention was to not do your work, particularly if you were "smart." It drove many a teacher completely bonkers
when they get a really smart kid that just has no motivation to do anything. So they give that student more and more attention. Which causes said student (me as the case may be) to just continue doing it, because they get the attention they want, and the satisfaction that they have the power to drive someone nuts. I would be lying if I said it wasn't fun to have that sort of power.

Alas, back to English class. My first year, she gave me a moderate amount of attention when I didn't do work. The class was large enough, and their were more than a few students that had my tendencies. I was one in a group, the slacker group. Now sophmore year comes along, and she'd had me before. She knew what I was like, she knew my habits. We both knew I wasn't about to do any work for her. And yet, she didn't go crazy when I missed that first assignment, (or if she did, she didn't let me know it). She passively ignored it. No, perhaps ignore isn't quite the right word. She didn't give me any extra attention, just more acknowledging that I hadn't done it. This, whether either of us was aware of it, I don't know, was a subtle act of compassion. I would have loved to get that attention, get chewed out at (which often brought good moments to talk back, another one of my "strengths"), and not encourage me to ever do anything. She didn't do that though. She didn't give me what I wanted, she gave me what I needed. I needed someone to show me that I wasn't some special smart kid that was too good for work. That if I wanted to do stuff ever, I had better at least try to somewhat conform to the system. It was a tough lesson of life that I needed to learn.

This teacher did even get to reap the rewards of her work, (though again, she may not even have been aware she was doing it - it took me years to figure out that the reason I didn't want to do my work was an attention based thing). I had her again my senior year of high school, where I did better. My grades were by no means perfect, but at least I was applying myself, and have continued to improve since those days in 10th grade. Still, the talking back issue is something I have yet to be cured of. Perhaps another day.