It's a rite of spring at every high school. Sometime around April, our wonderfully mature seniors, who we depend on for leadership and example, become afflicted with that most incurable of school borne diseases - senioritis.
For some of our seniors, senioritis kicked in sometime in early September, but for most, symptoms first start appearing around the time of spring break. For a senior in high school, the whirlwind of activities that are part of closing this chapter of their lives can become overwhelming. They itch alternatively with an overwhelming desire to be done with school and move on, and with a nagging, sometimes subconscious, desire to remain a kid and reconnect emotionally with their grade school memories. This contradiction of emotions leads to a kind of teenage menopause evidenced by a confliction of malaise and euphoria that often leads to erratic and inexplicable choices and behaviors.
As a teacher, I loved teaching seniors. We just have to be willing to embrace their temporary insanity as they near the end of their school careers. While sometimes frustrating, the changes that occur as our almost graduates realize the cocoon of high school is falling away can lead to some glorious "wing spreading". One of the most difficult things for a high school senior to grasp is the realization that everything that happens after high school ultimately becomes their choice. This responsibility that they have all yearned for, sometimes becomes overwhelming when it arrives.
Each year I speak with our senior classes, and one of the things I tell them is that they will get tired of answering the questions, "So...what are you doing next year?", or "Do you know what you want to study?, "What will you major in?"...... An important thing for our seniors to understand is that it's o.k. not to know at age 17 or 18 what they are going to do for the rest of their lives. One of the best things about college, and learning in general, is exploring and deciding what it is that is really of interest.
I tell our students, and my own children, that whatever it is that they love and are truly passionate about pursuing, they can find a way to make a living in that field. For example, I use the story told us by a member of the Detroit Tigers organization who spoke with our marketing classes a few years ago. He recounted his dream of being a professional baseball player, and the difficulty for him when he realized that his abilities didn't match his aspirations in that regard. Instead of settling for something he was less passionate about, he went to work for the Tigers as a bat boy, and literally worked his way through almost every job in the organization before becoming the vice president of marketing. Baseball was his passion, and he found a way to spend his life involved in the sport.
We can help our seniors deal with their "senioritis" affliction by letting them know that the entire world is available to them. Now more than ever, the world is a "flat" place where technology allows for global connectivity. We often point out to student that many of the jobs that they may pursue ten years from now have not yet even been invented.
Over the years I've found that one of the best ways to calm senioritis sypmtoms is by addressing the issue of what lies ahead in a way that reassures our young people that we don't expect them to have all the answers yet. If that doesn't work, try locking them in the house until June...
The Principal's Office is a blog created by Tim Bearden, Chief Academic Officer and Upper School Director at Detroit Country Day School, an independent school in Beverly Hills, MI. While content will sometimes be specific to Country Day, the majority of posts are specific in scope to issues concerning teaching and learning in the 21st century.
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