Part 7: High School Twice

When I published Part 6, I thought I was finished.

Honest-to-goodness, I did.

However, a guest blogger from the twelve student reflections insisted I had more to say. She believed readers would wonder how I ever went on, after experiencing such verbal and emotional pummeling.

I saw her point.

For months, I’ve written and deleted. This is my fourth try at Part 7.

The easy answer is that I never believed the administrative criticism. A concerned colleague had warned, “Karen, you do not suffer fools well, and it shows.” In short, I did myself no favors.

Fortunately, however, I encountered those terrific Helpers from outside the school who believed in me. Their personal and professional advice allowed me to hold onto my confidence. How could I have been successful my entire life and suddenly turn incompetent at Holland Hall?

I struggled to keep my footing. I often lost it.

When Carlos Tuttle, the Upper School Head who hired me and never one to mince words, read the posts, he blamed my situation back then on “a bunch of petty old fools who were jealous.”

I don’t know. But I learned plenty, fools or not.

I discovered how a school’s death grip on the status quo stifled progress.

I discovered how people in an organization rose to their own level of incompetence, call it the good ol’ boy system or The Peter Principle.

I discovered how teachers who saw students as nails hammered away at young spirits.

I discovered how the tail wagged the dog when an athletic department circumvented admissions’ standards.

I discovered two distinctly different teaching realities. A colleague and I were once headed to a meeting but kept being stopped by students who wanted to tell me a joke or ask me something or enact whatever hijinx came to mind. He said, “These kids will do anything for your smile. I can see you really care about them. I’d like to try being like you.”

TRY to care? What, then, was he doing there?

I didn’t just care about those students.  I knew them like the back of my hand. I rolled up my sleeves beside them in class, in hallways, and in rehearsal for hours a day.

Yet, at their graduations, I was prepared for the final chapter–to be boxed away with yearbooks and trophies.

And that’s the curious part.

They kept finding me, no matter where Cliff and I moved and long before the internet existed for easy tracking. Since 1983 when I resigned, I’ve answered desperate late-night calls, commented on manuscripts, fielded parenting questions, received baby announcements, written recommendation letters, stood in for parents unable to attend a graduation, and provided marital and divorce advice. And that’s only part of it.

For over thirty years, I’ve kept serving tea and sympathy.

Several years ago a former student, who’d been a wild card as a teenager, called to admit something he’d done that had never been found out. In the spirit of confession, I said I’d never wanted to teach. He was shocked and asked what I had intended to become. “An author,” I said and admitted my picture book manuscripts had been rejected for years. He insisted I send one to him, and he’d try to help.

And help he did, having gained extensive connections in the arts.

I sent him Sweet Moon Baby: An Adoption Tale about the daughter Cliff and I adopted from China. It was eventually published by Alfred A. Knopf.

All because of that wild card–who the school had tried to throw out more than once.

Sometimes schools get it wrong.

To me, he’d always been remarkable.

When he was in my English class, I told him he could write anything he wanted when I gave a class assignment. He was that good. I also urged him to audition for A Midsummer Night’s Dream; he took off like wildfire on stage. Later, when I did not cast him in a production, he stood, heartbroken and confused, in my office. “You have so many great parts ahead of you. I know you can’t see that now, but I can,” I told him. “This is just your first lesson in not getting the part you want.”

In reality, I knew he belonged downtown where Francis Ford Coppola was filming Rumble Fish. He needed a bigger stage. Even as an extra, I knew he’d flourish.

Over time, he understood.

Teaching turned out to be the thing I had to do to get what I’d wanted all my life–to become an author.

What I got from Holland Hall was far more than a job. It was how I found myself. Every time I took an administrative lashing, it was inevitably a teenager’s kindness that handed my heart back to me, gift wrapped and tied with a bow.

Their devotion expanded my understanding of success.

During my own high school years, success had been all about me. My second time through, as a teacher, my success rested in how I could help someone else find theirs.

In a lovely note, Carlos, who ran the joyful, eclectic school when I first arrived, wrote: “In the galaxy of stars in the lives of your continuously grateful students, you are a singular, incredible constellation. Your life is filled with wonders. Admit it.”

Indeed I do.