Riding the Wave. Jeremy S. Adams

      PART 2

      students

      Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.

      —JAPANESE PROVERB

      Senior night is a big deal at the high school where I teach. It occurs in the late fall, when the weather has finally cooled and seniors are fully engrossed in the unique tasks of applying to college or securing plans for postgraduation.

      The main event takes place immediately before the Friday-night varsity football game, and it is a dramatic scene. Senior football players, band members, and cheerleaders start walking from one end zone while the students’ parents or guardians start walking from the opposite end zone. They meet at the fifty-yard line, and the students give their parents or guardians roses. Senior night usually occurs right before Thanksgiving, which is appropriate and symbolic; by this point in the year, seniors have started to realize how fast the end of high school is approaching, and they feel anxious—but thankful that their parents have been there for them, shepherding them with every form of support that they need.

      One year, the student who wore the school mascot’s costume approached me a few days before the senior night event. I knew he came from a difficult background, but I never imagined just how difficult it was. His father had been in prison for many years, and his mother was ill. He asked me whether I would meet him at the fifty-yard line and stand in for his parents. He was a delightful student, and I was of course happy to oblige.

      It wasn’t until a few months after his request that I came to a deeply upsetting realization: educators and schools fulfill much different roles in the 21st century than they did when I became a schoolteacher in the late nineties. In the infancy of my career, teachers generally thought of themselves in strictly pedagogical terms. Teachers could be role models. They could be mentors. They could at times be parental in their function. But never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I might be standing in for students’ parents—doing, for example, what their fathers would have done in earlier generations. In 21st century schools, we stand up for students when other institutions stand down. We advocate for them when other influences are silent. We meet a growing need to address their stress and anxiety. We are their last line of defense between hope and hopelessness. The pressures these expectations place on our profession make our jobs hard but also transformative.