Public
High School: The Mystery Unraveled?
The Musings
of a 25 year-old Homeschooled Teacher Going Undercover as a High School Student
“High
School is like a spork: it's a crappy spoon and a crappy fork, so in the end
it's just plain useless.” ~ John Mayer
John Mayer: genius for coming up
with such a witty, fitting description (hey, I’ve used a spork!) or pessimist
who didn’t apply himself when he was
in high school? I have no personal
experience with a public high school.
During my own high school years I was homeschooled. At the beginning of sophomore year my mother
handed me my textbooks, the lesson planner with a list of assignments and said,
“Rachelle, in 9 weeks I’ll be grading.
Have these assignments to me by then or else.” Eager to live beyond
the next 9 weeks, I dutifully either pulled my books into bed with me each day
for 3 or 4 hours or I entrenched both myself and my books on the dog bed by the
cozy fireplace. Regular assignments
(reading, answering questions, taking tests and quizzes, etc.) got done –
boom. The rest of the day would be mine
to spend as I wished (usually in reading Nancy Drew, The Black Stallion Series,
or Sherlock Holmes). Papers….I did so hate writing papers. When that 9 week
mark was just around the corner, sure, I had a few, 5 or 6 big papers I needed
to catch up on…or start…but I learned in that final week how to crank
assignments out like a pro. Consequently,
I also learned the evils of procrastination.
Namely sleep deprivation, twitching eyes, headaches, and that intense
fear of imminent death if Mother walked in and saw me working on a paper she
knew was due 6 weeks ago. Yes, I learned
a lot that sophomore year. The next two,
after having learned my lesson on procrastination, went much more smoothly. My parents always gave me the option of going
to public school rather than be homeschooled but how could I go from doing my
work in bed whenever I wanted for a mere 3 or 4 hours a day to getting up at 6
a.m., taking a 1 hour bus ride, sitting in class for over 6 hours, having another
hour long bus ride home, and then having homework?! That was a no brainer for me…
Nevertheless, I have always been
intrigued by public high school. What
went on inside the classroom? What
methods did teacher use to engage students in learning? What were the expectations – the
standards? What did public high school students actually learn? What would it be like to see real-life
cliques? Was cafeteria food really that
bad? These questions remained unanswered
for me…until now. What began as a simple
phone call to the high school principal became a journey of enlightenment, for
I went to high school one sunny Wednesday in November with my sophomore sister,
Hannah. What follows is an account of
that day, a record of my observations, and a realization of truth.
*to be continued
*to be continued
