5 Reasons (That Aren’t Completely True).

How I got there is a little more complicated.

This spring, the 2009 crop of high school seniors will graduate (barring any last minute mistakes on their part… and I am watching). As educators we want these students to have a plan.

An exact detailed step by step plan of what they are going to do with their lives from this point forward.

From my experience most 18 year olds don’t think any farther ahead than approximately 4 minutes into the future (of course 4 minutes is an average, boys would be less… much much less… and as someone who has a daughter, this is a bit frightening).

Teachers (as do I) are always asking students what they are going to do with their lives once they graduate.

College, military, or get a job. 3 choices.

As educators, we seem to prefer they pick college. I assume that’s because college is the path we took (I am also aware of what happens when you assume).

We want them to choose from these 3 choices and stick with it. For the next 50 years.

I am not sure of the logic behind this because most of us had no idea what we wanted to do when we were 18 (17 in my case… which was way too young to be making any decisions not involving cheeseburgers, sports, or a Def Leppard concert).

I often wonder if we have unrealistic expectations for graduating seniors. After all, most will change their minds in the first 6 months after they leave high school.

Sometimes, I think they just give us the answer we want to hear regarding their future plans.

As I stumble through life I think about this as I meet people.

Did the guy at the gas station always have the dream to sell me PowerAde and donuts?

Is the lady at the dry cleaners living out her lifelong goal of ironing shirts for 9 hours a day?

How long has the UPS driver who delivers to my house wanted to drive a truck and wear an ugly brown uniform (although wearing shorts to work in the summer is a pretty nice benefit)?

I point out these examples not to take anything away from them. All of these people seem both happy and nice (goals that we should all have).

They are everyday people who do every day jobs. Obviously, by our way of thinking they must not have had a specific plan when they were seniors in high school.

And that’s okay.

They are good people who have jobs. More importantly they are good citizens who are making society better, not worse.

We all interact with people who probably aren’t pursuing their high school dream job.

In fact, I am one of them.

My plan wasn’t to be a school administrator who writes semi-coherent blogs.

Yes, I know you are shocked. Please take a moment a compose yourself.

My plan when I was a high school senior was… actually, I didn’t have a plan. But I told the people who asked that I did.

My goal, up to that point, was to play major league baseball. It turned out I wasn’t good enough. Who knew (other than the college and professional scouts)?

That is how I ended up going to college and getting a business degree. Why college and a business degree? I have no idea.

Like most teenagers I just picked something so adults would stop asking me.

Plus, it was the mid 80’s and Michael Douglas seemed really cool in the movie Wall Street.

The good news…I graduated. The bad news…after 4 years of college I was again getting asked what I wanted to do with my life.

I remember thinking that I just went through this whole “pick a career” thing a few years earlier. What a vicious circle.

So I took jobs that in which I didn’t really have any interest (when I could find them). Then I woke up when I was 26 and got really lucky.

I knew how to throw a curveball (evidently, just not a good one).

Actually, I had known how to throw a curveball since I was 12, but it took awhile for this skill to become useful.

My curveball wasn’t good enough to get me into the majors, but it did get me a job as an assistant junior high baseball coach.

One of my old coaches needed help and I knew how to throw a curveball.

After a few practices, it didn’t take me long to figure out that I liked kids, school, sports, coaches, and summers off.

If you count 26 years as not long.

So I went back to college with an actual plan. And when I told people what I wanted to do with my life I actually meant it.

And that’s how I became a teacher.

Which has led to everything else.

I wish I could have told my high school teachers this story when I was a senior. My life plan is going to be based on the skills I learned in Little League.

And that will eventually lead to me writing a blog about education.

From now on, I may just tell high school seniors that life has a funny way of just working out.

**Note from wife…I got pretty lucky too. You see he was graduating college with that business degree when I was in 8th grade. Obviously that would have been an awkward romantic relationship. When PrincipalsPage decided to return to college I was a sophomore who just so happened to be in the same history class. The rest really is history!

Comments: 12
Tags: career, college, occupation, teacher

The glorious snow day used to be an all day celebration of sleeping in, overeating, watching bad TV, and taking at least 3 coma-like naps.

Now it is dead to me.

I can’t look at it, speak of it, or think about it.

I have been crossed and jilted for the last time. I feel dirty and used. I am not going to lie, I could use a shower.

You see, I used to be in charge of our snow day schedule.

I decided what time we rolled over in bed and turned on the television. I decided that we finally needed to shower around 4 in the afternoon. I even helped make the traditional dinner of freshly baked brownies covered by vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup (aka: a Hot and Cold Treat… if you haven’t tried it, you should).

As a snow day came to an end, I would decide when we needed to put our belly aches to bed. Often times it was around 7:30 pm (you can’t nap that long while mixing in bowls and bowls of junk food without getting stomach cramps…and the only thing that will fix stomach cramps is 12 straight hours of shut-eye).

Now these powers that I cherished for so long have been ripped away from me.

Ruling the snow day was my last bastion of power.

My reign is over.

The one I helped create has tossed me aside like a piece of trash.

My daughter is now in charge.

It started yesterday when she woke up shortly after 9:00 am. Within 2 minutes of crawling out of bed and making her way to the couch, she announced “I’m bored.”

I should have recognized that by making this statement she was insane, but I didn’t.

The look in her eyes should have told me I was dealing with a full blown case of the crazies, but admittedly I am a little slow on the uptake.

I compounded my mistake by engaging her in conversation.

I simply should have walked away, but I didn’t.

Being the genius I am, I asked what she wanted to do.

She certainly has lots of options: TV, Wii, books, coloring, crafting, going outside, playing games on the computer… the list goes on and on.

Of course all of these are boring. She is living the life I could have only dreamed of, but 2 minutes into a snow day she is bored out of her mind. Must have been nothing to watch on the 842 TV stations that I provide for her.

Her solution. Have a friend over.

What?

Did she just say what I think she said?

Having loser friends over is not on the list of pre-approved, very quiet and restful snow day activities. What happened to watching Regis? Or more importantly, watching Kelly? Or spending an hour catching up on the sad an pathetic life of an 80’s hair band?

Did they all waste their money on cheap beer and cold women (or vice versa)?

I thought we had an understanding in this house.

All of a sudden it is like the Wild West. Every man and child fighting for the snow day power.

What was wrong with bad TV, naps, and Hot and Cold Treats? We had a system. I though everyone was happy. And by everyone, of course I mean me.

But, it gets worse.

In her crazy power grab, she decided that 1 friend running/screaming around our house wasn’t annoying enough. She needed 2 friends to help her break out of her abyss of boredom.

This is a child who revels in the fact that she doesn’t have any brothers or sisters. She doesn’t want one because they might touch her stuff or change the channel as she watches the same SpongeBob episode for the 57th time.

And yet, she wants friends over all the time.

This doesn’t seem fair to me.

At least if they were my kids I could punish them. Or smack them upside the head when their mother wasn’t looking.

Needless to say she won this battle. And now that I think about it, every other battle.

So this became my snow day.

Dodging three 2nd graders who spent 6 straights hours of running and screaming. And screaming and running.

Most of the time they weren’t even running after each other or screaming for a reason. Just indescribable movement and noise.

I don’t mind admitting that my ears are sore.

The sad part: I am paid good money at school to keep hundreds of children under control.

Rule #1 – no running and no screaming.
Rule #2 – see Rule #1

Yet at my house these simple rules are mocked. And I am in charge of nothing.

So my lifelong friend the snow day has left me forever. Or at least until my daughter and renegade friends leave for college.

In the meantime, I hope we have school tomorrow. I need the peace and quiet.

Comments: 3
Tags: college, dismissing school, Friends, Regis and Kelly, school weather issues, shower, snow day, Wild West

Every winter, I find myself asking our juniors and seniors what their plans are after (if, in some cases) they graduate.

Generally, I get the same answers; college, work, the military, get married, or the #1 most popular response… I don’t know.

As adults, whether we are administrators, guidance counselors, teachers, or parents; we all want a specific answer and an even more detailed plan on how students will accomplish their goals and become productive members of society.

We don’t want to send them into the future and have them change their mind 27 times (that being said, you know a lot of people go to college for 7 years… they are called doctors- Google it).

We want young people to pick a path in life and then stick to it.

This is well-intentioned advice, but how often does anyone pick a career in high school, and then actually stay with it for 40 years?

When I was in high school, my plan was… well I didn’t actually have a plan.

Come to think about it, I still don’t (mental note… come up with a career goal so that I can stop flopping around through life like a newly caught bluegill thrown onto the shore).

By the way, I think that was my first fishing reference (you have to admit…it was just a matter of time).

One of my greatest achievements in life is that I have never really looked for a job. Opportunities just seem to find me. If you are thinking that makes me kind of pathetic and extremely lucky… I would have to agree.

It does bring some excitement to my life. My anticipation builds as I wait until my next job finds me. Keep your fingers crossed, I am hoping for greens-keeper, neurosurgeon, typewriter repairman, or Mike Rowe’s sidekick.

Regrettably, I spend more time reading about career advice, then actually doing anything about it (pick a career blog… there are about a 1,000 of them).

As educators, we seem to push kids towards getting a four year college education. I think maybe because that was our plan (those of you who actually had one).

This is good advice, but lots of people are successful without graduating from college.

It doesn’t concern me if my plumber, mechanic, or cable guy didn’t do that well in high school Chemistry or English 4 class, or have a college education.

They have skills that I don’t. Sadly, they also probably did better than me in Chemistry and English, but that is not my point.

I often wonder if it is unrealistic to expect a 17 year old to have a plan. Most of them think the future is what will happen at lunch or right after school.

To expect them to map out a long term career goal while still a teenager seems like wishful thinking on our part.

I meet people everyday who are great at their jobs, but I don’t think they are necessarily working in a career that they considered in high school.

They probably had some idea of what they wanted to do after graduating, but life has a way of pushing us towards what we are meant to do.

Everyone’s career choice is much more complicated than meeting with the guidance counselor 3rd period and choosing one out of a book.

Money, relationships, children, health, etc. often send people into a career that they hadn’t thought of at the time of their high school graduation.

I think we might be better off having a system that has kids work in different vocational areas during high school which would give them options and ideas.

Then we could send them all to college for a year or two without having them declare a major.

That should be enough time and life experience to allow them to make educated decisions on their career paths.

Now that I have this educational problem solved, I think I will search the internet for a new car.

I’ve heard that neurosurgeons make really good money.

Comments: 6
Tags: careers, college, Mike Rowe