Road Trip Recap

Other possible titles for this post:
"Too Young to be Old; Too Old to be Young."
Or, "Big Ball of Awkward."
Or perhaps, "Student Teacher Temptress." Please God, no.

Gah. I'm still cringing.

The boys talked about their drinking stories the whole way up. Little Lincoln ended up going in a different car so they had no incentive to censor-- apparently, I wasn't reason enough. I told them, "I'm going to pretend you're talking about Koolaid." Tried to distract them with traveling stories, but as soon as they had a chance to talk again, we were once more talking about inebriation and destruction of property.

Annie texted me in response to this report: "Haha! I love how comfortable they are with you!"

Well... or not. Told Viola about the car ride and she said, "You really shouldn't let them talk about that stuff-- it could misconstrued as you, like, encouraging them to do that. You just have to be careful-- make sure you tell them that they can't talk about that anymore with you."

"Right. You're absolutely right," I nodded. Thought: "Stupid. Stupid. How did I not figure that out when they were talking about it?"

Then she said, "I have to tell you what the girls told me in my car: apparently Dylan has a HUGE crush on you!" She laughed.

"Oh nooo..." I said.

Tried to act normal about everything though. The boys rode in my car the whole weekend, so I tried adjusting my demeanor to a more ADULT, PROFESSIONAL, I-am-NOT-in-fact-closer-to-your-generation-than-to-my-middle-aged-colleagues kind of attitude. I think I was kind of awkward about it though. I ended up being mostly sarcastic and grumpy.

Friday afternoon, I heard one of the girls, Kimberly-- a chatty, brash, self-identified lesbian say, "I want Greta on my team!"
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing!" she grinned.

I found out that the boys-slash-Kimberly called out "My team" whenever they saw someone that they wanted "dibs" over-- that they were attracted to. I reported this finding to Viola.
"Wait-- didn't someone call you for THEIR team?" she asked.
"Yes," I said grimly. "Kimberly." And she laughed again.

The worst was Friday night though. Jane, the theatre teacher, had to go tell the kids to be quiet. She'd mentioned earlier in the day that she felt like she always had to be the bad guy, so I decided to go stand beside her in solidarity. She was standing in front of the guys' room, and when I stood beside her and looked into the room, I saw Aaron in just his shorts. My eyes opened wide and I turned right around to walk back to my room.

This was a mistake. Because by LEAVING, it meant Aaron was able to CHASE AFTER ME. Which he did. Naked chested. And then tried to thrust his naked-chestedness into the room as I tried to shut the door on him.

Are you cringing? Because FRICK, I am.

This is what I should have done: I should have been stoic and aloof in the first place, and stayed the course beside Jane as she told them to shut up, never mind the scantily clad high-schoolers. OR, if I couldn't have done that, I should have turned around on Aaron and unleashed the wrath of a thousand furies by roaring, "THAT IS COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE AND YOU NEED TO STAND DOWN SOLDIER!" Instead, I freaked out, tried to run away, ended up batting him away like a stupid teenager, and just about burned up in blushingness.

The whole weekend was a miserable confrontation with THE LINE. I feel like "the line" has been well-established with my freshmen and sophomores. They KNOW I'm their teacher, and they treat me as such. None of them would ever even THINK of chasing me down a hotel hallway, and if they did, I KNOW my first instinct would be to ask them incredulously, "What the H are you doing??" But I haven't practiced being a teacher to seniors yet-- and they haven't seen me as the up-front teacher of a lesson, or as the governor of a classroom. To them-- I'm the exception. I'm the cute young intern who lets them get AWAY with stuff. Of course they do: kids are always pushing boundaries; it's MY job to assert myself and make sure they follow them. But when a 6'2" mostly naked 18-year-old is chasing me down a hallway, my instincts kick in, and unfortunately: my instincts in those situations still say RUN.

Complicating things further is the fact that, under normal circumstances, I WOULD probably pal around with these kids. When we dropped them off at the dance on Friday night, I started getting into the music and thought it would be fun to go in and dance WITH them-- but realized, of course, that I couldn't. I "got" all their pop-culture references, and all their jokes. They're all cool, interesting people-- and being with the boys put me in the same frame of mind as being with my little brother, who's their same age. I realized that my reaction to their stories in the car-- laughing and chiding them-- was the same kind of reaction I have when my little brother tells me a story of misbehavin'. That was the instinctual response. But the response that I must learn is not the "big sister" response. It is not the "25-year-old" response. It is not the "friend" response. It is the TEACHER response.

"Teacher response" hindsight is 20/20. And makes me feel incredibly foolish when analyzing the actions that actually occurred.

Viola returned to the subject today, saying that I should have distanced myself from Dylan as soon as I realized that he had a crush on me, and went on further to say that running away from Aaron seemed flirtatious. I spent the rest of the day feeling horrified and mortified. Morhorified. Though she told me she knew I didn't mean to come across that way at ALL and that I clearly wasn't doing anything wrong intentionally, I just had to be very careful with these boys. Her ending disclaimer didn't make me feel much better.

I know I'm learning still. I know I'll have a brand new slate next year. I know that the next time any one of these situations happens I will KNOW how to respond. But in the meantime...

Gah. I'm still cringing.

Oh the Awkward.

Back to teaching stories. Cause we're back in school.

So: in some ways, being a young-looking 24-year-old has helped me connect with the students. I'm close enough to their ages that I'm able to draw lesson parallels to cultural examples that I know they'll find relevant. I'm able to translate concepts into vocabulary they'll understand. The students see me as approachable. The girls like my clothes. Etcetera.

However, sometimes the generational proximity is too close for comfort. And I'm beginning to realize that the discomfort occurs more often on THEIR side, than on mine. Examples:

One tall lanky kid is taking our class over again as a Senior (we teach 9th and 10th Language Arts), and I always think of him as the "adult-ish" one. Then one day, I realized that he's essentially the same age as my little brother-- the kid who I call "Paullywog," who I get piggy-backs from, who I joke around with, who I give a hard time to, who is just my favorite little buddy. That made this Senior far less intimidating to me. He's an affable kid, and one day-- trying to make conversation while walking with him and his teeny tiny girlfriend down a loooong empty hallway-- I made the mistake of trying to communicate this realization.
"Dylan! I realized the other day that you're basically the same age as my little brother!"
Bemused look from Tall Lanky and Teeny Tiny.
In an effort to explain myself: "That makes me feel like I can give you a hard time."
Skeptical looks from Tall Lanky and Teeny Tiny.
"You know. HA HA HA!"
Tall Lanky and Teeny Tiny exchange incredulous expressions.
"Ahem...nevermind."

Also, I'll sometimes use casual terms of address without thinking twice. I occasionally call the girls, "Darlin'" or "hon," like I would any of my girlfriends, and I sometimes call the guys, "Dude." Like, "Dude, I saw you do your homework yesterday. Why don't you have it?" To me, this is normal. I say "dude" all the time in real life. "What a nutty dude." "Hiiii dude!" "Dude. Cut it out." But the kids-- I'm realizing-- don't think of me as a real life kind of person. Or at least not one that should use their vernacular. I called one of the boys "Dude" the other afternoon and he replied, "Why you always call me that?" He was grumpy that day. But still. It made me realize that-- as much as I may still be a young adult that goes on dates, that goes to parties, that listens to KEXP, that calls her guy friends "dudes"-- the kids are seeing me as their TEACHER. And teachers don't use words like "dude." At least, not until they're old enough that it's funny again.

Yesterday, I passed a group of boys in the hallway and one of them said, "Whaaaasssssuuuuup!" These are boys in the L.A. class, and we've joked around before. Reflexively, I said, "What's uuuup!" and jokingly flashed a "W" with my fingers. You know, like "Word."

Are you cringing? Because I'm cringing thinking about it.

The boys' mouths dropped open and the one who had whaassuupp'ed me said, "Don't ever do that again!"

Ummm.... Yes.

Right.

WON'T.

The good news is: as young as I look, and as young as I FEEL, and as much as I've worried about that hampering the students' respect for me: all this indicates they see me as their TEACHER. One 9th grader asked me if I would be her reference for a job interview. Since when did I become old enough to be a reference?? But I love that she asked me. And I love that I AM an adult in their lives. I'm learning to cool down the slang terms in "school life," even if I keep them up in "real life" (although-- let's be honest-- I've always sucked at slang anyway), because at school, I'm not 24. I'm not Paullywog's big sister. I'm not some dude's gal pal. I'm the TEACHER. I think maybe I slipped into the trap of trying to be "cool" with these kids, which is just sort of silly. Their determinations of approval aren't coming from whether or not they'd want to hang out with me after school-- nor SHOULD they be. Yikes, that has "awkward" written all OVER it. Their respect has been garnered more after I've taught a solid lesson, or played them a song on guitar, or told them a traveling story. Which are all very ADULT things to do.

I like recognizing those perimeters. I like being the grown-up. I like that they're the teenagers. And that doesn't mean I won't still be intentional about talking to them as equals, but I like that there's an understood separation. I like that I'm the teacher.

It's a good thing to be.