End of year recognition for my high schoolers. I love my kids. We have 300 amazing students, and I get to be there to watch them grow and learn and make me proud of their best selves. I get them at their best and challenge them to reach farther, because I know they can. That's so much better than if I got a teaching license and had to try to educate all of them. I'll admit it, I'm not interested in inflicting federal and state mandated stuff on the ones who don't want to be there, I want to share cool stuff with the strange and talented ones.
They're not just talented, they're good to each other. Theatre was my family when I was in high school; 40 other weirdos like me who, when it came right down to it, all loved and supported each other. This is high school, where everything burns hot and cold and every day can be the most important day of your life. It was not the greatest experience of my life, but it was the most emotionally charged period so far. These kids blow my experience away. There were 400 kids in my graduating class and I didn't really know 80 of them. These 300 kids cross all grades and include freshmen in two separate buildings and they're family, too. They show up. And not only do they show up, they are genuinely there for each other when they need to be, and that is so cool to watch.
This year, they were given the opportunity to nominate each other for an award for those students encompassing passion, dedication, kindness and selflessness. Four students received the award, and we read out the nominating letters written by other students, and gave their names. They wrote mature, adult recommendations -heck, recommendations better than many adults write- describing their peers. And they weren't allowed to be anonymous. To have been a writer of one of those letters says just as much as for the recipients, because that means at 16, 17, you have to step outside all of the high school stuff -rivalry, jealousy, pettiness- and look with respect for a peer and individually represent all that the entire group embodies. And hey, they're speech kids, they have the words to express their commendation.
My first freshman class will be seniors next year. They are an incredibly strong group, stronger than the two classes before them, and I have loved watching them take on new challenges and surprise and amaze me. Freshmen are such kids, and then they turn around and show you what they can do. And I might not be there to see what they do next year. In fact, I probably won't be.
That kills me. All of the great things I get to do are great, but they don't sustain me beyond love of the work, or love of the people. I love the trust and autonomy that I have at the high school; at the little community theatre; in the tours I give. So tonight I have to say to the head coach, "I might not be back," and she says, "Full time theatre work?" "If I can get it; I've been applying." "That's what happens to the good ones. Well. I want you back, but if I can't have you, tell me as soon as you know. You'll be so hard to replace. Any of you are, but you'll be hard to replace."
That kills me a little bit, too. I was in agonies my first year, I didn't know what I was doing, there was some other way I should be doing things, they didn't all make it to All State, they can't like what I'm doing. Then I figured it out, nope, the kids love me and they were growing, and that was all that mattered. Since then, it's been great, and there's not a lot of recognition of that, but I don't need it, I see it in the kids- they reinforce that I know what I'm doing and that I'm doing it right.
I *still* think of the middle schoolers I worked with a decade ago, for a year. I marvel at the teachers who cycle through students year after year after year, because that's a lot of lives to touch, and forget. And I love that this is theatre. They call themselves High School Theatre Fam. There's a hashtag. And it's true. The good theatres are families. Moreso than my own relatives, theatres have been my support and haven; the people who are there for me. It happens over and over again.
I should know not to worry. Wherever I go, there will be a theatre, and there will be family there, and my only job will be to find it. Or make it.
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