English 9 Reflections
Freshmen (now Sophomores, I guess), it’s been much more than a week after the end of classes since I’m writing these reflections about our time together, but after a year of posting multiple times every day, I got a little sick of the site (as I know many of you did over the course of the school year). But the weeks since the end of the school year have given me the time to ruminate, and even if none of you ever read this, I’ll post some of my observations about the 36 weeks we spent together in T-12.
Most of you didn’t believe me at the beginning of the year when I told you that I had different expectations of you than other teachers have had in the past and that you’d be held to account for your work and comportment like never before. Some of you caught on quickly when you realized that I meant what I said, while others took a little longer to figure things out. Still some of you never did take me at my word even when faced with the evidence of your grades. Regardless, as I said in class, I’m proud of the progress all of you made from August to May, even if your only progress was realizing finally that your success rests in your own hands, in so far, at least, as there are things over which you have power in this life, your behavior and attitude among them.
Those of you that achieved the success you wanted, whether you hit the ground running that first day or whether you lingered a bit after the starting pistol sounded, should be proud of your work as well. The quality of all student work went up significantly over the year culminating in some impressive, creative finals, particularly the papers in which students compared and contrasted characters from the various literature we read. I hope that all of the hard work you put in this year pays off next and after.
Remember, you don’t need to attend and graduate college to succeed in life, but you do need to find your talent or discover your ability and exercise it, hard. You’ll get no where by sitting around talking about your dreams—you have to work for them. If you’re not prepared to do the work, to start at the bottom and put in the time, to experience, accept, and learn from failures, you’re never going to get what you want. Are there shortcuts to success? Sure, but never to real, lasting, satisfying success.
I encourage you to take full advantage of the opportunities offered here at high school; it’s the best place to start building your foundation for success. I hope to hear all of your names announced at graduation in 2011. I’ll be listening.
Best to you.
PS – Come by T-12 to visit any time, even come by with questions or for counsel. As you know, the door’s always open. And feel free to use the site resources as you need if they’ll help you in your English classes next year and after. Just know that I’ll be changing the look of the site over the summer, but it’ll be live and working by the time school starts.