Going Down Memory Lane in High School

Weird to be in high school again after all these years. Some things are the same; some things are different. The French have an expression for this, but I don’t know what it is because I took Spanish. I heard it was easier.

One thing you immediately notice that is different is that everyone in class seems to be over 40. It’s Back to School Night at my daughter’s high school, and for one evening I must live through a condensed version of what she lives through every day.

Our classes are 10 minutes instead of 50, which is about as long as I could ever sit still in a high school class. When the bell rings, we must figure out the difficult task: how to get from the top of H Building to the bottom of C Building in five minutes. Even aerobically correct mothers come panting in late, saying, “This is impossible.”

That five-minute fix of hall time is still my favorite part of high school. I walk through the halls as I did then, my eyes scanning for Whom I Know.

There are three kinds of parents I see at Back to School Night. There are people who look familiar and I can’t place. These are the people I’ll pass and then suddenly stop dead and scream down the hall of G Building, “Hey, you’re my gynecologist!”

There are the parents I don’t know. We sit in class together and share grins of solidarity as the teacher says, “Of course, your student has told you that the essay is due tomorrow.”

Then there are the parents I know from various past lives: political groups, support groups, Lamaze class, our kids’ nursery school, grade school, camp, Brownies, as well as old friends from the days when we had time for a social life. Sometimes we look at each other as if we are mirror images of Dorian Gray.

“Alice, is that you ?” says some old lady. I realize with horror that she’s my age!

I say “Hi” in C Hall to Bob and Roxanne. (Still together, I note.) Their daughter is a senior. “Where’s Leah going to college?” I ask them.

“As close to the beach as possible,” is the reply.

Bob--Butcher Bob, as I knew him when his long black hair was restrained with a macrame headband--is right on target. His beard is graying. But his wife Roxanne is a traitor. Her blond hair isn’t even turning dishwater brown. There’s not a wrinkle in her face. “Throw her in the sun,” I say as I dash off to Trig.

We pass a guy named Steve who was there for the baby boy he had in 1974, the year he shaved his head. The son he had named Moonlight is currently going by the name of Dan.

Steve and his now ex-wife sat side by side in class, each holding a baby from their latest marriages. All very friendly. And Steve has no need to shave his head anymore. One more year and time will accomplish the job.

As we go through the classes, I realize how the scene changes, depending on what role you’re playing. When I was a student, I thought that all that the teachers cared about was coming up with irrational and boring assignments. I viewed it as my role then to assert creative control of the classroom through a constant volley of wisecracks. Through my cleverness, I spent a lot of time writing “I Will Not” statements and managed to keep my grade-point average down.

In the late ‘60s, when it was my turn to serve on the other side of the desk, as a young high school teacher, I saw the obstacles to creative teaching. It wasn’t just the pay, it was the politics.

Once, when I explained my course at a Back to School Night, a dad suddenly stood up, waved the book I had assigned and screamed, “You are blaspheming God’s name!”

The book was Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles.”

In class tonight, I see the teachers struggling to juggle the various political dumbbells that might smack them in the head.

The journalism teacher explains that the students are critiquing humor columns that have appeared recently in the school paper to see if they are racist or sexist. (I really need to hear about offensive humor columns when I’m off duty!)

The biology teacher answers a parent by saying that no, she did not, intend to kill frogs. “We have computer programs to dissect frogs now,” she says. The approving nod from the parent tells the teacher she has passed.

The English teacher explains that they are reading Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.” A father raises his hand. “Are you linking that to McCarthyism and the Communist witch hunts?”

Of course, she tells him, that’s the whole point. He says, “Good! Good!”

“Are you linking it to the Salem witch hunts?” I ask.

She stares at me uncertainly. Dumb parents are not in her contract.

Now, why do I still do things like that?

One more smart-alecky question from you, Alice, and you’ll have to write 100 times: “I will act like a grown-up on parents’ night.”