Class of 2018

I'll admit that I may have started out this week tired and overwhelmed. I walked in the door Tuesday morning thinking that I was really happy that it was a short week. When I got hit with Senior pranks a few minutes later, I was already over it. In last Friday's blog I asked teachers to dig deep and work hard this week despite how tired I know that you are, and I came in and did the exact opposite. In my frustration after everything was cleaned up, I made a statement that got twisted around pretty quickly. I joked that the Senior class hasn't been able to do much to organize themselves to do anything as a group, and now they decided to show us that they could. Somehow that statement got twisted into me saying that this class would never amount to anything after high school. I'm not sure how it got there, but it made me pause to consider why they would believe that.

Miscommunication often happens when we are frustrated. We either say things that we don't mean or don't say them well. There's a dose of humility that comes with setting the record straight. I had to do that with a few students that took things to heart. Talking with several of them this week made me realize that this may be some of my final conversations with them as students. I thought back about them as a class and about several of the individuals that stand out. We think about these students as the Class of 2018, but in reality, they are not considered under this title until they graduate. So in my penance for being misunderstood, I'd like to set the record straight on what will be the Greene Central Class of 2018.

This class arrived with high expectations. With an unusually large number of students identified as academically gifted, some amazing athletes, talented artists and young people with strong opinions, they gave us a run for our money pretty quickly. We watched them grow and so many of our teachers tried so hard to push them beyond their comfort zones. We did that because we didn't want them to just rely on talent. We tried to teach them grit and perseverance. We changed school schedules and created more college course opportunities to try to give them every shot we could. So many of them took advantage of these opportunities and their college and career choices will be much easier as a result. We tried hard to teach them to be leaders and to be active in their school. We saw that in how they supported one another over the past four years. They were quick to help a friend when they could because they developed a sense of community amongst themselves. In doing all of this, we created individuals. We created young adults that had an idea of what they believe in and why. 

In a few days, they will leave Greene Central and be a part of the real world. They will have bills, jobs, pressures and all of the other responsibilities that come with being an adult. But they are ready. We will miss the Class of 2018. While we hope that we made them better people to enter the world, we also know that they also made us better people and educators at the same time.