GROWING UP

It’s Only High School

Lifelong philosophy morphed into a helpful catch phrase in my own classroom

My Mama sometimes decreed me “too big for your britches.” My friends called me creative. My Nana thought I was perfect and would be pleased, I think, at how I turned out.

High school — where insecure teens have the chance to try on different suits of armor to determine which might fit when they join the jousting in real life — proved to be a minimal struggle for me. I was good in the humanities — English, History, Languages — and I had a handle on the human element, as well. I more or less ignored math and science — and they didn’t do anything for me.

In high school, I tried to embrace the moment. I tended toward the free spirit element, but my best friend was captain of the drill team. I wrote poetry; joined the staff of the school newspaper, yearbook, and literary mag, fell in love more than once with James Taylor, but dated the son of a Jewish dentist. I swam and played volleyball. No one had heard of Title IX, and the struggle for women’s rights, until the end of my senior year.

But we weren’t ignorant of controversy or political awareness in the Dallas of the 1970s.

My high school class experienced desegregation, as a federal judge decreed inequities in equal access to quality education in the city. The court decision involved busing students from one side of town to the other; it was, ironically, ultimately decided by the father of one of my classmates.

No one was happy, and a strong case can be made that things in my old neighborhood still haven’t settled down. By the early aughts, kids had been bused to my high school and junior high; elementary and middle school students from our neighborhood had made the trip across town, and the school district established a series of magnet schools, which seemed to satisfy some.

We also were the Roe v. Wade generation. Norma McCorvey, recognized as the plaintiff Jane Roe in the courts at the time, sued Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade in order to obtain access to an abortion. The case began locally when I was a high school freshman, and culminated four years later in 1973 at the Supreme Court when I was a college freshman. We high-schoolers followed the case carefully, and many of us were proud that Roe originated in the Dallas courts.

The environment also became a cutting-edge issue when I was in high school. I got together with a group of friends and established the school’s Environment Club. We ran recycling (aluminum and newspapers) drives and park cleanups. We also lobbied for more trash cans outside on campus, so kids could throw away their lunch detritus after enjoying a beautiful day between classes.

We celebrated the first Earth Day in 1970, and applauded the Nixon Administration — who would have thunk it? — for establishing the Environmental Protection Agency. The Clean Air Act, the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act, and the Clean Water Act were also Nixon-era gifts to the country when I was in high school.

I guess you could say I was involved during my high school years. But I wasn’t much of a pep squad rah-rah. In fact, I sometimes was puzzled by the need for hero-worship of football and basketball players — all-male in these pre-Title IX years. Music and making the world a better place were my vibe. For a lot of reasons I’ve never been able to quantify, my life made much more sense when I was helping — or rocking — out.

Part of the reason, I think, for my teenage comfort level was that no one told me I was supposed to be popular. I was, thankfully, clueless on that score. So I spent minimal moments wondering why the Beautiful People wanted everyone to love them just a little bit more than everyone else.

High school became a smorgasbord for me — of emotions, of experiences, and of, essentially, finding my comfort level. I claimed the space I occupied at any given moment and was satisfied enough, I guess, to move on to other territory when I felt like it.

And, of course, successfully navigating the turbulence of teenagehood — more or less — helped me when I again started roaming a high school’s hallways — this time as a teacher.

High school is, of course, so much better the second time around. Honestly, I was unsure a lot of the time over two-plus decades, but I always had a ready answer when one of my kids asked for a sit-down to discuss pressing issues: “It’s only high school.” I never brushed them off — the catchphrase was more of a way to break the ice.

And that was just as true in the ’70s as it is today. Not to minimize anyone’s challenges or concerns — and Lord knows I helped so many of my charges over the bumps, bruises, and betrayals crammed into those four short years of adolescence — but if you accept your provocations for what they are, you’ll feel pretty good about yourself when you conquer them in the end.

Maybe my peers and I can talk about how that worked out for us at our upcoming reunion.