Honor roll reflects strides in attitude

Often I'll wonder what it would be like to go back to the morning after my high school graduation. Wake up in the morning and realize I'm the same person I was the day before. In other words, all the pomp and ballyhoo of the graduation meant very little. I'd say "nothing" but that would seem too negative.
The ceremony is a way for the public school to celebrate itself, frankly to help sell itself. A recent Morris principal - the one who got in a spot of trouble, frankly - put a note in the yearbook: "You did it!" Did what? Simply satisfying the requirements for graduation is not transformative. It means you have gotten through, survived, an obstacle course.
No doubt it's better today than in my young years, and this thought is prompted by seeing the honor roll announcement. So many kids on it, even the 'A' list. A's on your report card were a tough commodity to acquire once. Was it because so many of us were mentally challenged? Not at all. School was set up as a trying exercise. Rarely did it build up one's confidence or self-esteem.
These shortcomings probably had effects for me long after graduation. Any task worth doing is worth struggling with? You are never really intended to master anything? One must have an element of fear in undertaking any major new task? Why?
Did these realities have anything to do with our systems in the pre-digital days? The "analog" systems, so many of them anyway, seemed set up to frustrate you. They could be Rube Goldberg-like. It wasn't conducive to feeling good about your work or about life in general. People looked forward to Fridays with such relish.
I heard how it was important that you avoid buying any car that came off the assembly line on Friday - the workers were itching to get out of there for the weekend. If you were in college, it might seem impossible to see your advisor on Friday. People pulled strings to lengthen their weekends before resuming what they all assumed to be drudgery.
The digital world seems so different. If I were to take up photography today, I'd probably need to be guided into a whole new outlook because the processes are so user-friendly. And that's the thing: systems developed in the digital age have a purpose of helping you master them. It's built in, unlike the woefully cumbersome old systems where the designers seemed to actually want to confuse you. I used to get a big thick catalog from Porter's Camera Store in Iowa, just loaded with stuff or junk you might want to apply to your photography pursuits. It all had to be so complicated.
That was then, this is now.
Because so much of the sheer misery has been removed from our tasks - the complexity and potential for glitches - our public schools have seen their philosophy evolve. Schools must reflect trends in our society and economy. Sometimes that merger takes time, of course. Considering the vastly expanded honor rolls, a sea change, there must have been an interesting process of "counseling" teachers on making changes.
In the mid-1980s we started hearing about "grade inflation" as if this was likely a terrible thing. "Grade inflation" joins the talk about "nerds" as being so yesterday. The nerds are the lucky ones, having grasped the gravity of tech progress and shunned stupid things like playing football and getting drunk at parties. Nerds? The term today is probably just associated with certain movies of years ago. Burger King had the "Herb the Nerd" campaign which BTW was foolish and unsuccessful.
It is too late in my life to chart a new course. I can only wonder what it would be like to open my eyes again on the morning after graduation, and to realize that my school background with its needless hurdles and frustrations could just be discarded, flushed down the toilet.
We had teachers who were obligated to give out a certain quota of 'C' grades or lower. It was baked into the cake. Today we strive to be optimistic. We like to assume that kids gathered in a classroom all have the potential to complete requirements in a positive way. I'd say "superior" but that's a relative term. A student is superior only in relation to other students who are seen as below that quality. There is a lot of hyperbole in education. We hear a lot about "superior" colleges. Ask the colleges and you'll find they all self-identify that way.
I used to want to frown when hearing UMM's pronouncements. No doubt there is pride to be taken in the liberal arts but I doubt these kids have inherently superior qualities. A well-placed source tells me UMM might be looking at enrollment of 1200 next year, and that "400 don't pay." Well. Historically we have set the bar at 2000 students. Are we talking retrenchment?
I look at the Morris newspaper in the public library. Recently we saw one of those letters to the editor that resulted in "buzz." Jim Morrison felt the letters to the editor department was for "people with an ax to grind." True, but that doesn't mean that such communications automatically lack merit. The letter writer bemoans the politically left-oriented environment he experienced at UMM. He also noted that UMM has drifted drastically away from its original mission of serving students from this part of the state.
Well, I have gotten accustomed to seeing what appears to be a minuscule portion of Morris students stay here. The letter writer suggests that UMM "goes after" left-leaning students from the Twin Cities. Certainly that seems rather odd, although I'm sure the U's top leadership knows all about this and countenances it. For what reason? I'd be among the last to know.
I know that when UMM first began, certain teachers seemed to make their classes very hard. "Hard" classes: what's the purpose? Seems a lot like boot camp, or a reflection of "pain equals gain." Well, my generation took to long distance running as quite the fad for a time. James Fixx wrote the best-selling book. And, wasn't that pastime sort of about punishing yourself as if there was some sort of virtue in it? When a runner feels miserable 3/4 of the way through Grandma's Marathon, just stop! What do you feel you're gaining by enduing the tremendous pain?
Toward the end of my time at the Morris paper, a guy who ran a marathon noted that one's time was not as important as it once was. So, at least people are slowing down! Heavens, cool it.
Our public school teachers have been "slowing down" and they realize that their mission is not to make kids' lives miserable. They needn't give grades according to some quota where there has to be a distribution of 'A' through 'D'. Why just assume that your students will conform to a scale like that? An assumption that certain kids will have trouble cutting it, even before you have taken the trouble to get familiar with all of them? That's the way it was when I was young.
As a naturally skittish person, I had an unreasonable fear of low grades. My fears caused me to become overly fixated on school itself, to define myself too much in terms of the grades I received. I greatly regret this. I should have gotten up every morning the whole year with some sense of confidence of being able to perform certain tasks, whether they were in school or not. School became kind of an equivalent to running Grandma's Marathon and much of it would be miserable.
We feared failure more than we anticipated success. Maybe our leaders felt that such a model had a basis in pre-digital times. The digital world has a framework that maximizes everyone's potential in such an encouraging way. It doesn't mean that holding a job is "easy." You'll be expected to analyze and exercise judgment, but the sheer tedium of the past is largely gone.
Most jobs of today seem to have the presumption that you can develop passion for the work. It has become rather a prerequisite and a reasonable one. I'm too old to get on board with this. But I have observed the changes closely. Part of that observation is the fundamental change in grading attitudes by teachers. I wonder if a lot of long-time teachers were stubborn about this. I'd wager yes. Grading higher might actually mean their jobs are easier. Wouldn't they like that? Wouldn't they prefer approaching their students with less of the disciplinarian's air, to (gasp) truly like the students and not lord over them or hector them?
I think parents insist on the more relaxed and uplifting approach.
How might my life be different, if I had been treated in such a way as to maximize my self-esteem? I drift back in time to the morning after my high school graduation and wonder. Edie Martin's words were still in my head: "Don't be a milquetoast." (It was 1973.)
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com