graduation

Matt’s been typing the account of his Benton-MacKaye Trail fastpack for a couple days now. He did very well on it, and I’m thankful that he finished safely.

While he was running that, I headed to Mississippi for the PC graduation. To be honest, I was almost dreading the trip because of the ten hour drive each way from Marion, North Carolina. But I had said I’d go, you know, and it turned out to be a very affirmative experience.


I remember feeling happy pulling up to the gymnasium with the Claytons. I was walking behind them when I caught the eye of KS, one of my shy black boys with a studded earring. He looked away quickly, trying to act cool still, but I could tell I had surprised him, and there was a smile for sure. Well now, I was going to have to give KS a hard time. “You gonna say hi to an old teacher of yours? Or do you not remember me?” Okay, he gave me a hug. I loved it.

Right then FJ turned around, and this black boy with a studded earring wasn’t so shy. “Ms. Chang?!? Ms. Chang’s here!” He yelled out and hugged me with wide arms and a big grin. The news carried quickly to the doors of the gym, and I heard someone yell inside, “Ms. Chang’s here!” Before I knew it, I was surrounded by red robes, hugging me and talking like no tomorrow.

I’d lost the Claytons. When I could finally get inside, I walked around the floor, surprising students and teachers alike. The lady teachers all asked if the bear had gotten me, to which I grinned and answered, “Nope, I made it, I walked the whole thing!” (The last they’d heard, I’d left PC to hike the Appalachian Trail.) A teacher who came to PC after me introduced herself because “I wanted to meet the Ms. Chang all the kids keep talking about.”

Really? They do? I made that much of an impression?

The graduation ceremony was short and sweet, but a couple things saddened me. One was how many students hadn’t graduated that I’d taught Biology to. A girl held up a baby boy and proudly announced, “This is what I’ve been up to since you left.” My old neighbor went to alternative school for smoking weed and kept going downhill. A boy dropped out and is now married to another former student of mine -- with a baby. Several others also dropped out. They were sitting in the bleachers on the other side of the gym, poking fun at the ceremony, but it was a cover-up because they were there, and deep down, they wanted to graduate. One boy had left school one day to get revenge and never came back. There were so few of them on the gym floor that day.

The other thing that saddened me was only three students graduated with honors. I’m proud of SC for earning valedictorian, but I agree with her grandma: She didn’t have to fight for that title. How will she fare with other students from other schools in Mississippi, other states, and the world? SC will turn in all her assignments and complete them well, but I don’t see a fire for learning. Otherwise working full time at a fast food restaurant wouldn’t cut it. I can’t blame her, though, because all she had was this school, and it didn’t offer enough. It didn’t inspire.

You know it’s what tears me up. We’ve got so much potential being born to this world – SC is smart, KS is smart, FJ is smart, they all are. They’ve got personality and creativity and talents, and our school system – our society and culture, I dare say – can’t feed it, and after twelve years, their potential – I don’t want to say it’s died, but --? Are we making our world a better place? My dad used this expression a lot: We’re shooting ourselves in the foot. If you see a plant struggling to grow, how can we let it die?

For the individual student, we haven’t passed on the things that will bring them great joy. SC doesn’t read. Does she wonder anymore, or have we killed her quest to know more? Will she experience the excitement of discovery, or the satisfaction of working hard and long on a project and seeing it come to life? Will she find meaning in what she does? Has she really looked at the beautiful world around her? Is she passionate about anything?

Am I being too harsh? Am I too brainy?


I was sitting there during graduation, smiling and clapping, not really paying attention to what was being said, but remembering my year with them. I had such a fun April (science fair and state test review) and May (dissections), and it just highlighted the fact that it wasn’t the case this school year. It’s a different group of students, but it’s partly the school, too, in a weird way. At Mec, there are so many teachers that give it their all, and our students take it for granted. At PC, I used to be the only one demanding learning and work from my students every day, staying after school to tutor, taking them to OleMiss games, living in their neighborhood with my door wide open. I guess it made an impression, on them and on me.