As a high school yearbook adviser, I have a unique perspective on the lives of seniors in high school. I preach to my yearbook students that we are the only recorded history book of the school year. We cover all of it, the good and the bad. The highs and the lows. We celebrate accomplishments and we mourn defeats.
I love it. All of it. It’s exhausting and crazy and intense and wonderful. It consumes much of my time and I lay awake at night thinking about the ways we can make every student feel included. I worry that we may have missed something.
We cover it all, but in a lot of ways, our book is a tribute to our seniors.
It should be. They’ve earned it.
So as I sit here, dealing with the quarantine and trying to stay in contact with all 175 of my students through online learning, something has been eating away at me.
Something important.
It’s okay to be mad.
We tell high school seniors to grow up. Be an adult. This is more important than a dance or having fun with your friends. This is life and death. Your issues are minimal in the grand scheme.
We try to look at the bigger picture. People are sick. People are dying. Most of us are comfortable at home with our television and computers. We aren’t being drafted and we don’t need to do much other than stay home and keep your distance.
And we are grateful.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t mourn the situation and all that is lost.
When I was a senior in high school, the first Gulf War began. I remember being at work when we learned of the invasion and I was terrified.
What did it mean?
I had my parents to guide me and help me.
I also had the normalcy of school to connect me to the present. Keep me grounded. Help me gain perspective.
Students don’t have any normalcy right now. Being stuck inside your home isn’t normalcy. It’s not torture, hopefully, but it’s a significant disruption.
And it’s okay to be mad.
When I think back to my last semester of senior year, the classes are a blur. I’m not sure I could tell you anything of substance I learned from a book. I say this as a teacher, but it’s true.
What I do remember are the talks I had with my teachers about life and college and what was ahead for me. The class discussions that segued into deep meaningful life affirming moments.
I helped plan our prom and count the mock elections and wear my senior shirt.
I celebrated awards at our honor’s convocation and worked on our school blood drive and skipped on senior skip day.
I walked around school knowing I was the top of the food chain for the first and last time. I sang in our senior choir concert and performed in our senior show and I went shopping for prom dresses and graduation decorations and there were days when we left school and hung out at Dairy Queen or 7-11 or a diner and just laughed.
All of these things are gone.
For this senior class.
Is it comparable to life and death? Of course not. Is it worth acknowledging?
Absolutely.
Back to Yearbook.
Now I sit at home and I finalize the senior ads the parents put together so beautifully to celebrate this milestone. I look at the senior pictures all lined up on each page and the faces so full of hope and excitement. I look at the pages of sports accomplishments and clubs and activities and all of the amazing successes these young men and women have amassed and I want to cry.
Not because they won’t go on and live amazing lives, but because they have lost an integral time of growth.
And it’s sad.
And that’s okay.
I fear there will be an emptiness. A longing for what would it have been like if…
I want to let my students know that it’s okay to be sad and hurt and upset. It’s okay to feel slighted and robbed and angry.
I am.
We all are.
One of my favorite days as a yearbook adviser is when the books come out. I always tell my staff to go to the lunchroom and just look. Every table, every student will be poring over the book our staff created. They will be laughing and wiping tears at the memories one piece of literature provides.
My staff will not have that experience this year.
And I’m angry.
The yearbooks will be printed and we will find a way to get them to the students, but it won’t be the same. It won’t be a moment of celebration as a group.
It will be a reminder of what they weren’t able to finish.
It will also be a reminder of the life they lived and the fun they had before it all changed.
In a way, I’m really glad they will have that.
In other ways, I worry it will bring tears.
To the class of 2020. It’s okay to be angry.
But know, you have been through something unimaginable, and you survived. You will do better moving forward. You will have a deeper appreciation of time spent with others.
You will learn to notice the little things because of how you missed them.
You will learn to be at peace with yourself because you’ve had no other choice.
And you will have a resilience about you that I can’t wait to see shape the future.
I am proud of you. And I share your anger.
We have enough room to feel horrific about the sickness and tragedy and still recognize that you are mourning a loss.
It is a situation nobody has been through before, and you have a right to feel however you want.
I just wanted you to know.
-Ms. Nadler
