When I tell people I want to work with high schoolers, I usually get one of two reactions:
1. “That’s amazing! High school is such a great time for students!”
2. “You’re absolutely insane! How can you handle a room full of teenagers?”
It’s normally the latter that’s more popular.
Am I insane for wanting to spend my career investing in teenagers? Probably. Yes, yes I am. But it’s remarkable how many times working with teenagers has expanded my mind. It’s all from experience and what I can take away from each interaction with a student.
A couple weeks ago, I volunteered as one of four college leaders for a bus tour sponsored by a nonprofit organization that I first invested in back in high school. The bus tour consisted of 38 high school students as we embarked on a four-day community service and self-reflection “get away” from a teenager’s everyday life. Stopping in cities such as Fort Wayne, IN and Pittsburgh, PA, these 38 students reminded me why the high school age was the group of kids I wanted to work with as a future educator.
This tour, notably referred to as a “Pay It Forward” tour is something I have experienced consecutively the past four years, both as a high school student myself and a college leader. This time, however, I could not help but notice the obvious differences between the kids I was leading over that weekend and the high school version of myself when I was a student. Sure, I’m only a meek four years older than half of those students (the majority were seniors aka 18 years old aka “old enough to do whatever they wanted”) so the struggle for authority and respect was evident.
But, I learned something so important that weekend:
-Teenagers don’t expect this, but they appreciate the same amount of respect that adults get. This next generation of teenagers is growing up much more quickly and a whole new level of patience is required. I’m still not sure if it’s this society we live in or what, but I realized it’s so important to interact with them with the right balance of respect on both ends and to have patience. Hard core authority and rules do not initially work as well as it used to.
I take this lesson with me throughout the process of one day teaching in a classroom of high school students, but for now, I can immerse myself in experiences just like Pay It Forward to grow in my understandings of teenagers. This is why I seek to challenge myself in the minds of this next generation. So yes, I am a little insane for that, and for other reasons but we can talk about that another time.