(In
a high school guidance counselor’s office)
Guidance
Counselor: (Reviewing a college’s application requirements on its Web site) Don’t
know whether they’re expecting too much from our youth or our youth expect too
little from themselves – almost makes one long for a dictatorship so we can
focus our disappointment on that instead.
(There is a knock on the door) Yeah, come in.
Administrative
Assistant: (Peeks head into the room) Hi – your 1:00 is here.
Guidance
Counselor: (Hurriedly looks at watch) Already?
Well, this day is just lost – send `em in. (The door opens wider to let in a student as Guidance
Counselor stands) Hi! Thanks for meeting
with me today – please sit down.
Student:
(Sits at the same time as Guidance Counselor) Thanks for scheduling this after
my lunch period – especially today, I hope it means I don’t have to make up the
debate that’s going on right now.
Guidance
Counselor: Yes, about that –
Student:
Oh no, am I failing Debate?!
Guidance
Counselor: Quite frankly, yes. But I
think you knew that already.
Student:
This is the first I’m hearing about it!
I can’t believe this!
Guidance
Counselor: …You see, I would empathize, if this was the first time you were
failing Debate. But it isn’t: you
already have failed it. Five times, as a
matter of fact.
Student:
Oh. Has it been five times? I don’t remember stuff like that.
Guidance
Counselor: Or much else, apparently.
(Drops several bursting file folders onto the desk) My predecessor gave
me the heads-up before retirement that you have yet to pass a single course in
your senior year.
Student:
Aw gee, that’s too bad.
Guidance
Counselor: It certainly is, since you’ve been in the 12th grade for
the past 10 years.
Student:
Ooh, you mean I hit a decade? Sweet.
Guidance
Counselor: I’m frankly flabbergasted that you weren’t forcibly graduated after
the second year of this, just to get you out of here – you know you’re now
older that several of your teachers, yes?
Student:
Age means nothing to me; I still treat them with the same respect as I do any
of my tenured elders.
Guidance
Counselor: That’s admirable of you, but missing the point: you shouldn’t be
here anymore.
Student:
Why not? Clearly I still don’t have a good
grasp of the material.
Guidance
Counselor: And yet you’ve never requested after-school help, or gotten a private
tutor, or even picked easier electives!
Student:
If it’s easy, then how will I learn anything?
Guidance
Counselor (Opens a smaller file folder) What baffles me in the whole situation
is this: (Hands the folder to Student) This one folder encompasses your records
from Grades 9 to 11 at this school.
(Student slowly turns the pages in the folder) Three whole years! And you were doing just fine! Not brilliant, but at least passing!
Student:
Amazing.
Guidance
Counselor: That’s not the word for it!
Student:
No, I mean it’s amazing that all this is still on paper – doesn’t everything
have to be entered into a database by now?
Guidance
Counselor: Don’t get me started on that.
(Snatches back the folder) Now. (Holds up the folder in one hand and slams the
other hand onto the piles of bursting file folders) Care to explain?
Student:
I should think it explains itself: I’m a bad student.
Guidance
Counselor: No! (Slams the smaller file
folder down onto the desk and points at Student) No, no, no! You clearly were not a bad student up
until the end of your junior year, your home life is decent, the students in
all the grades love you, I snooped around and saw that nothing horrifically
horrible has happened to you, and you’re in almost every extracurricular
activity we have going on here, so this – (Slams hand again on the
bursting file folders) is deliberate!
Student;
You snooped on me?!
Guidance
Counselor: Don’t deflect on a moral/legal point – why are you continually
failing the 12th grade on purpose?!
Student:
(Slumps in the chair in defeat and sighs dramatically) Because I don’t want it
to end.
Guidance
Counselor: How’s that?
Student:
I know what’s coming, all right? The pointless
struggle, the escalating stress, the regrets, the feeling that you’re never
good enough, the imposter syndrome when you actually are good enough,
and the neverending fear of failure, if you’re lucky; the actual feeling of
failure for pretty much everyone else.
Guidance
Counselor: You’re failing now!
Student:
Yeah, but that’s on my terms.
Guidance
Counselor: So, what, you’re afraid to go on to college? You have other options, you know.
Student:
It’s not that – it’s this. (Waves arms
around the room)
Guidance
Counselor: You’re afraid of school?
Student:
No-no, I love school. That’s the
problem: I love the routine, going to class, hanging out with my friends, working
on projects, playing sports, going to competitions, feeling like I’m somebody
here. But once we graduate, it’s all
over. Everyone scatters to the four
winds to start their adult lives, few of us are ever going to see each other
again, and the time is never as special as it was here. Well, I refuse to join the ranks of the
eternally disappointed, you hear me?!
So, I’m staying here forever instead.
Guidance
Counselor: But your classmates graduate every year, so you’re still
never going to see them again.
Student:
Not every year: I figured out the third time around that if I make closer
friends with them as freshmen, I get all four years outta them as if we were in
the same grade.
Guidance
Counselor: I feel for you, I really do, but you can’t live like this.
Student:
Why not? My parents actually like me
staying at home, I have an after-school job that pays the bills, the only one
this is hurting is the school’s stats, but I’m just one student out of hundreds
of thousands so really, who cares?
Guidance
Counselor: But you can’t be happy flunking for the rest of your life!
Student:
It’s actually gotten to be kind of fun, so your argument’s fallacious.
Guidance
Counselor: Aha! So you should be
passing Debate after all!
Student:
(Shrugs) Eh: take the same class for six years, you’re bound to pick up
something.
Guidance
Counselor: (Types on the computer) I’m entering a recommendation that you be
graduated at the end of this year due to time served.
Student:
(Sits up) WHAT?!
Guidance
Counselor: I also need a full-time assistant, since the student size has
doubled since you originally started your career here – if you take courses in
school counseling, you can stay here and work with students for the rest of
your days, and never ever have to leave.
Student:
(Slumps again) I guess I should’ve known the dream had to end one day – that’s
life for you.
Guidance
Counselor: See? And you didn’t even have
to graduate to experience that.
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