A shut schoolhouse door is a cruel sight. For two years now, the doors of our academy have been barred against a silent threat. Autumn, its golden light the standard herald of a new semester, lit its sad bonfires only for deer and ghosts. Stern winter’s drafts found no nervous students to chill, as they awaited test scores or discipline near an old casement window. And what of spring, that season of promise, and prom? Just the swallows saw it in, their gray nests hidden in the quiet eaves of this old academy.
But the schoolhouse, of course, is just a building, and does not care in what state of fullness or absence the seasons find it. When I would come to the school grounds during the pandemic months, roaming the untypical stillnesses of the track or the soccer fields, I didn’t come to comfort a structure. What I mourned was the absence of those who give this ordinary patch of grass and brick its extraordinary purpose.
Since its inception, Cheeky Preparatory Academy has stood in service to its students. To develop the minds of the young, to guide them up the eternal stair of human knowledge: this is the calling that vitalized so many of our teachers and staff. It gave us purpose, an energy: perhaps, in a way, a life. But in our students’ absence that purpose was arrested, and we became bereft of that life of service, like specters in stasis. Longfellow tells us that “all houses wherein men have lived and died/are haunted houses.” But how more true it is, in spaces where young women and men have begun their lives, that the ghosts of their myriad potentials linger, long after the students themselves have moved on. It is these spirits that have attended me on my long walks about the grounds. I felt like one of them, a principal passing into memory.
And then, suddenly, we were back in session! The ghosts of those dark months retreated back into their dusty recesses, and the bright work of spring semester had begun. And now, just as suddenly, we are faced with a good, old-fashioned discipline problem. I’m referring, of course, to Skip Day.
The teachers, deans, and administrators at Cheeky Prep are united in our mission to mold our students into compassionate and capable participants in society. At times, however, this may require the forceful redirection of a student whose tendency may be to stray from the productive path. Not all learning needs to be linear; each student will find their own road. Few of them will be perfectly straight. We want to honor a pupil’s individuality and work with them to find that best path forward.
But this approach requires discernment, because not all choices our students make are good ones. When a student knows the correct thing to do, and chooses to do something contrary, that student is asking to be disciplined. A good teacher will understand that. We are not tasked with friendship with our students. Or rather, the form of friendship we are called to offer is of a sterner and more forthright kind, which offers correction rather than conciliation, consequences instead of cant. The absence of this disciplinary role for two years, the challenges and shortcomings of remote learning (quickly abandoned due to behavioral obstacles), have made me wary of our students’ wisdom in the face of temptation.
Wisdom is a verb, or perhaps a muscle: it needs to be worked regularly, and often worked against firm opposition, if it is to develop. The recent decision of much of our student body to participate in Skip Day is, to me, a sign of a collective wisdom that has atrophied from too little use.
In this conclusion I am saddened but not surprised. Some backsliding of behavior is to be expected after such a long break. In light of this, it is tempting to resign ourselves to a difficult year, to lower test scores and disruptive behavior, giving leeway and understanding in excess of what is due. Surely limiting the scope of our ambition as educators could be excused, this one time? But I refuse this easy off-ramp to mediocrity, and call on the teachers and staff of Cheeky Academy to do likewise. Yes, there is ground to make up, but what does this mean but greater profit for our efforts, and a greater glory attending our success? Let us be the resilient example our students need. Misbehavior should be confronted with compassion, yes, but also firmness. And academic standards must be set high, no matter the valleys where we begin our journey.
Ultimately, it is the world beyond our doors that we are sending our students into, and that world will not yield its rigor. Life’s difficult river will gladly drown the unprepared, their excuses echoing in the cold deeps, unheard. Let us not offer up our students to this cruel fate. Instead, we should tend to them, as diligently as needed, until at last they emerge into the sunlit realm of success.
Cheeky doesn’t give up on our students. It’s a saying the Cheeky community hears often, but most don’t truly know what it means until they experience it. We don’t care if you, the so-called difficult student, has been able to outlast previous school faculties, or been so dedicated to chaos that you overwhelm teachers that aren’t prepared to meet your misbehavior with true consequences. We know not every school practices the same disciplinary approach that we do, and we think the product of those unnamed (Rivington Prep) schools speak for themselves. But walk the halls of our institution, and the fruit of our efforts will be clear: motivated, respectful, diligent young people toiling away at the serious profession of academics. Many students come to us thinking they will be the exception to our standards. And they leave their first day with a very sore bottom. As I said, this is the friendship we offer our students: not an easygoing permissiveness, but a stern and affirming mentorship.
I hope that both students and parents reading this now understand why I cannot in good faith allow the Skip Day stunt to go unanswered. We are resetting essential precedents; we are rebuilding Athens after 480, and it is difficult work. So we will have class on Saturday, and it will be as rigorous as any weekday. Discipline will be administered, debts worked off, slates wiped clean. And then we will go forth into the year, in service to our students, their tremendous potential, and in triumphant adherence to the standards of achievement they deserve.
Comments