more parenting concerns

I usually have a movie going while I'm at work, just like to have some noise to distract me from the fact that I am in a huge scary dark building etc. Since I'm usually hard at work and not paying attention, I tend to choose throwaway movies that I'm not really dying to see, since I miss most of it. Today though, I got totally sucked in to the one I picked. It's a documentary called American Teen that follows a group of seniors through their last year of high school in Warsaw, Indiana. Wowza. Not only does it pull you right back into high school, and it's cool to watch and go, "I remember that," or "I remember him," but to see it with a teacher's and a parent's eye was jarring. I remember high school. Every moment was so dire, every experience carried the weight of the world. There was no gray area, it was all triumph or tragedy. While that is exhilarating and fun to watch, it was so hard to see those kids as students. They were reading magazines or texting in class, destroying each other socially just for fun, making choices that were coloring their entire futures right in front of my eyes. Then to see them as children! One parent flat out told his kid, "I can't afford college. This is the game where they will be watching you. If you don't get a scholarship, it's the Army." And to watch that boy cry in the locker room after the game. One dad said to his kid, during a phone call explaining a brink of suspension, "That was a stupid thing to do. But if you can't be smart enough to do it and not get caught..." Really? It totally hit me as both a mom and a teacher. I had an epiphany today. I was feeling extra feisty because a colleague got hung out to dry for voicing to our admin what all of us as science teachers have been feeling for years now; that science gets shafted in our district. I thought this morning that I work in a very small community where a large percentage of the population are products of this very school system. So we have the benefit of being able to just look around and see how we're doing. And it ain't great. We clearly do not have a focus on scientific thinking or informed citizenry. In the midst of this snide mental comment, I got hit with, "Holy mother. I am responsible for creating functioning actual people." Which you always know and are totally dragged around by, but to think...this town is a direct result of what I am doing in my room every day. Well, not yet, but assuming I don't get my job jerked from under me by the massive budget cuts we're facing next year, it soon will be. So in 8 years when I drive to work and see a majority of the campaign yard signs are still for the republican ticket because abortion and gay marriage are still percieved as the major issues facing the country....well, what will that say about my teaching?Pick up a copy of that movie. Watch it just for fun and to remember high school, or watch it as a parent and seriously think through the words that come out of your mouth the next time you are talking to your children. I sure hope I am able to. shut it...just because I don't doesn't mean I can't.