Where You're Supposed to Be
On Friday I overheard a group of teenage girls talking in the hall of the high school where I was substitute teaching. One of the girls complained about a teacher’s attitude toward her. “She says, ‘Where are you supposed to be?’ and I hate that! ‘Up your butt, that’s where!’” I barely refrained from laughing.
Later that day I told Deena about this conversation. She remembered hearing this same phrase when she was in high school, from various school staff and teachers. “I don’t know that I could come up with an alternative phrase, but then I’m not here to be their friend,” I said.
As I write this, I’m sitting in a room of 16 teenagers, on the verge of leaving middle school behind. Some have expressed relief or excitement about heading to high school. Others are resigned to the inevitable. Still others nod, not making prolonged eye contact. Their angst is palpable, and I want to reassure them that it will get easier at some point. But these 13 and 14 year-olds are growing up in a world that’s very different from the one I did. These kids are coming of age in exceptionally turbulent times—who knows what the next five minutes might bring, so what does it matter about where they are supposed to be? The scariest things I remember happening when I was a teenager were the Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion and the Challenger explosion; these events were upsetting, but they weren’t happening close to home. They weren’t affecting my ability to go to school or hang out with my friends.
The kids in these seats would have been toddlers when Trayvon Martin was killed. They were all of eight years old when 14 high schoolers in Parkland, Florida were killed while attending class. More recently, they witnessed a pandemic and the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection. When the world is full of these random tragedies, and all they want to do is simply be, of course they would get annoyed with being asked where they are supposed to be.
Fifth period is full of eighth graders poring over their new yearbooks. Two girls flip through a copy filled with inky autographs. “Will the ink fade?” one of the girls asks me. I tell her no, that my yearbooks are still full of messages from the friends I had back in middle school. When the bell rings and the kids rush out the door, only two minutes to get to their next class, I stand by the door, watching students go in and out of classrooms. I say hello to several of them as they walk into the room. I don’t ask any of the stragglers where they are supposed to be. We’re all here, doing the best we can.
We had a mass shooting at the McDonalds near me when I was in high school (graduated 85), and it was becoming so common that it is part of the plot of The Accidental Tourist. But then there was an assault weapons ban, people living with AIDs, all kinds of things that made life better in the peaceful and prosperous 1990s. When I remember the world being "safe," it's those years, not my high school years, when the world seemed kind of dark, partly thanks to Reagan/Bush.
Thank you, Corinne. I can't imagine where these kids are supposed to be in all this chaos. All will be ok. I have to remind myself of that very thing.