Students

Oh, students. I'm not sure if any of you read this, and if you do diligently read your teacher's blog, then these comments likely do not concern you to begin with.

I'm sure many student archetypes remain unchanged since I was in high school just a decade ago. There are the cliched try-hards, the uber-athletes, the misunderstood "mean girls", etc. But you're all so much more interesting and complex than that. However, I have noticed that many of your generation have embraced this Seth Roganesque persona of the intellectual slacker--but not like I knew this stereotype, as the dopey, grungy, rock'n'roller with unwashed hair who was born two decades too late--a new brand of the proverbial lost soul, a precocious cynic trapped in the body (and branded American Eagle jeans) of a North American teenager who has all of the cerebral tools, charisma, and hygiene to render such antiestablishment attitudes redundant.

We teachers keep lamenting the loss of due dates; we worry that none of you will be prepared for post-secondary--whether that means receiving a zero on that late paper in university bio, getting fired from your retail job for three consecutive lates, or even failing to catch your flight from Paris to Berlin on time as you trek across Europe. You've heard this countless times, no doubt, but it is a cause for concern when returning students tell us that we failed them. And I feel ashamed when I realize how many students I am failing right now--both in terms of poor grades, and in terms of poor fundamental life skills.

Keep writing on your blogs and I will keep reading them. Keep submitting work. Or start. Either way, try to compromise your anti-establishment side with the inevitable conformist that, to a certain extent, we all become. Actually submitting your writing to me doesn't make you any less talented. I promise.