The American High School Experience: A Flawed Human Business

By John R. McCoy

The American high school experience is as complex as we are as humans. It takes place at a time when young people are discovering who they are or who they may become. Life in high school is often made more complex as a result of family values mixing with newly discovered social values. Young people often dabble in any number of acceptable or unacceptable behavior without giving much thought to the consequences of their conduct and how it might play out in the short term or the long term for that matter.

Interestingly, because there are mainly three groups of people who are impacted by all the many variables that affect human behavior in schools, the conduct of each of these groups is described in some detail in this book. The groups are students, teachers, and parents and the crazy, silly, inspiring, comical, sometimes disgusting, unacceptable things they do. Many stories, all true, are told in this book. Daily experiences are met with reactions from kids, teachers, school administrators, and parents in ways that may seem appropriate in some cases or inappropriate, funny, or terrible in other cases. An argument can be made that while many folks in the general population expect near perfection from our public school personnel, the fact that all of us are flawed human beings interacting with each other, perfection, or anything close to it, simply is not possible.

The manner in which the author describes the reaction to each situation is a good opportunity for the reader to see the thinking behind the administrator's or the teacher's response while allowing for other possible resolutions that maybe should have been taken. The common thread in all this underscores the author's belief that while we are inherently flawed people, all can be enhanced if we focus on relationships as the key to our success when it comes to the business of humans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 30, 2024
• ISBN: 9798892210072

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Introduction

Chapter 1: Kids on the Edge

Chapter 2: Kids, No Plausible Explanation

Chapter 3: Kids Just Say Things, Funny Things

Chapter 4: Teachers Do Not Always Act Appropriately

Chapter 5: Teachers' Unions

Chapter 6: Creeps

Chapter 7: A Product of Environment

Chapter 8: Parents on the Edge

Chapter 9: Funny

Conclusion

About the Author

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The American High School Experience

A Flawed Human Business

John R. McCoy

Copyright © 2024 John R. McCoy

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2024

ISBN 979-8-89221-006-5 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89221-007-2 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Part 1: Kids

Part 2: Teachers

Part 3: Parents

Introduction

I had been teaching several years before I realized just what it is that I enjoy most about working in high schools. It is that I find humor in the day-to-day silliness that inevitably occurs in the life of teenagers. That is not to say that I don't get incredibly tired of the stupid drama that happens as a result of a given kid (usually a girl) who seems to thrive on swimming in the drama that high school gossip and ridiculous relationship destruction creates. It's just that I believe that there is no more happening a place on earth than an American high school. I went to work as an educator for thirty-six years. Twenty-eight of those years were spent as a very involved administrator working closely with our twenty-first century teenagers, none of whom can be considered typical—there is no such thing.

With that in mind, I hope the reader understands that while I find humor in the many stories I will tell in this book, the stories, in and of themselves, are not all examples of appropriate school behavior. In fact, most are not, and they are, therefore, funny. But then again, that is the point; because public schools are places where the business is purely a human business, we have truly set ourselves up for endless episodes of funny, sad, stupid, honorable, difficult, and often ridiculous behavior. There are, of course, also triumphs and tragedies. While the common thread in this book is young high school kids and relationships, I have grouped the stories by kids, teachers, and parents, all of whom create the fabric of life in an American high school.

I further hope that the reader understands that as an educator, I have always taken my job very seriously. I approached each situation professionally, and I genuinely tried to handle situations with great regard for the respect students, parents, teachers, and administrators deserved, but I would be less than honest if I didn't tell you that often, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was thinking how funny this situation is, or will be, when I retell it.

At times I was speechless at the things kids do. At other times, I have cried with them, laughed with them, coached them up on what they should do, encouraged them, and so forth. I have often done the same with their parents. There have also been times when I have been disgusted with the behavior of their parents and other adults in their lives, as well as with some of the adults, including teachers and administrators, with whom I have worked.

So while I tell a few stories that may seem irreverent or sexual in nature, the reader must understand that there is no time, when a student is in high school, that they are more sexually driven. The stories are all true and happened during my tenure either as a teacher, a coach, or as an administrator. They happened the way I tell them, and while the language used is accurate, it should be understood that I do not necessarily use that language myself, nor do I condone it.

My wife, Connie, asked me many times just what the purpose of writing this book is. My response to that question is I'm not sure. I just feel like with so many judgments being made daily about high schools in America and with thousands of ‘how to' books being written for education, I thought I would share a tiny portion of the daily human element that plays out in high schools across America, real life, if you will. I do not believe that I have necessarily had more of these types of experiences than any other administrator. The experiences I share here are simply mine, and, I hope, they are unique enough to be interesting or, at least, entertaining in most cases.

Part 1

Kids

Challenging behavior occurs when the demands and expectations being

placed upon a child outstrip the skills they have to respond.

—Ross Greene, Youth Dynamics

Chapter 1

Kids on the Edge

Gun

All my professional experience has been in the state of Washington. My first administrative job was as an assistant principal responsible for all activities at a large high school in Washington State. All administrators get involved in student discipline in some way, regardless of a specific title. For example, being responsible for all activities, I was also the athletic director of the school, so if a student was ejected from a game for calling a referee a name, I, along with the coach, would be involved in the discipline or corrective action for that student athlete. On the other hand, if I was the only one available to handle an urgent situation, I could also be involved in a case where a student was intoxicated or disrespectful to a teacher etc.

As misfortune would have it, this was just that kind of case. We (the administration) received information that a young man named Rico was suspected of having a vial of hydrochloric acid in his locker. It had been stolen from one of the science classes.

Rico was a biracial kid who looked African American. His hair was short and tight to his head. I was available, so I went quickly to investigate. I wanted to inspect his locker prior to the bell ringing to dismiss students to lunch. I opened his locker with my master key. I discovered that it was completely empty. Therefore, we did not have an issue with acid at that point.

The bell rang, and the halls began to fill with students anxious to get to lunch where they could mingle with friends and get back into the latest gossip for the day. I waited to see if Rico would visit his locker. I saw him maybe twenty-five feet from me. I watched him closely to see what his reaction would be at my getting into his locker. What happened next made my heart skip a beat.

I saw him pull a handgun from his back pocket. He swung it from around the back side of his left hip to the front of his body. My focus became laser-like. I could see that he had the gun backward in his hand with the muzzle in his palm facing his wrist. He did not have a hold on the grip. It appeared more like he was handling it in order to put it away than to hold it in a shooting position. I could see that his finger was not on the trigger. In his other hand, he had a yellow canvas bag, into which he was trying to put the gun before I could see it.

This all happened in the course of seconds. He continued to approach me. Seeing the gun motivated me to move quickly toward him so that the gap between us closed very quickly. Fortunately, Rico was a small boy, maybe fifteen years old, slim, perhaps 120 pounds. When he was close enough, I grabbed him. I clamped his arms tightly to his sides so that he could not change his grip on the gun.

I was obviously nervous, and I expect that the adrenaline in my veins caused me to squeeze him overly tight because I remember hearing the air expel from his lungs pretty violently. I quickly moved my right hand down his waist to where I felt the gun in his hand. My face was next to his face and my mouth close to his ear. I quietly but forcefully said to him that I was going to take the gun from him and that if he tried to stop me, I would take him to the ground and embarrass him right there in the hallway.

He released the gun, and I took it and put it into the yellow canvas bag. We walked to the office with me holding onto his arm like a police officer. I was very aware that he might try to run, and I was not going to let that happen. I held his arm tightly while I carried the yellow bag in my other hand. The students in the hall seemed to give way, understanding that there was something serious going on and that they should not interfere or ask questions at that point.

When we got to the office, I sat Rico in a chair, and I asked him what he intended to do with the gun. He said that he was going to shoot another kid who had been bothering him. As I delved a bit deeper into the situation, I discovered that Rico had trouble with being biracial. His mother was white, and his father, who was no longer in the picture, was black.

As we talked, he broke down and taught me something I had never thought of before. He said that as a kid who is both white and black, he felt that he was neither white nor black. The black kids called him a cracker, and the white kids wouldn't fully accept him because to them, he was black. The white kids acted like they weren't sure how to act with a black kid as a friend. They didn't know what to say. They didn't know his culture, and Rico wondered, What culture? He just wanted to be one of them, but he somehow knew he couldn't. He felt like he didn't fit into either group.

He was surprisingly honest about his feelings. He cried; he explained that he was angry all the time. He was angry at his parents and at the kids who should be his friends.

The police were called, and Rico was arrested and expelled.

I have thought a lot about how many problems would be solved if all races were to intermarry. Yet in Rico's case, it caused me to question about the kids in this situation. Who is checking on such kids to be sure they are okay with it? More than twenty-five years have gone by, and Rico's case is only a distant memory, but there are so many new situations that cause me concern for the kids of today. How do they deal with their circumstance?

We now have adopted children of gay and lesbian couples attending our schools, and I wonder how they are coping? This question surfaced with a girl named Johnine. It caused me to ask this question: Is our society somehow negligent not to think about the kids and whether or not the rights of the parents are possibly infringing upon the kids' rights and their well-being?

Johnine's teacher kept discovering tons of hair balls around her student desk. The teacher reported this to the counselor. After a series of meetings with Johnine, and after Johnine had completely created a reverse Mohawk hairdo as a result of weeks of pulling out her own hair, it became clear just what her problem was. She was struggling mightily with the fact that she was so different from those around her. She loved her two moms, yet she was somehow not at peace with the fact that she had two moms. She's still trying to find some sense of normal in her life. Good luck, I think to myself.

It is a fact in this country that laws exist in isolation. What I mean by this is that a law is proposed based on the supposed rights of a certain individual or group of individuals. If the law is passed, it is done so with absolutely no consideration of how this law may, or may not, impact children who should have similar rights. I submit that when dealing with other humans and particularly when dealing with the masses, as we do in school settings, we have become a society that seeks the rights of the one independent of the rights of the many.

Poverty

If I thought I knew a lot about young people at the beginning of my career, I would have to say that it was really only based on the experiences of having many friends as I went through youth myself. The reason I say that is because I quickly found that while I may have understood some young people, I really did not have a good understanding of at-risk young people until I had the opportunity to work a little with them.

Another large high school in Washington State resides in the poorest legislative district in the entire state of Washington. The student population there is only about 15 to 20 percent ethnic, but the socioeconomic diversity is extreme. I visited houses that were literally crumbling off the foundation and the living conditions for some students was truly sad, while others enjoyed great luxuries, and a few students got into Ivy League schools every year.

While working as an assistant principal at this large high school, I found that a subculture existed where young people were truly bound together by the fact that they lived in this neighborhood where most were poor. They took care of each other. The halls were noisy with shouts of common culture, things the kids knew were funny, but the adults may not understand.

Fortunately, I learned this early in my career.

On one occasion, a young man was sent to me by a teacher. The referral form the teacher sent down said that he had told her to fuck off. When I asked him if he had said this, he denied it. I asked him again. He denied it again. I tried a different strategy by asking, Why did you tell the teacher to fuck off?

The student stuck to his guns, telling me that he did not tell her to fuck off.

Finally, I got it. I asked him, "What did you say then?"

He smiled and said, I did not tell her to fuck off. I told her to go fuck herself.

I hid a laugh and thanked him for his honesty. He was suspended for three days. Even if they got into trouble, it was important to the kids that the adults got it right.

As a fourth-year administrator, I transferred to this large high school thinking that it was like any other high school in the district. I was wrong. My first summer there, before school started, the administration had hired twenty-three new teachers with a total staff of about 110 teachers. We had about 2,010 students.

We felt like those of us who were new to this school's attendance area might benefit from a bus tour of our attendance area. I was amazed at some of the areas from which our kids came. One neighborhood is called Dog Town. Dog Town is a sprawling area of trailers, small shacks, and shanties built from corrugated pieces of roofing and stray plywood for walls. It is scattered on dirt roads with no organized layout. The area got its name because packs of dogs used to roam that area.

The neighborhood is tucked up against a hill known as Deacon Hill in the far-east region of the attendance area. The homes in the northern part of the attendance area are quite nice. Most were built in the 1980s. The yards were taken care of nicely, and the cars were within a year or two of being new. Hillyard, the largest neighborhood and the area that most closely surrounds the high school itself, consists of small homes built in the 1940s and early 1950s. Many are without trimmed yards, with cars in front of them that have seen many miles. Mixed in here and there are a few well-cared-for yards. Many of the houses in this area had some sort of a couch on the porch or in their front yard.

It was here that I received a minor surprise. As we toured this area a little after 9:00 a.m., we started to see some kids emerging from their summer sleep-in hours. As we drove past several places, we saw high school kids sitting on their outside couches or standing around cars in groups. As they saw who was driving around their neighborhood in a convoy of three buses, they would holler greetings to us. An assistant principal, Monte Graham, who had been at the high school for many years and who had a remarkable rapport with virtually all the students, was the main target of their greetings. In several cases, as we drove past (remember, it was around 9:00 a.m.), students would raise their beers and yell out, Hey, Mr. Graham! Others would raise their beers and yell out sarcastically, Only three days 'til school starts, I can't wait!

On Crank

The first four years at this large high school, I served as assistant principal in charge of curriculum and instruction. I was responsible for creating the master schedule and for providing direction regarding all the current and potential curricular issues. I was also responsible for overseeing classroom observations and for teacher discipline as well as for the discipline for the junior class of students. As I have said before, there is, by necessity, a huge overlap when it comes to student discipline.

Administrators know that as a general rule, we are not to touch students if it can be avoided. One of the toughest girls I ever knew was a very street-smart student named Kristin. She was only a sophomore, and she looked a little hardened for a girl so young. We had heard of many of her out-of-school fights and problems. She had long muddy blonde hair and an athletic build. Her face would have been pretty if she hadn't created such a hard countenance.

It was confirmed that it was she who went after a girl who had threatened her mother. The girl who had made the threat ran home to her own house and locked the screen door behind her. Kristin arrived and went straight through the screen door, breaking it into pieces. She then beat up on the girl.

Following this event, things had been relatively peaceful. Suddenly, a very frightened girl came running into the office screaming that she (Kristin) was on crank. She yelled, Help me, she's on crank, and she's gonna kick my ass!

I had no idea where she was, but I assumed she wasn't too far behind. I told her to get into our athletic director's small office and close the door. The AD wasn't in her office,