In 2002, my parents made the decision and their decision was final--I was returning back to public school. To say the least, I was scared. My last public schooling experience was 5th grade. I never had to travel about school to different classes, I never had a block schedule, I never had to figure out whether I went to "A" "B" or "C" lunch, I never had to fiddle around with a locker combination, and I never had to study for a test. I was terrified. Home-schoolers are supposed to do really well in public school because they have independent study skills that most public school teens don't acquire. The only thing that I had independently studied over the past couple of years was pornography on the internet.
I remember my first day of high school quite vividly. My brother was a senior, and we drove into the dirt parking lot of our rural school in his Toyota Corolla. I remember the very quick and loud ride from home. The stereo system in my brother's car was probably worth more than the car itself, and he always enjoyed trying to catch some air on the hilly rural roads to school. I felt somewhat relieved that my brother, my best friend, was taking me to school and that I didn't have to ride the bus. However, the bus ride would have allowed me to linger from the coming nightmare a little longer.
He hopped out of his seat, and I slowly got my backpack and my lunch bag from the back seat. We approached the school building, and I could already tell my brother was in his element. People were saying hi to him, greeting him back, and it almost seemed as if they felt like the school year was going to be so much better now that he was a senior. I don't remember anyone realizing a tall, skinny, pale kid far separated from his element close behind him. We walked through the dreaded doors, my brother walked with me to my locker, and split down the hall to his first class. My heart was pounding, my hands were sweating, and I felt like sitting down and bawling my eyes out. However, knowing that such behavior would quickly paint me as a target for ridicule for the following three years, I tried to pull myself together.
I tried the combination to my locker to no avail. I must have practiced it thirty or forty times during orientation, but the whole process was fuzzy in my head now. I had a locker buddy, but I had never met him. I was hoping that he would stroll up and open the locker for us, but no such luck. I only had ten minutes before first period began, and I felt like time was racing by. It felt like every effort to open my locker was taking hours. In a panic, I began to contemplate my options. I could just carry all of my textbooks in my backpack for the whole day and never have to fiddle with this stupid locker. But I brought my lunch. I couldn't bring my lunch box to class with me; not teacher would allow it. My first class was biology, and if we weren't allowed to chew gum then I was sure we would not be allowed to bring our lunch bags to class.
I got to the point where I just felt hopeless and stared at the locker. An extrovert would have quickly noticed the myriads of students surrounding them getting in their lockers and would have had the nerve to ask one of them for help. However, I was an introvert, and worse than that, I had spent the last couple of years home alone. I was afraid of the guys because they were bigger than me, more outgoing than me, their hair looked better than mine, and they would probably just make fun of me. I was afraid of the girls because they were all too beautiful and would probably just shrug me off as a loser. I took a deep breath in, however, turned around to face the mob, looked for the most gentle soul I could find, tried not to sound like I was about to cry, and mumbled something to the effect of "Please help!" After the words left my mouth, I noticed that I had asked a pretty girl and she did seem shocked that I had talked to her. I felt like I had just made a terrible caste system mistake, but her shock did not last long. She was most likely shocked because she did not recognize me from the year before, or perhaps she mistook me for a freshmen like most of my class, and wondered why a freshmen had a locker in the sophomore hallway. Nevertheless, she asked me for my combination, and effortlessly opened my locker. I mumbled some words of thanks, stuffed my lunchbox in my locker, and slammed my locker shut as I raced towards my first class.
I had a good memory, and I had no trouble finding my classroom in the fairly small school. I was surprisingly early. Looking at the clock, I still had eight minutes before the bell rang. The whole locker ordeal occurred in a few minutes. I sat there, nervously running through my mind the nightmare that just occurred. I would have to go through it again for lunch. I still didn't know when I was supposed to go to lunch, but I tried to put that out of my mind.
A cute blonde entered the room with a huge smile on her face, her hair was all made up, and she was current with the latest high school fashions. She perused the room for her seat based upon the seating chart. It was in alphabetical order, and her last name started with the letters S-T-E. She sat right next to me. I tried not to look at her. She was too beautiful. However, she was an extrovert and she proceeded to relate to me a story about another girl falling on her butt in the halls. She put lip gloss on her lips, and pulled out her book and binder. As other students began to fill the empty seats around the room, Katie, the girl next to me, began to talk to familiar faces. I sat there quietly the whole class and tried not to look around. For some reason, I felt like I had no place in this room. I just wanted to go home, but I had the whole day ahead of me.
Because I had completed the freshmen curriculum as a 8th grader and the sophomore curriculum as a 9th grader, the school required me to re-take many freshmen courses in order to get high school credit for it. I had several sophomore courses, but enough to cause my peers to believe that I was their peer. I was in freshmen world history and Spanish. My sophomore courses were biology, English, and geometry. Except for Spanish, all of these classes were repeats for me. However, the last time I took them, I cheated on everything.
My freshmen world history class had a different feel to it. I wasn't the only "new kid" in the class. In fact, everyone in the classroom seemed to be starting over with a clean slate. Unlike the girls in my sophomore class, these girls seemed to put too much make-up on, push the limits with their wardrobes, and they giggled way too much. I felt too mature for these people. I felt like a 25 year old in a kindergarten class. I was sitting in the middle of the room, and I couldn't help notice several girls in the room pointing me and other guys around the room. I felt awkward. I had a feeling they were sizing us up, trying to figure out who the cutest boy in the room was. Eventually they seemed to reach a decision, and I was thankful that I didn't seem to qualify.
I arrived to my third period class only to find it empty when the bell rang. I decided that this meant that I was supposed to be at lunch. I walked to my locker, and I got it open on my third try. I arrived to the cafeteria or the "commons room" as they called it, only to find it packed full of freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Tomorrow, a "B" block day, I would have lunch with my brother, but today I was on my own. I felt like I was on stage looking at an audience of strangers. Hardly anyone noticed that I arrived to lunch late, but the few eyes that I did catch forced me to look at the floor quickly. I found a table with only one other person sitting at it. I didn't even think that I might be sitting at the "reject" table. I just found a table with the fewest people and I sat down. The other kid at the table paid no attention to me and I paid no attention to him. I sat there and ate my lunch.
I was almost half-way done with my lunch when a girl walked over and invited me to eat lunch with her and her friends. Although I was scared to death of interaction with peers, I was relieved that I did not have to eat alone. I recognized some of the girls from my freshmen world history class. One of the girls at the table, that I didn't recognize, asked if I would go out with her. I was completely taken aback, but my response was cool, collected, unhesitant, and briefly harsh: No. It was nonchalant, straight to the point, and it felt somewhat rehearsed. She looked a bit rejected, but I didn't feel bad for her because I did not know what she expected. I didn't even know her name. I had only just saw her for the first time two minutes ago.
My third period class began after lunch was over. My English teacher, Mr. Miller, was a short, well-built, balding character who acted like the adult in the class sometimes and like one of the students at other times. He began class by writing several expletives on the dry erase board. He pointed to each one of them and had the class recite them. I just looked at Mr. Miller with a stunned look on my face, and listened as the rest of the class had no problem reciting language from "R" rated movies.
"Now that you have that out of your system, I do not ever want to hear those words again in my classroom. I don't want to see them written on my desks. If I find them written on one of my desks then I will have you here after school cleaning all of my desks and all of the desks in the whole school."
My fourth period class was freshmen Spanish. I had taken a year of German, but I didn't learn a thing. The curriculum was terrible and I cheated my way through it. I hated Spanish. In fact, I didn't care much for people that spoke Spanish. I found it a political travesty that Americans had to learn Spanish because the illegal immigrants didn't bother to learn English. I already hated the class before I entered the modular outside.
The teacher of my last freshmen class at least knew how to control his class. This classroom was out of control, and the teacher didn't seem to have a clue what she was doing. I had heard about Profe Burns from my brother who had her for history last year. Apparently this was her second year of teaching. She was happy to have a Stickel in her class, but I think she was quickly disappointed to find that I was nothing compared to my brother. I was quiet, reclusive, strict, and I detested childish language games. She quickly realized that I hated the class. In the following weeks, Profe Burns confided in me that she needed my help to make her class better. She asked for my advice about how to better control the class and whether the games we played were effective or just wastes of time. I hated the class, but I quickly began to admire Profe Burns. Not because she asked for my advice, but because she noticed that I detested her class and wanted me to learn Spanish and enjoy it.
I quickly began to admire all of my teachers. Mr. Miller scared me quite a bit that first day. I wrote him a letter telling him how I did not appreciate his approach to teaching us not to use foul language. He never responded to my letter. Perhaps he found it out of place for a student to correct their teacher. Perhaps he was shocked that one of his students was trying to take the moral high ground over him. Perhaps he didn't even read it. However, Mr. Miller showed a peculiar interest in my writing abilities over the next three years. He would often tease me here and there during class, but he would pull me aside several times after class and encourage me to continue to utilize my writing talents.
For instance, during the poetry segment on the lesson, Mr. Miller had the class write poems for fun for a class period. When we finished a poem, we were to bring it to him to review our technique. I wrote several poems during the hour and fifteen minutes of class. Mr. Miller, a stocky wrestler instructor who always reminded me of Joe Rogan from Fear Factor, would read my poems, laugh, and then say, "Stickel, you're too good at this. It's starting to worry me." I had a sensitive side, and Mr. Miller knew it. I think he secretly admired it. I think he had a sensitive side too that he was too scared to express. He recognized and appreciated the softer aspects of literature that are only embraced by those sensitive to its imagery, emotion, and passion, but he taught a very robust English literature class. I enjoyed reading Shakespeare and got really high marks on my essays from Mr. Miller. I was always surprised to be one of the only students in his class to get an "A" on his tests. Reading the Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Mr. Miller always picked me for the parts that said "saucy" and he chuckled every time I read the word. However, after I finished my project of writing Mark Antony's fictional journal based upon the play, his words of encouragement for a job well-done caused me to think that we clicked on some level although we seemed to be polar opposites of each other. He often teased me, but somehow I got the feeling he truly admired me.
Some teachers you quickly forget, but others stand out in your memory. Some teachers are merely speakers, while others are actually educators. Out of all the people I have ever met in my life, I held and hold many of my high school educators in the highest regard. Many of them, in fact, were my closest friends in high school. Mrs. Tyson, Mr. Blaine Miller, Mr. Boyd Miller, Mr. Galus, Mr. Smith, Mrs. Patino, Profe Burns, and Mr. White, if you're out there and you ever happen upon this: Thank you! Students never really appreciate everything you taught them until life gives them the test that you tried your best to prepare them for. By the time we realize how much you taught us and we are finally grateful that you never gave up although we must have given you the worst of heartburn every night grading our papers it always seems too late. You've lost your passion, you don't feel like you're making a difference, and you feel like you're blowing in the wind. Underappreciated, underpaid, and treated with the utmost contempt by students and parents alike. Your students will grow up, they will utilize the lessons you taught them, and you will pop into their memory and they will want to thank you but you'll have given up on teaching many years past. You make a difference, and although it is not instantly evident, your students will learn the lessons you prepared us for and we will be grateful.
My first day of school stands out vividly in my memory. It was a day of fear, panic, and humanity. I came back home, so happy it was over. I grabbed a snack and watched my favorite show, COPS. I was nervous about the next day, but I did not dread it as I had my first day. I left my home alive that morning, and I returned home alive that afternoon. I wasn't as invisible as I felt. People noticed me, students and teachers alike. No one made fun of me (at least, not publicly). It was actually a breath of fresh air to interact with my peers again.
I was going to have to study, I was going to have hunker down and do my school-work from scratch, and I would have to earn my grades from now on. Morally, it was okay to cheat if the answers were within reach, but it was wrong to go out of your way to find a way to cheat. My first quiz was in biology, and I aced it. I earned it. I studied for an hour. I felt like I could handle any quiz or test. Test anxiety became a thing of the past, and I found that if you do the homework, read the chapters, and pay attention in class then you hardly have to study at all (except for those dreadful final exams).
I was going to be completely surrounded by cute girls my age. I was going to have to wrestle with this for the next three years. I objectified women in private by looking at pornography, and when I interacted with females in public I felt ashamed of what I did in private. I felt unworthy to be in their presence. I felt like they shouldn't give me the time of day. In private they were objects for me to do with as I pleased, in public, they were royalty and I was the lowest of serfs.
My problem became further exacerbated by the fact that I seemed to get along with the girls in high school than I did with they guys. The guys only talked about sports, violent video games, and sex. The girls talked about boys, clothes, and art. I had nothing in common with the guys, and I really didn't have much in common with the girls. However, the girls wouldn't ridicule me for not wanting to talk about boys and clothes whereas the guys would wonder why I don't talk about sports, games, and sex.
In high school, I had to figure out how to find some sort of balance between objectifying women by addicting myself to pornography, calling myself a Christian, trying to act like a moral person when I wasn't, practically worshiping women with my hopelessly romantic heart, and trying to figure out who I was in all of this mess.
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