1. Students enjoy coming to school. It’s an environment that provides an identity. Even if it’s a negatively determined identity, it is stability and security. It’s always fun, even when it’s not, and God knows it’s better than the terrors of domestic and social life.

2. Students like homework; it’s a profound, meditative, spiritual experience, like a profane illumination. The fact that students complain about homework only proves that they do like it (we always complain about what we most love; ask anyone you know about their boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, mother, etc.).

3. Sports are fun. Note that students even trapped indoors will invent fabulous competitive games to play with nothing more than scraps of paper.

4. This one is more true the other way around. Students can do pretty much whatever they want except chew gum and hit each other. Adults must always be polite, dress well, act boring, chew with their mouth closed, shake hands, wear a tie, act polite, be sensitive, do their paperwork, be obsequious and sycophantic, etc.

5. Studying is never about the subject matter; it’s about the practice and the process; it’s a communion with a higher spiritual plane. Who cares about the dates of magna carta? What one learns is the sublimation of the mind and spirit.

2. What impact did homework have on you?
Not much. I was given time to do it in class, did some at home and whatever I couldn’t finish, you could find me on before school and in homeroom cranking away. I didn’t have that much come to think of it.

3. Did it make sense to you to have to take P.E. only until a certain age? What impact did P.E. have on you? No. We had PE until senior year: the first class focused on running 2 miles as a goal, the second class was not only 2 miles but other fitness goals and the third was based on finding physical activity in golf, bowling, etc. Needless to say, the third class was the best. I wish we could’ve had some yoga (maybe that’s a little too recent) or tennis. It’s sunny for like 300 days of the year ANYWAY. Although I enjoy running, I think it would’ve made more impact with me now if I had learned yoga or played tennis back then.

4. Which rules at your school applied only to students and not to adults?
Not being able to go off campus for lunch. I think that’s a big privilege in most high schools but …some students got busted for a knifing incident off campus (thanks class of 98). I remember the “tuck in your shirt” rule being huge (aka equaling detention).

5. What did you study in school that you find useful today, and what is not very useful? How much material can you recite from memory, versus what you look up as needed?
I remember SOHCAHTOA. No really, I think the most useful thing I learned in high school was not in the classroom. As a computer geek, I got to learn how to manage my time and other technical skills that I still use today. I guess the most useful subject matter I learned in school was math and science since it helped me later in college. We had to create a Senior Project in high school and that really helped with project and presentation planning.

2) I had very little homework in general, other than preparing for the next class by reading ahead and reviewing the previous lesson. I had no graded assignments other than papers and tests, which was good in some ways because it taught me to choose to be responsible so that I could participate in class rather than doing it because I would fail.

3) I think it does make sense to take P.E. until a certain age, and I actually think it should either stop completely or broaden considerably in high school. In high school, especially my junior and senior years, academics were more important than gym class. That’s just a fact in the traditional school system, and particularly in a college-prep environment: Between the SAT and ACT, maintaining grades and applying for college, gym is not a priority. P.E. classes are so ineffective anyway that they would never promote physical fitness in someone who didn’t stay active outside school as well. If P.E. is to continue into high school, it should be broadened to include nutrition classes, dance classes, fencing, kickball, etc…whatever the student wants.

4) First of all: Darren, that is the best story ever.

Besides the uniform policy, the only rules that come to mind governed cellular phones, cameras, etc. Teachers did have the option to skip out on the monthly Mass, but I’m pretty certain that anyone who was adamantly opposed to going could find something else to do for an hour as long as she cleared it first with her adviser.

5) Having worked as a copy editor, I can say that a lot of the material that I studied in high school is still relevant to me. This is particularly true for all things literature, math (through algebra II), chemistry, biology, Spanish and history. I need to know a bit about a lot of different subjects for my job, and I’m glad that I have the knowledge.
I think I maintained most of the literature and history information because that’s what interested me most. Despite having gone up through my senior year in all these subjects, I only know the basics in biology, chemistry, Spanish and math (the stuff you might learn in the first semester of a particular course), and that’s hazy at best. I know enough to know what I need to look up to find the answer, anyway. The biggest waste of my time in high school was calculus. I wanted to take statistics because it would be more relevant to my chosen field, but got pushed into calculus by the math department because I was a year ahead and that was the “track” I was on. I didn’t need it, and I regret devoting any time to it because it essentially subjected me to nine months of mind-blowing frustration. I still couldn’t tell you anything about calculus, not even the basics.

2. Homework had little impact on me. I would say that I did about 50% of the required reading for English classes. Lord of the Flies, yes; Jane Eyre no. I’d hurriedly do things like worksheets immediately before the bell rang.

3. My junior year P.E. class consisted of the whole group walking out to random spots around campus and hanging out for an hour. I think that P.E. should be a holistic approach to finding fun physical activity and incorporating a positive approach to eating natural food.

4. One time we watched ‘The Scarlet Letter’ with Demi Moore and Gary Oldman in history class. When it came time for a sex scene, instead of fast forwarding the tape the teacher just swiveled the TV around until it didn’t face the students, watched the whole scene, and then swiveled the TV back. WTF.

5. Because I didn’t take any Math or English courses in college, high school remains my chief exposure to those disciplines. I use proportions frequently for design measurements, but nothing more advanced than algebra. I’m grateful to my English classes for exposure to the English canon, including a strong focus on Southern, African-American writers. I have a pretty strong foundation in history, especially U.S. history, from an excellent A.P. course. I draw from that immensely in following basics about how levels of government work, and trying to understand current U.S. situations in light of history.