Although I know that, to be most efficient, I should do my grocery shopping at 7am on Wednesdays, I seem to go to the store at the same exact moment as everyone else I know. I get increasingly better at small talk and friendly head nods, but there are certain people whom I see at the store that require immense self-control, on my part, not to hide myself behind the tortilla rack.
Specifically, the people who give me this severe anxiety are past school teachers from my public schooling experience here in Pagosa Springs. Within seconds of eye contact, I know for certain that they feel terribly sorry to see me living back here in Pagosa, and saying a silent prayer that my economic situation improves.
Then they take an inventory of my children. I can almost hear them thinking, “So young to have two children already…”
Whether or not my ex-teachers are actually judging me from head-to-toe, inside-and-out, I feel a massive amount of guilt about who I’ve become and where I am living. From somewhere, my self-doubt arises. Why does this occur? Where do these insecurities come from?
I don’t feel shame about where I live or how many children I have, however, when I see other local acquaintances in the store. We all have chosen to live in Pagosa, so why would I assume that anyone thinks less of me for choosing to live here, too?
I’m certain I’m not the only PSHS graduate to feel this way. When I run in to old classmates, they all make sure that it’s clear that they are only visiting, or that they will only be staying with their parents for two months — they are not moving back! Since graduating, I’ve even seen several Pagosa-escapee classmates on Facebook publicly shunning those who have remained in Pagosa and who’ve started having kids.
After brainstorming this topic with numerous friends from various generations, it seems that most high school graduates over the past 20 years, from whatever cities and states, have also felt a sense of failure for not going to college and then finding a job in another town afterward. Where does this idea come from, that living in our hometown after high school is a form of failure? It may be partly parental pressure, or peer pressure… but those judgments stem from somewhere as well.
Could it begin in our schools?
My high school teachers were always preparing us for the “real world”. As I recall, we were encouraged to take two sciences and two language classes, because that’s what colleges required. Papers could not be turned in late because college professors “wouldn’t allow it either”. Yearly assessment tests evaluated if we could do logarithms or define big words, which would help predict how much we’d need to study when the ACT tests rolled around. My teachers’ top priority was to prepare us for college — not for the real world — and I didn’t have to be at the top of my class to comprehend that.
Some kids aren’t ready for college, or have no interest in college. They don’t need to go to college. There are infinite life choices to make which are equally as respectable as choosing to attend college, but somehow it has become acceptable in our society to expect all high school graduates to go off and earn a degree — or be seen as a failure.
However, only about 40% of Colorado high school graduates will go on to earn an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, according to the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems. If only 4 in 10 students are going to earn a degree, then shouldn’t the top priority for teachers be to promote a very different future for the other 6 students? Constant assessment of students and requiring them all to pass Algebra II makes sense — if they are all bound for college, But that is not the case. There needs to be an equal push toward career and technical programs, when the odds of finishing college are so low.
This unrealistic expectation — that all children should graduate from college — is not only hard on high school graduates’ egos, but it’s hard on the teachers’ egos as well. If they are all pushing for their students to attend a higher education, but only 40% of those students will earn a degree, then the teachers have ‘failed’ the other 60% of the class. How’s that for guilt and failure?
If my teachers’ grocery store looks of disappointment are real, perhaps they are just projections of their own feelings of failure.
With a shift towards more realistic expectations of our youth, our teachers would become “more successful,” and we could demolish this strange post-graduation guilt.
This would not only increase the likelihood of success for our youth and our teachers… but people like me would no longer feel the urge to hide from my old teachers while shopping for groceries.
Pagosa Springs artist and graphic designer Ursala Hudson raises her two daughters, takes photos, paints, weaves, and snowboards. She’s also president and one of the founders of Pagosa Peak Open School, the community’s new charter school.