This is Not Your Parents' Back to School Night

I attended my last "back to school night" yesterday for this, T's final year of high school. I'd worked a full day, beginning before 7am, including putting out a "fire" that erupted around 2pm, which I just managed to get under control by 6pm. A quick look at the letter from T's school reminded me the program was at 6:30 and not 7, as it said on my calendar, and I was off and running.

Out of 8 periods, T has 2 free periods. Must be nice. The free periods allowed me to catch my breath, because this year her classes were arranged as far as possible from each other, making the 5 minute passing period not quite enough for my old legs to get me to class on time.

The 8th and final period was Creative Writing. The somewhat odd instructor had us all sitting down around two small tables, as though we were having a group meeting of some sort. He attempted to describe his class in the allotted 10 minutes, and the buzzer sounded, signaling the end of back to school night. It was 8:40pm, I was tired and hungry, and looking forward to going home. Par for the course at one of these events, I'd learned some things I didn't know, including that T has both an essay due and a test today. Through texting, she assured me she had things under control.

We were almost free when the Creative Writing teacher asked us to indulge him for just another moment while he finished his remarks. He continued describing his efforts to make the class a safe place for the students to explore any and all topics without fear of being judged or having their business broadcast throughout the school and beyond. He told us how several years ago a student wrote about her mother's death and how it brought the class closer and allowed the other students to explore meaningful issues in their writing.

He even explained that he'd told our students they could lie about whether their stories were real, and used finger quotes for the example that if a student wrote about a "friend" who drank a "bottle of wine" and "vomited," the student could maintain the story wasn't autobiographical even if it was - and would not be questioned.

Then he said, "Like just today, a girl wrote a story about losing her virginity, but she swore it wasn't a story about herself."

And then back to school night was over. And I was speechless.