Dr. Policastro
There is a Broadway musical that has a song related to high school bullying. The point it makes is that by the time one gets old enough, high school becomes a distant blip in life. However, we all retain some memories of high school events.
There are two events that I remember that could have been a lot more traumatic than they actually were. They both involved comments from faculty.
I belonged to one high school organization for four years. Each year, the faculty advisor selects the president for the upcoming year. In my senior year, I was the only student who had been in the organization for all four years. My expectation was that I would be president by default.
The faculty advisor selected someone else. I went to see him to inquire why that was the case. His answer was “You have no leadership qualities.” I was able to take what he said and use it to my advantage in future endeavors.
The other event occurred at the midpoint of my sophomore year. We were in Honors class homeroom with the guidance counselor.
He was pointing out how rigorous the course materials were. He wanted to make the point that if someone felt that they were being overtasked, they could ask to be moved out of the Honors classes.
He then went on to say that the request had to be a reasonable one. He then decided to give an example. So he started out: “For example, suppose Policastro came and told me he was working too hard in these classes . . .”
He paused at that point. He was originally going to say that I was bright enough that I could handle the rigor. But after the pause, he said: “Well, then, maybe that would make sense.” Thank you for singling me out to tell the entire class I was not that bright. Again, I used that as inspiration to prove that he was wrong.
Clearly, both faculty members got it wrong. I could have walked away from both of the experiences in a much different frame of mind. I was resilient enough not to let it bother me. However, they were also experiences that stood out for me to remember them clearly.
Sometimes adults do not think things through. They do not realize that a single comment can have a long-lasting effect on a high school student. Most such comments will be blips that are not remembered in the future. But some of them are not. You do not want to be the adult whose comment is the one that is negatively remembered.