literature & life

English class: a subject high school students are required to take all four years. It focuses on reading and writing skills.

My English class: a group of twenty-five freshmen who somehow manage to learn a lot about both books and life at the same time, thanks to the teacher.

Last class, we were supposed to be discussing the awkward and painful "tween" stage that is the main theme of our current class read, Member of the Wedding (it's terribly dated and a little dull, but I like it anyways because the main character is so easy to relate to. Not so much for guys, apparently, because a male classmate of mine poetically claimed, "it feels like my eyeballs are being stabbed every time I look at it.") and totally abandoned any pretense of dissecting symbolism and instead started to talk about the phases of life. I take extreme joy in the fact that I'm not kidding.

According to my English teacher, an amazingly intelligent if slightly rude woman in her sixties, the last stage of life is the acceptance of death--when you have realized you're going to die and made peace with it. She warned us many of our grandparents, depending on their ages, had or would reach this stage soon and attempt to give away precious material possessions. She proceeded to instruct us to graciously accept whatever our elders offered us, because they wanted to know that the people they cared about would protect and keep the things they cared about after they were gone.

Also, she stated the fact that teenagers don't know that they're going to die, prompting an outcry from the kids who like to think themselves extraordinarily mature. Of course we know we're doing to die, they protested. We weren't naive enough to believe in any magic spell of Fountain of Youth that would make us live forever.

She just shook her head and said, "Do you know, do you believe with all you have in you, that you're going to die? If you think that, then why do you all jaywalk across streets and walk along railroad tracks and involve yourself in high risk behavior?"

Here's one of the things I love about being fifteen--you don't think about death and you aren't really physically afraid of anything. I've legitly jaywalked across a highway and jumped off a cliff into a lake and walked down the yellow line in the center of the road. I've climbed onto my roof in the middle of the night just to look at the stars. And I've never actually been afraid.

On the other hand, we're scared stiff about anything emotional, because we feel so much and feel so deeply. Every fight and break-up is the end of the world. We'd rather eat our own shoes than confess any romantic feelings. And adults are just the opposite--they use crosswalks, they don't jump down the stairs or turn cartwheels, and they certainly don't climb onto the roof just to look at the sky, but they aren't nearly as emotional as us (and tend to laugh at our end-of-the-world mentality).

It's sad to think I'll reach the stage where I won't skip down the street, just because, and my teacher is totally right--I cannot imagine my last stage of life, when I'm ready to die.

I am so going to miss my English class next year--not only are we learning about literature, we're learning about life.