I’ve spent a lot of time in Arlington over the past week and a half.
One student was particularly well-spoken about what happened, explaining that it’s tough to wind up in national news, so coming back to school helped get everyone trying to feel more normal even though they could never go back to the time before the shooting.
Mansfield ISD was offering counseling at its performing arts center and a church nearby for both students and parents. But that student explained, while they might be nervous coming back with more police around and reporters shoving microphones in their faces, everything will be fine.
I think he’s right. Kids can adjust. Kids learn quickly, too. That helps us become professional rabble rousers when we grow up.
When I was a youngster, we came and went as we pleased. I recall pulling into the parking lot every day and rushing up to 1st period calculus senior year. The nun who taught the class was lenient as long as you were in place by the time they finished morning announcements on the PA.
In study hall senior year, one of the guys and I would ask to go to the bathroom then go outside and play catch. Once we even called Blimpie, ordered a giant sub and treated our classmates to lunch. And we learned something: If you include the teacher in the giant sub selection process, you’re more likely to get a hall pass so you can disappear for 15 minutes to pick it up.
In German class, only three of us had stuck with it to make it to German IV senior year, so the teacher would have us practice conversations and grammar. We’d also be allowed to mingle with the art class across the hall.
We ordered pizza once [it’s possible the guy who went to pick up the giant sub with me was also taking German]. I explained to the pizzasmith on the phone not to bring it to the main entrance of the school. German IV was in a smaller building to the side of the main campus, so just park there and I’d meet him outside.
But he never showed.
“Scaia,” the theater arts teacher whose classroom was in the same building yelled to me as he poked his head out the door. “They’ve been calling you on the PA for the past ten minutes.”
I walked to the main lobby and found the assistant principal sitting there with several pizzas.
He asked what we were doing. I explained we were working on conversational German and having a pizza party with the art class to try to introduce them to the language.
In my defense, we had already paid for the pizza. He grudgingly allowed the party to continue, but our teacher did not allow us to order pizza in the future for some reason.
And we learned something: You want to have as few people as possible involved in your scams.
Kids will still figure out harmless ways to rabble rouse. Unauthorized pizza parties and Blimpies help us learn real life lessons, the lessons that help you learn how the system works so you can become an award winning reporter.
