Unique

I was as surprised as the next guy at seeing a too-familiar phrase on the entryway to ROHS this fall.  Sure, there’s still a little sting we feel when we see something which feels uniquely Kimball or uniquely Dondero: three years later, and we still step carefully around each other’s loyalties to nostalgia. More, today I like to think that the sting we feel is because ROHS is ready to become something unique from both those buildings.

And what will that be?

All of us—students, teachers, parents, principals—recognize that we can be more than we are in our post-Skanska semi-renovated space.  Why spend so many of our hours, so many of our days, moving through the patterns of routine?  Why accept the mundane as the status quo? Some students tell me that they come each day only to wait until that final bell; a good day is when they aren’t noticed.

What is the high school we want?  And how can we make it uniquely ours?

I can guess at a few things we might want:

• Hallways we can walk with freedom and enjoyment;
• Classrooms which spur our thinking and teach us what we need to know;
• Sport teams which earn our fandom and support;
• Clubs invigorated by members with exciting and ambitious plans;
• A social scene free of drama and full of friendships;
• A community produced by teachers and students working together to make it happen;
• A school composed of choices;
• A place where we look forward to our days.

Utopian, I know.  Naïve, this suggestion that we work together to be happier together.

And yet, as I write, I am watching Senators John McCain and Barack Obama both call for service, for a citizenship which recognizes community.  By this, they mean that we commit to something larger than ourselves.  They mean that everything we do is founded in a belief that we are building for each other.  To me, there can be no more important education, no more important participation in our American democracy.

If ROHS has any kind of unique and positive future for students and teachers, I believe it is in a high
school which offers the space for us to create it and re-create it as our passions take us, in a place where we can leave its cinderblock walls and make the world our curriculum.

There is much to encourage me this year:

• We have groups of students traveling to China and Austria; we are about to have a small flood of students from Germany visiting us;
• InterAct is building programs to offer microloans to the developing world; it’s watching Hurricane Ike to see if February will find 100 or more ROHS students helping rebuild Galveston;
• Clubs and classes are working together to create a mock national election which will also offer students a chance to vote on changes to the school;
• Student leaders are meeting together to re-envision how we can help each other;
• Challenge Days continue, reminding us that hugs are not just okay, but necessary;
• Our sports teams are growing, and SuperFans are now tradition;
• Teachers are working with a Code of Conduct to remind us of our roles in treating students with compassion and respect;
• Our principals are willing to say “Yes” to ideas which seek to build community.

Service to community is a unique reward, an idea that we receive what we give. We’ve come from many places and generations to live in a single space during our waking days.  What we learn in that space is to leave it with a broader—a greater—idea of who we are: “. . . enter here to learn, go forth to serve. . . .”