You Are Not Special.

Salvete,

I was listening to a sermon the other day, and it was about how we are not special. I liked it.

I have been saying this for years, and no one seems to believe me except other people who work with teenagers. And then, even some of them do not believe me, for reasons which seem extremely pendulumerific, and which I will not elaborate upon in this post, as it promises to be long enough without such annoyances.

How can I, who believes in the Divine touch in man, say that we are not special?

Because, thankfully, we are all kind of the same. Anyone who argues that one is not alone in the world simply cannot believe that people are special. Being special would not allow for a common human experience--the very thing on which the great works of my content area are based. What greater comfort is there than to know that, despite pain or grief or joy or whatever, that one is not alone? that one inevitably shares their state with someone else? that somewhere, someone in the world has endured the same thing and has survived? Not only survived, even, because surivival is not enough. No, they have gone beyond survival into triumph!

I want my students to see this.

I want them to see that they are not special. To be special is to be isolated. To be special is to be alone. Now, one might argue that being alone is good, or that being isolated can lead to excellent thoughts. Just look at Henry David Thoreau. He chose to leave the World and allow himself to grow through his isolation with nature. He produced some of the most studied Transcendentalist literature of anyone else (I am sure there is a joke in here somewhere about how people who study Transcendentalist literature are not alone or something, but I just cannot pull it out today).

And yet, he wrote. He gathered followers of his philosophy. He was not alone. If he truly wanted to be isolated (read: special), he would have refrained from sharing his experience. However, he did what all good thinkers do, and knew what all good thinkers know: that to remove relatability is to remove being human. He may never have expressly said such a thing, but why else share the revelations of isolation? What is the meaning of isolation if it is not shared?

I feel like I am digressing. Shall I now tangentially mention the merits of prewriting and drafting? No.

Anyway, this particular post, besides stemming from the aforementioned sermon, is also inspired by my co-worker across the hall. Her kids this semester (and in the past as well, though to a lesser degree) are hellians. They have this sense of entitlement built into their brains that baffles me. I always have to be careful when criticizing the next generation, as they may not be any worse than my own, but really, they seem worse. I would never have talked back to, cussed in front of, or refused to do work for a teacher. However, it is possible that in my WASPy-AP Class bubble, I missed out on the essence of being a teenager (if that essence includes being a huge jerk to everyone but myself).

Maybe if the students could understand that the rules apply to them--that they are not special--then the problems caused by entitled teenagers would subside (though I doubt they could be totally eradicated).

The next post (which I am about to write) will be much more frivolous, I promise.

Valete,
Magistra